Imatges de pàgina
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The Question.

THE QUESTION.

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,

The constellated flower that never sets ;

Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets-
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth—

Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

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And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured May, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white,

And starry river buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues, which in their natural bowers Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours Within my hand, and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it!-Oh! to whom?

Q

Epipsychidion.

VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFORTUNATE LADY EMILIA VIVIANI, NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF ST. ANNE, PISA.

L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nel infinito un Mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro. -Her own words.

My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few
Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning,
Of such hard matter dost thou entertain;
Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring
Thee to base company (as chance may do),
Quite unaware of what thou dost contain,
I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again,
My last delight! tell them that they are dull,
And bid them own that thou art beautiful.

ADVERTISEMENT.

[BY SHELLEY.]

THE writer of the following lines died at Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope to have realised a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular; less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and feelings. The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it re

TO EMILIA VIVIANI.

MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me
Sweet basil and mignonette?

Embleming love and health, which never yet
In the same wreath might be.

Alas, and they are wet!

Is it with thy kisses or thy tears?
For never rain or dew

Such fragrance drew

From plant or flower-the very doubt endears

My sadness ever new,

The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee.

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