And the most patient brilliance of the
moon!
[the way
And stars by thousands! Point me out
To any one particular beauteous star,
And I will flit into it with my lyre, [bliss.
And make its silvery splendour pant with
I have heard the cloudy thunder. Where
is power?

Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity
Makes this alarum in the elements,
While I here idle listen on the shores
In fearless yet in aching ignorance?
Oh, tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
That waileth every morn and eventide,
Tell me why thus I rave about these groves!
Mute thou remainest-mute! yet I can read
A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:
Knowledge enormous makes a god of me.
Names, deeds, grey legends, dire events,
rebellions,

Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal." Thus the God,
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast
kept

Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne. Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush

All the immortal fairness of his limbs;
Most like the struggle at the gate of death,
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce con-
vulse

Die into life: so young Apollo anguished;
His very hair, his golden tresses famed,
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied.

-:0:

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

1792-1822.

THE SENSITIVE PLANT.

A SENSITIVE PLANT in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom
Was prankt under boughs of embowering
blossom,
[through
With golden and green light, slanting
Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmered by,
And around them the soft stream did glide
and dance

With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

And the sinuous paths of lawn and moss, Which led through the garden along and

across,

Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,

[bells

Were all paved with daisies and delicate As fair as the fabulous asphodels, [ed too And flow'rets which drooping as day droopFell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, To roof the glowworm from the evening dew.

And from this undefiled Paradise

The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them,

As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;

For each one was interpenetrated With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, [make dear Like young lovers whom youth and love Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.

[small fruit But the Sensitive Plant, which could give Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, [ever, Received more than all, it loved more than Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,

[flower;

The beams which dart from many a star
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar;

The plumed insects swift and free,
Like golden boats on a sunny sea,
Laden with light and odour, which pass
Over the gleam of the living grass;

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,
Then wander like spirits among the spheres,
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;

The quivering vapours of dim noontide, Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, In which every sound, and odour, and beam, Move, as reeds in a single stream;

Each and all like ministering angels were For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky.

And when evening descended from Heaven above, [all love, And the Earth was all rest, and the air was And delight, though less bright, was far more deep,

And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep,

And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned

In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress

[ness; The light sand which paves it, conscious

(Only overhead the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, And snatches of its Elysian chant Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.)

The Sensitive Plant was the earliest Up-gathered into the bosom of rest; A sweet child weary of its delight, The feeblest and yet the favourite, Cradled within the embrace of night.

There was a Power in this sweet place,
An Eve in this Eden; a ruling grace
Which to the flowers, did they waken or
dream,

as as God is to the starry scheme.

ady, the wonder of her kind,

ose form was upborne by a lovely mind

The weary sound and the heavy breath, And the silent motions of passing death, And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, Sent through the pores of the coffin plank;

The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, [pass; Were bright with tears as the crowd did From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, [groan. And sate in the pines, and gave groan for

The garden, once fair, became cold and foul,

[soul, Like the corpse of her who had been its Which at first was lively as if in sleep, Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap To make men tremble who never weep.