POEMS.

ΔΑΚΡΥΕΙ ΔΙΟΙΣΩ ΠΟΤΜΟΝ ΑΠΟΤΜΟΝ.

[TO COLERIDGE.]

O THERE are spirits of the air,

And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair

As star-beams among twilight trees:

Such lovely ministers to meet

Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.

With mountain winds, and babbling springs,

And moonlight1 seas, that are the voice

Of these inexplicable things

Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice

When they did answer thee; but they

Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.

And thou hast sought in starry eyes

Beams that were never meant for thine,2
Another's wealth :-tame sacrifice

To a fond faith! still dost thou pine?
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?

1 Mountain seas in the collected editions.

2 There is no comma here in Shelley's

edition it may fairly be presumed to have dropped out by accident.

E

Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth's inconstancy?
Did thine own mind afford no scope

Of love, or moving thoughts to thee?

That natural scenes or human smiles

Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles.1

Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled

Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;

The glory of the moon is dead;

Night's ghosts and dreams have now departed;

Thine own soul still is true to thee,

But changed to a foul fiend through misery.

This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,
Dream not to chase; the mad endeavour
Would scourge thee to severer pangs.

Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.

STANZAS.-APRIL, 1814.

AWAY! the moor is dark beneath the moon,

Rapid clouds have drank2 the last pale beam of even: Away the gathering winds will call the darkness soon, And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.

1 Of course the note of interrogation should, in strictness, come after wiles. I have left it at thee, as in Shelley's edition, because I have no doubt he preferred a method of punctuation in support of which, though

eccentric, it may be urged that it
ends the question where it does legiti-
mately end, the two last lines of the
stanza being in reality an assertion.
2 Drunk in Mrs. Shelley's editions.

Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away! Tempt not with one last tear1 thy friend's ungentle mood: Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay: Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.

Away, away! to thy sad and silent home;

Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth;

Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come, And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.

The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head:

The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet: But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead,

Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou and peace may meet.

The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose, For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep: Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows; Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep.

Thou in the grave shalt rest-yet till the phantoms flee Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile,

Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free

From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet

smile.

1 Mrs. Shelley puts glance for tear; and Mr. Rossetti follows her.

MUTABILITY.

WE are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;

How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly!-—yet soon

Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;

Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same!-For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU GOEST.

Ecclesiastes.

THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile

Which the meteor beam of a starless night

Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,

Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,

Is the flame of life so fickle and wan

That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul

Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, And the billows of cloud that around thee roll

Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.

The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,
Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see

All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.

Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?

Who lifteth the veil of what is to come? Who painteth the shadows that are beneath

The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb? Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be

With the fears and the love for that which we see?