All wept, as I think both ye now would
If envy or age had not frozen

your
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

blood,

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 eglantinc,
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 posegay, 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 !-0, to whom ?

THE TWO SPIRITS.

AN ALLEGORY.

FIRST SPIRIT.

O TH00, who plumed with strong desire

Wouldst float above the earth, beware !
A sladow 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 !

SECOND SPIRIT.

The deathless stars are bright above:

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

And that is day!
And the moon will sinile 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 moonlight 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 airy 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.

LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE.

LEGHORN, July 1, 1820.

THE spider spreads her webs, whether she be
In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree;
The silkworm in the dark-green mulberry leaves
His winding-sheet and cradle ever weaves !
So I, a thing whom moralists call worm,
Sit spinning still round this decaying form,
From the fine threads of rare and subtle thought,
No net of words in garish colours wrought,
To catch the idle buzzers of the day;
But a soft cell, where, when that fades away,
Memory may clothe in wings my living name
And feed it with the asphodels of fame,
Which in those hearts which must remember me
Grow, making love an immortality.

a

Whoever should behold me now, I wist,
Would think I were a mighty mechanist,
Bent with sublime Archimedean art
To breathe a soul into the iron heart
Of some machine portentous, or strange gin,
Which by the force of figured spells might win
Its way over the sea, and sport therein;
For round the walls are hung dread engines, such
As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch

VOL. III. 23