I love tranquil solitude,

And such society
As is quiet, wise and good;

Between thee and me
What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.

I love Love-though he has wings,

And like light can flee,
But above all other things,

Spirit, I love thee-
Thou art love and life! O come,
Make once more my heart thy home.

TO CONSTANTIA,

SINGING.

Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die,

Perchance were death indeed - Constantia, turn !
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,

Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn
Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;

Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour it is yet,
And from thy touch like fire doth leap.

Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet,
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!

A breathless awe, like the swift change

Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,

Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven

By the enchantment of thy strain,
And on my shoulders wings are woven,

To follow its sublime career,
Beyond the mighty moons that wane

Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere,

Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear.
Her voice is hovering o'er my soul-it lingers

O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings,
The blood and life within those snowy fingers

Teach witchcratt to the instrumental strings.
My brain is wild, my breath comes quick-

The blood is listening in my frame,
And thronging shadows, fast and thick,

Fall on my overflowing eyes;
My heart is quivering like a flame;

As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies,
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.

I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,

Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
Flows on, and fills all things with melody.

Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong,
On which, like one in trance upborne,

Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep,
Rejoicing like a cloud of inorn.

Now 'tis the breath of summer night,
Which when the starry waters sleep.

Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright,
Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.

A LAMENT.
SWIFTER far than summer's flight, My heart each day desires the morrow,
Swifter far than youth's delight, Sleep itself is turned to sorrow,
Swifter far than happy night,

Vainly would my winter borrow
Art thou come and gone:

Sunny leaves from any bough.
As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,

Lilies for a bridal bed,
As the heart when joy is fled,

Roses for a matron's head,
I am left lone, alone.

Violets for a maiden dead,

Pansies let my flowers be:
The swallow Summer comes again, On the living grave I bear,
The owlet Night resumes her reign, Scatter them without a tear,
But the wild swan Youth is fain

Let no friend, however dear,
To fly with thee, false as thou.

Waste one hope, one sear for me. 496

THE PINE FOREST

OF THE CASCINE, NEAR PISA.
DEAREST, best and brightest,

It seemed as if the day were one
Come away,

Sent from beyond the skies,
To the woods and to the fields !

Which shed to earth above the sun Dearer than this fairest day,

A light of Paradise. Which like thee to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow We paused amid the Pines that stood To the rough year just awake

The giants of the waste, In its cradle in the brake.

Tortured by storms to shapes as rude,

With stems like serpents interlaced. The eldest of the hours of spring, Into the winter wandering,

How calm it was—the silence there Looks upon the leafless wood;

By such a chain was bound,
And the banks all bare and rude That even the busy woodpecker
Found it seems this halcyon morn, Made stiller by her sound
In February's bosom born,
Bending from heaven, in azure mirth,

The inviolable quietness;
Kissed the cold forehead of the earth, The breath of peace we drew,
And smiled upon the silent sea,

With its soft motion made not less And bade the frozen streams be free;

The calm that round us grew.
And waked to music all the fountains,
And breathed upon the rigid moun-

It seemed that from the remotest seat

Of the white mountain's waste, tains, And made the wintry world appear

To the bright flower beneath our feet. Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. A magic circle traced ;

A spirit interfused around,
Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!

A thinking silent life, 'To the wild woods and the plains,

To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal Nature's strife. 'To the pools where winter rains Image all the roof of leaves,

For still it seemed the centre of Where the Pine its garland weaves,

The magic circle there, Sapless, grey, and ivy dun

Was one whose being filled with love Round stones that never kiss the sun,

The breathless atmosphere.
To the sandhills of the sea,
Where the carliest violets be.

Were not the crocuses that grew

Under that ilex tree, Now the last day of many days,

As beautiful in scent and hue All beautiful and bright as thou,

As ever fed'the bee? The loveliest and the last, is dead, Rise Memory, and write its praise, We stood beside the pools that lie And do thy wonted work and trace Under the forest bough, The epitaph of glory fled:

And each seemed like unto a sky For the Earth hath changed its face, Gulfed in a world below;

a A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

A purple firmament of light, We wandered to the Pine Forest

Which in the dark earth lay, That skirts the Ocean's foam,

More boundless than the depth of The lightest wind was in its nest,

night, The tempest in its home.

And clearer than the dayThe whispering waves were half asleep, In which the massy forests grew, The clouds were gone to play,

As in the upper air, And on the woods, and on the deep, More perfect both in shape and hue The smile of Heaven lay.

Than any waving there,

1

TO NIGHT,

497

Like one beloved, the scene had lent

To the dark water's breast Its every leaf and lineament

With that clear truth expressed. There lay far glades and neighbouring

lawn,
And through the dark green crowd
The white sun twinkling like the dawn

Under a speckled cloud.
Sweet views, which in our world above

Can never well be seen,
Were im.aged by the water's love

Of that fair forest green.

And all was interfused beneath

With an Elysium air,
An atmosphere without a breath,

A silence sleeping there.
Until a wandering wind crept by,

Like an unwelcome thought,
Which from my mind's too faithful eye

Blots thy bright image out.
For thou art good and dear and kind,

The forest ever green,
But less of peace in S-'s mind,

Than calm in waters seen.
2nd February, 1822.

TO NIGHT.
SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,

Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear,-

Swift be thy flight !
Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,

Star-inwrought !
Blind with thine hair the eyes of day,
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand-

Come, long sought !
When I arose and saw the dawn,

I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gorie,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,

I sighed for thee.
Thy brother Death came, and cried,

Wouldst thou me?
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,

Murmured like a noontide bee,
Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?-And I replied,

No, not thee!
Death will come when thou art dead,

Soon, too soon-
Sleep will come when thou art filed ;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,

Come soon, soon !

KK

EVENING.

PONTE A MARE, PISA.

The sun is set ; the swallows are asleep ;

The bats are flitting fast in the grey air;
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,

And evening's breath, wandering here and thero
Over the quivering surface of the stream,
Wakes not one ripple from its silent dream.
There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,

Nor damp within the shadow of the trees ; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light ;

And in the inconstant motion of the breeze The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirled about the pavement of the town. Within the surface of the fleeting river

The wrinkled image of the city lay,
Immovably unquiet, and for ever

It trembles, but it never fades away;
Go to the
You, being changed, will find it then as now.
The chasm in which the sun has sink is shut

By darkest barriers of enormous cloud,
Like mountain over mountain huddled-but

Growing and moving upwards in a crowd, And over it a space of watery blue, Which the keen evening star is shining through.

THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO. Our boat is asleep in Serchio's stream, Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, The helm sways idly, hither and thither; Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, And the oars and the sails ; but 'tis sleeping fast, Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, And the thin white moon lay withering there, To tower, and cavern, and rift and tree, The owl and the bat fled drowsily. Day had kindled the dewy woods, And the rocks above and the stream below, And the vapours in their multitudes, And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow, And clothed with light of aery gold The mists in their eastern caves uprolled. Day had awakened all things that be, The lark and the thrush and the swallow free, And the milkmaid's song and the mower's scythe, And the inatin-bell and the mountain bee :