To human art a sportive semblance wore ;

And yellow lichens colour'd all the clime,

Like moonlit battlements, and tow'rs decay'd by time.

X.

But high, in amphitheatre above,

His arms the everlasting aloe threw :

Breathed but an air of heav'n, and all the grove

As if with instinct living spirit grew,
Rolling its verdant gulfs of every hue;
And now suspended was the pleasing din,
Now from a murmur faint it swell'd anew,

Like the first note of organ heard within

Cathedral aisles,-ere yet its symphony begin.

XI.

It was in this lone valley she would charm

The ling'ring noon, where flow'rs a couch had strown;

Her cheek reclining, and her snowy arm

On hillock by the palm-tree half o'ergrown:

And aye that volume on her lap is thrown,

Foster

Which every heart of human mould endears;

With Shakspeare's self she speaks and smiles alone,

And no intruding visitation fears,

To shame th' unconscious laugh, or stop her sweetest tears.

XII.

For, save her presence, scarce an ear had heard

The stock-dove plaining through its gloom profound,

Or winglet of the fairy humming-bird,

Like atoms of the rainbow fluttering round;

Till chance had usher'd to its inmost ground

The stranger guest of many a distant clime;
He was, to weet, for eastern mountains bound;
But late th' equator suns his cheek had tann'd,
And California's gales his roving bosom fann'd.

XIII.

A steed, whose rein hung loosely o'er his arm,
He led dismounted; ere his leisure pace,
Amid the brown leaves, could her ear alarm,
Close he had come, and worshipp'd for a space
Those downcast features :-she her lovely face
Uplift on one whose lineaments and frame

Were youth and manhood's intermingled grace :

Iberian seem'd his boot-his robe the same,

And well the Spanish plume his lofty looks became.

For Albert's home he sought-her finger fair

Has pointed where the father's mansion stood.

Returning from the copse he soon was there,

And soon as Gertrude hied from dark-green wood;
Nor joyless, by the converse, understood,

Between the man of age and pilgrim young,

That gay congeniality of mood,

And early liking from acquaintance sprung :

Full fluently conversed their guest in England's tongue.

XV.

And well could he his pilgrimage of taste

Unfold,—and much they loved his fervid strain,

While he each fair variety retraced

Of climes, and manners, o'er the eastern main :-
Now happy Switzer's hills-romantic Spain-

Gay lilied fields of France-or, more refined,

The soft Ausonia's monumental reign;

Nor less each rural image he design'd,

Than all the city's pomp and home of human kind.

XVI.

Anon some wilder portraiture he draws ;

Of Nature's savage glories he would speak,

The loneliness of earth that overawes,