VI. He only who hath learned to trace VII. For in that truer light displayed, The glances in thine eye that speak— The mingled hues of sun and shade, That pass across thy changing cheek VIII. Are full of loveliness, that tells Their Heavenly Source, none else may know— The chastened will, that passion quells, The heart of love, the mind of snow. IX. Who hath the master-key that opes Thy secret soul, to others sealed? To him a thousand holy hopes Are in thine upward look revealed. X. Thy brow the faithful record bears XI. And thus upon the gentle face Of old I scarce accounted fair, The look divine I faintly trace The Angel shall hereafter wear! THE SONG OF THE SYRENS. I. IT was broad of noon on the Grecian seas; In the sky not a cloud, in the air not a breeze; The waves of the blue Ionian deep In the glow of the sunshine lay half asleep; As they lazily rose, and sleepily fell, And lapping, with murmur faint and low, The Syrens' Isle, with its sands of snow. II. The bark of Ulysses came gliding by; Weary the task that the rowers ply; For to each sweet sound through the air that steals, The deadening wax their senses seals; Save the leader alone, who, fettered fast III. There sate three Forms on the snow-white sand; All around them, the shelving shores were spread The bones bleached white by so many a sun; IV. Radiant and lustrous their beauty seemed, Such as sight ne'er shaped, nor hath fancy dreamed. The brightest and fairest of ancient days, Whose charms are the theme of immortal lays, Whose loveliness lured from their thrones on high The Sovereign Lords of the Earth and Sky: And the bliss divine of their love that shared, Were lifeless and cold, when with these compared. V. They touched their lutes, and a wondrous spell The rustle of leaves into stillness died; Into stillness the plash of the rippling tide: K |