Of music's kiss impregnates the free winds, And with a sympathetic touch unbinds Eolian magic from their lucid wombs: Then old songs waken from enclouded tombs;

Old ditties sigh above their father's grave; Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot;

790

Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
Where long ago a giant battle was;
And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass
In every place where infant Orpheus slept.
Feel we these things? — that moment have
we stept

Into a sort of oneness, and our state
Is like a floating spirit's. But there are
Richer entanglements, enthralments far
More self-destroying, leading, by degrees,
To the chief intensity: the crown of these
Is made of love and friendship, and sits
high

Upon the forehead of humanity.

All its more ponderous and bulky worth
Is friendship, whence there ever issues
forth

A steady splendour; but at the tip-top,
There hangs by unseen film, an orbed drop
Of light, and that is love: its influence
Thrown in our eyes genders a novel sense,
At which we start and fret: till in the end,
Melting into its radiance, we blend,
Mingle, and so become a part of it, —
Nor with aught else can our souls inter-

knit

So wingedly: when we combine there with,

Thick, as to curtain up some wood-nymph's home.

"Ah! impious mortal, whither do I roam!" Said I, low-voiced: "Ah, whither! 'Tis the grot

Of Proserpine, when Hell, obscure and hot, Doth her resign; and where her tender hands

She dabbles, on the cool and sluicy sands: Or 't is the cell of Echo, where she sits, And babbles thorough silence, till her wits Are gone in tender madness, and anon, Faints into sleep, with many a dying tone Of sadness. O that she would take my VOWS,

951

And breathe them sighingly among the boughs,

To sue her gentle ears for whose fair head, Daily, I pluck sweet flowerets from their bed,

And weave them dyingly-send honeywhispers

Round every leaf, that all those gentle lispers

May sigh my love unto her pitying!
O charitable Echo! hear, and sing
This ditty to her! - tell her". So I stay'd
My foolish tongue, and listening, balf
afraid,

дбе

Stood stupefied with my own empty folly, And blushing for the freaks of melancholy.

At that oppress'd, I hurried in. —Ah! | where

970 Are those swift moments? Whither are they fled?

I'll smile no more, Peona; nor will wed
Sorrow, the way to death; but patiently
Bear up against it: so farewell, sad sigh;
And come instead demurest meditation,
To occupy me wholly, and to fashion
My pilgrimage for the world's dusky brink.
No more will I count over, link by link,
My chain of grief: no longer strive to find
A half-forgetfulness in mountain wind 980
Blustering about my ears: aye, thou shalt

Through the thought still spread beyond her:

Open wide the mind's cage-door,
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

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To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overawed,
Fancy, high-commission'd: - send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it: thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment - hark!
'Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; 5
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;

And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see

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