Under the ocean foam,

And up through the rists

Of the mountain clifts
They passed to their Dorian home.

And under the water

The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam,

Behind her descended,

Her billows unblended
With the brackish Dorian stream:

Like a gloomy stain

On the emerald main Alpheus rushed behind,-

As an eagle pursuing

A dove to its ruin
Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

Under the bowers

Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones,

Through the coral woods

Of the weltering floods, Over heaps of unvalued stones :

Through the dim beams

Which amid the streams
Weave a network of coloured light ;

And under the caves,

Where the shadowy waves
Are as green as the forest's night :

Outspeeding the shark,
And the swordfish dark,

And now from their fountains

In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks,

Like friends once parted

Grown single-hearted,
They ply their watery tasks.

At sunrise they leap

From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;

At noontide they flow

Through the woods below
And the meadows of Asphodel;

And at night they sleep

In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore ;

Like spirits that lie

In the azure sky
When they love but live no more.

Pisa, 1820.

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 fing
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
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.
And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cowbind 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?

HYMN OF APOLLO.
The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,

Curtained with star-enwoven tapestries,
From the broad moonlight of the sky,

Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, — Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,

I walk over the mountains and the waves, Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;

My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves Are filled with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill

Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day; All men who do or even imagine ill

Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,
Until diminished by the reign of night.
I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers

With their ethereal colours; the Moon's globe And the pure stars in their eterr.al bowers

Are cinctured with my power as with a robe; Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine, Are portions of one power, which is mine. I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,

Then with unwilling steps I wander down Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;

For grief that I depart they weep and frown: What look is more delightful than the smile With which I soothe them from the western isle? I am the eye with wł.ich the Universe

Beholds itself and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,

All prophecy, all medicine are mine,
All light of art or nature;—to my song,
Victory and praise in their own right belong.

HYMN OF PAN.
FROM the forests and highlands

We come, we come;
From the river-girt islands,
Where loud waves are dumb

Listening to my sweet pipings.
The wind in the reeds and the rushes,

The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle bushes,

The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmoluso was,

Listening to my sweet pipings.
Liquid Peneus was flowing,

And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,

Speeded by my sweet pipings.
The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,

And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend and follow
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,

With envy of my sweet pipings.
! sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the dadal Earth,
And of Heaven-and the giant wars,
And Love, and Death, and Birth, --

And then I changed my pipings,-
Singing how down the vale of Menalus

I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed :
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus !

It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed :
All wept, as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood,

At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

THE TWO SPIRITS:

AN ALLEGORY.

FIRST SPIRIT.
On thou, who plumed with strong desire

Would float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire-

Night is coming!
Bright are the regions of the air,

And among the winds and beams
It were delight to wander there-

Night is coming !

* This and the former poem were written at the request of a friend, to be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas. Apollo and Pan contended before Tmolus for

the prize

in music.

SECOND SPIRIT.
The deathless stars are bright above;

If I would cross the shade of night,
Within my heart is the lamp of love,

And that is day!
And the moon will smile with gentle light

On my golden plumes where'er they move;
The meteors will linger round my flight

And make night day.

FIRST SPIRIT.
But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken

Hail and lightning and stormy rain;
See the bounds of the air are shaken-

Night is coming!
The red swift clouds of the hurricane

Yon declining sun have overtaken,
The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain-

Night is coming!

SECOND SPIRIT.
I see the light, and I hear the sound;

I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark
With the calm within and the light around

Which makes night day:
And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark,

Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound,
My moon-like flight thou then mayst mark

On high, far away.
Some say, there is a precipice

Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin
O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice

'Mid Alpine mountains;
And that the languid storm pursuing

That winged shape for ever flies
Round those hoar branches, aye renewing

Its aery fountains.
Some say, when nights are dry and clear,

And the death dews sleep on the morass,
Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller

Which make night day:
And a silver shape like his early love doth pass

Upborne by her wild and glittering hair,
And when he awakes on the fragrant grass,

He finds night day.

A FRAGMENT. THEY were two cousins, almost like to twins, Except that from the catalogue of sins Nature had razed their love-which could not be But by dissevering their nativity. And so they grew together, like two flowers Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers

Lull or awaken in their purple prime,
Which the same hand will gather-the same clime
Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see
All those who love,-and who ever loved like thee,
Fiordispina ? Scarcely Cosimo,
Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow
The ardours of a vision which obscure
The very idol of its portraiture ;
He faints, dissolved into a sense of love;
But thou art as a planet sphered above,
But thou art Love itself-ruling the motion
Of his subjected spirit-such emotion
Must end in sin or sorrow, if sweet May
Had not brought forth this morn-your wedding day.

A BRIDAL SONG.

GOOD NIGHT. THE golden gates of sleep unbar Good night? ah ! no; the hour is ill Where strength and beauty met to- Which severs those it should unite; gether,

Let us remain together still, Kindle their image like a star

Then it will be good night. In a sea of glassy weather, Night, with all thy stars look down,- How can I call the lone night good,

Darkness, weep thy holiest dew,- Though thy sweet wishes wing its Never smiled the inconstant moon

flight? On a pair so true.

Be it not said, thought, understood, Let eyes not see their own delight;

Then it will be good night. Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight

To hearts which near each other move Ott renew.

From evening close to morning light,

The night is good; because, my love, Fairies, sprites, and angels keep her!

They never say good night.
Holy stars, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,
Dawn,-ere it be long.

TO-MORROW.
Oh joy! oh fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun !

WHERE art thou, beloved, To-morrow?
Come along!

Whom young and old and strong

and weak, Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow,

Thy sweet smiles we ever seek,

In thy place-ah! well-a-day ! SONG, ON A FADED VIOLET.

We find the thing we fled-To-day. THE odour from the flower is gone, Which like thy kisses breathed on me;

MAZENGHI.* The colour from the flower is flown,

OH! foster-nurse of man's abandoned Which glowed of thee, and only thee!

glory,

Since Athens, its great mother, sunk A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,

in splendour;
It lies on my abandoned breast,
And mocks the heart which yet is warm
With cold and silent rest.

* This fragment refers to an event, told in Sismondi's “Histoire des Républiques

Italiennes," which occurred during the war 1 weep-my tears revive it not !

when Florence finally subdued Pisa, and I sigh-it breathes no more on me; reduced it to a province. The opening Its mute and uncomplaining lot

stanzas are addressed to the conquering Is such as mine should be.

city. MM