TO

I.

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden,
Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden

Ever to burthen thine.

II.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,
Thou needest not fear mine;

Innocent is the heart's devotion

With which I worship thine.

1820.

THE QUESTION.

I.

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.

II.

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)

ΙΟ

5

5

.

THE QUESTION.

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

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III.

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.

IV.

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.

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V.

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

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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?

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SONG OF PROSERPINE,

WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA.

I.

SACRED Goddess, Mother Earth,

Thou from whose immortal bosom

Gods and men and beasts have birth,

Leaf and blade and bud and blossom,

Breathe thine influence most divine

On thine own child, Proserpine.

II.

If with mists of evening dew

Thou dost nourish these young flowers Till they grow, in scent and hue,

Fairest children of the hours,

Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.

HYMN OF APOLLO.

1820.

5

10

I.

THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries,
From the broad moonlight of the sky,

Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,
Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn,

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Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

.

HYMN OF APOLLO.

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II.

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 10 Are filled with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare.

}

III.

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.

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IV.

I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers
With their ætherial colours; the Moon's globe
And the pure stars in their eternal 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.

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V.

I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,
Then with unwilling steps I wander down.

Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;

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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?

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VI.

I am the eye with which 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.

I.

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 Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.

II.

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.

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1820.

5

IO

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