Then the weeds which were forms of living death Fled from the frost to the earth beneath, Their decay and sudden flight from frost Was but like the vanishing of a ghost! And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant The moles and the dormice die for want; The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air, And were caught in the branches naked and bare. First there came down a thawing rain, And its dull drops froze on the boughs again, Then there steamed up a freezing dew Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew; And a northern whirlwind, wandering about Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, Shook the boughs thus laden and heavy and stiff, And snapped them off with his rigid griff. When winter had gone and spring came back, The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck; But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels, Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that Which within its boughs like a spirit sat Ere its outward form had known decay, Now felt this change, I cannot say. Whether that Lady's gentle mind I dare not guess; but in this life It is a modest creed, and yet That garden sweet, that Lady fair, For love and beauty and delight -O IANTHE SLEEPING. HOW WONDERFUL is Death,- Hath, then, the gloomy Power, Must, then, that peerless form, snow, That lovely outline, which is fair Leave nothing of this heavenly sight Which the breath of roseate morning And give that faithful bosom joy Yes! she will wake again, Although her glowing limbs are motionless, That might have soothed a tiger's rage, And on their lids, whose texture fine Her golden tresses shade "Oh, save me! Oh, guide me! And bid the deep hide me, For he grasps me now by the hair!" The loud ocean heard, To its blue depth stirred, And divided at her prayer; And under the water The Earth's white daughter Behind her descended, Alpheus rushed behind, As an eagle pursuing Down the streams of the cloudy wind. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearlèd Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth |