PSYCHE GAZING UPON THE LOVE-GOD. Nor needs the god his dazzling arms, to show Speechless with awe, in transport strangely lost, Long Psyche stood with fix'd adoring eye; Her limbs immovable, her senses tost Between amazement, fear, and ecstasy, She hangs enamour'd o'er the deityTill from her trembling hand extinguish'd falls The fatal lamp.-He starts-and suddenly Tremendous thunders echo through the halls, While ruin's hideous crash bursts o'er the affrighted walls. Dread Horror seizes on her sinking heart, A mortal chillness shudders at her breast; In vain she casts around her timid glance, The rudely frowning scenes her former joys enhance. No traces of those joys, alas! remain; A desert solitude alone appears. No verdant shade relieves the sandy plain, The wide-spread waste no gentle fountain cheers, A sandy wild beneath, above a threatening sky. SPIRIT of love and sorrow,-hail! Oh, at this still, this lonely hour, Thine own sweet hour of closing day, Awake thy lute, whose charmful power Shall call up Fancy to obey; TO MELANCHOLY. To paint the wild romantic dream, O lonely spirit! let thy song Lead me through all thy sacred haunt; The minster's moonlight aisles along, Where spectres raise the midnight chaunt. I hear their dirges faintly swell! Then sink at once in silence drear, Lead where the pine-woods wave on high, Darts her long beams the leaves between. Lead to the mountain's dusky head, Where, far below, in shades profound, Wide forests, plains, and hamlets spread, And sad the chimes of vesper sound. Or guide me where the dashing oar To pebbly banks that Neptune laves, With measur'd surges, loud and deep; Where the dark cliff bends o'er the waves, And wild the winds of Autumn sweep. There pause at midnight's spectred hour, SONG OF A SPIRIT. IN the sightless air I dwell, I dive beneath the green sea waves, Oft I mount with rapid force, Above the wide earth's shadowy zone, Follow the day-star's flaming course, Through realms of space to thought unknown; And listen to celestial sounds That swell in air, unheard of men, As I watch my nightly rounds O'er woody steep and silent glen. Under the shade of waving trees, At pensive eve I sit at ease, While dying music murmurs near. And oft, on point of airy clift That hangs upon the western main, I watch the gay tints passing swift, And twilight veil the liquid plain. SONG OF A SPIRIT. Then, when the breeze has sunk away, Their dulcet shells beneath the wave. Their dulcet shells!-I hear them now; The ray that silvers o'er the dew, Or hie me to some ruin'd tower, Faintly shown by moonlight gleam, Where the lone wanderer owns my power, In shadows dire that substance seem; In thrilling sounds that murmur woe, And pausing silence make more dread; In music breathing from below Sad, solemn strains, that wake the dead. Unseen I move-unknown am fear'd:- |