Sometimes they may be seen, going along

By the red sun-set in a silver throng;

And sometimes, when the black clouds send before Their windy voices, they come past the shore, Stooping in haste, and driving through the foam The hunch-backed dolphins home

But most they love sleek seas and springy sands Under green rocks, on days of golden weather; And there, in their free beauty, they'll take hands And dance about a boat, which to the shore They helped the night before;

Or dress their locks with myrtles or pearl bands; Or sit and make them fans of many a feather Which the gull sheds; or colour, like their own, The parted lips of shells that are up thrown, With which, and coral, and the glib sea flowers, They furnish their faint bowers.

I have not told your loves; I have not told

Your perfect loves, ye Nymphs! Those are among
The perfect virtues only to be sung

By your own glorious lovers, who have passed
Death, and all drear mistake, and sit at last

In the clear thrill of their hoped age of gold.

END OF PART THE FIRST.

THE NYMPHS.

PART II.

As I thought thus, a neighbouring wood of elms
Was moved, and stirred and whispered loftily,
Much like a pomp of warriors with plumed helms,
When some great general whom they long to see
Is heard behind them, coming in swift dignity;
And then there fled by me a rush of air
That stirred up all the other foliage there,
Filling the solitude with panting tongues;
At which the pines woke up into their songs,
Shaking their choral locks; and on the place

There fell a shade as on an awe-struck face;

And overhead, like a portentous rim

Pulled over the wide world, to make all dim,
A grave gigantic cloud came hugely uplifting him.

It passed with it's slow shadow; and I saw
Where it went down beyond me on a plain,
Sloping it's dusky ladders of thick rain;
And on the mist it made, and blinding awe,
The sun, re-issuing in the opposite sky,
Struck the all-coloured arch of his great eye:
And up, the rest o' the country laughed again :
The leaves were amber; the sunshine

Scored on the ground it's conquering line;

And the quick birds, for scorn of the great cloud, Like children after fear, were merry and loud.

I turned me tow'rd the west, and felt the air
Thinner and soft, yet nimble on my face;