66 The mind becomes that which it contemplates":
And thus Zonoras, by for ever seeing
Their bright creations, grew like wisest men.

And, when he heard the crash of nations fleeing
A bloodier power than ruled thy ruins then,
O sacred Hellas! many weary years
He wandered-till the path of Laian's glen
Was grass-grown, and the unremembered tears
Were dry in Laian for their honoured chief,
Who fell in Byzant, pierced by Moslem spears.
And, as the lady looked with faithful grief

From her high lattice o'er the rugged path
Where she once saw that horseman toil, with brief
And blighting hope, who with the news of death
Struck body and soul as with a mortal blight,
She saw, beneath the chesnuts far beneath,
An old man toiling up, a weary wight.

And soon within her hospitable hall

She saw his white hairs glittering in the light
Of the wood fire, and round his shoulders fall,
And his wan visage and his withered mien,
Yet calm and gentle and majestical.
And Athanase, her child, who must have been
Then three years old, sate opposite and gazed
In patient silence.

Such was Zonoras: and, as daylight finds

One amaranth glittering on the path of frost When autumn nights have nipped all weaker kinds, Thus through his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tossed

Shone truth upon Zonoras; and he filled

From fountains pure, nigh overgrown and lost,

The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child,

With soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore,

And philosophic wisdom, clear and mild.

And sweet and subtle talk they evermore
The pupil and the master shared; until,
Sharing that undiminishable store,
The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill

Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran

His teacher, and did teach with native skill

Strange truths and new to that experienced man.

Still they were friends, as few have ever been
Who mark the extremes of life's discordant span.
So in the caverns of the forest green,

Or by the rocks of echoing ocean hoar,
Zonoras and Prince Athanase were seen

By summer woodmen. And, when winter's roar
Sounded o'er earth and sea its blast of war,

The Balearic fisher, driven from shore,
Hanging upon the peaked wave afar,

Then saw their lamp from Laian's turret gleam,

Piercing the stormy darkness, like a star

Which pours beyond the sea one steadfast beam,

Whilst all the constellations of the sky

Seemed reeling through the storm. They did but seem :

For lo! the wintry clouds are all gone by,

And bright Arcturus through yon pines is glowing,

And far o'er southern waves immoveably

Belted Orion hangs-warm light is flowing

From the young moon into the sunset's chasm.

"O summer eve! with power divine, bestowing
On thine own bird the sweet enthusiasm

Which overflows in notes of liquid gladness,
Filling the sky like light! How many a spasm

of fevered brains oppressed with grief and madness
Were lulled by thee, delightful nightingale,

And these soft waves murmuring a gentle sadness,
And the far sighings of yon piny dale

Made vocal by some wind we feel not here ! 1

I bear alone what nothing may avail

I

To lighten a strange load!"-No human ear
Heard this lament; but o'er the visage wan
Of Athanase a ruffling atmosphere

Of dark emotion, a swift shadow, ran,

Like wind upon some forest-bosomed lake,
Glassy and dark. And that divine old man
Beheld his mystic friend's whole being shake,
Even where its inmost depths were gloomiest:
And with a calm and measured voice he spake,
And with a soft and equal pressure pressed
That cold lean hand. "Dost thou remember yet,

When the curved moon, then lingering in the west,

Paused in yon waves her mighty horns to wet,
How in those beams we walked half resting on the sea?
'Tis just one year-sure thou dost not forget
Then Plato's words of light in thee and me
Lingered like moonlight in the moonless east,
For we had just then read-thy memory

Is faithful now-the story of the feast;
And Agathon and Diotima seemed

From death and dark forgetfulness released."

'Twas at the season when the earth upsprings
From slumber. As a spherèd angel's child,
Shadowing its eyes with green and golden wings,
Stands up before its mother bright and mild,
Of whose soft voice the air expectant seems-

So stood before the Sun, which shone and smiled
To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams,

The fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary grove Waxed green, and flowers burst forth like starry beams ; The grass in the warm sun did start and move, And sea-buds burst beneath the waves serene.

How many a one, though none be near to love, Loves then the shade of his own soul half seen In any mirror-or the Spring's young minions, The winged leaves amid the copses green!

How many a spirit then puts on the pinions Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,

And his own steps, and over wide diminions Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast,

More fleet than storms-the wide world shrinks below

When winter and despondency are past!

'Twas at this season that Prince Athanase

Passed the white Alps. Those eagle-baffling mountains

Slept in their shrouds of snow. Beside the ways

The waterfalls were voiceless; for their fountains

Were changed to mines of sunless crystal now,
Or, by the curdling winds-like brazen wings
Which clanged along the mountain's marble brow—
Warped into adamantine fretwork, hung,
And filled with frozen light the chasm below.

THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 131

Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all

We can desire, O Love! and happy souls,
Ere from thy vine the leaves of autumn fall,
Catch thee, and feed from their o'erflowing bowls
Thousands who thirst for thy ambrosial dew.

Thou art the radiance which where ocean rolls
Investeth it; and, when the heavens are blue,
Thou fillest them; and, when the earth is fair
The shadows of thy moving wings imbue 2

Its deserts and its mountains, till they wear
Beauty like some bright robe. Thou ever soarest
Among the towers of men ; and as soft air
In Spring, which moves the unawakened forest,
Clothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak,
Thou floatest among men, and aye implorest

That which from thee they should implore. The weak
Alone kneel to thee, offering up the hearts

The strong have broken :-yet where shall any seek

A garment, whom thou clothest not?

Her hair was brown; her spherèd eyes were brown,
And in their dark and liquid moisture swam
Like the dim orb of the eclipsèd moon ;

Yet, when the spirit flashed beneath, there came
The light from them, as when tears of delight
Double the western planet's serene flame.

Marlow, 1817.

III.

THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

A WOODMAN whose rough heart was out of tune
(I think such hearts yet never came to good)
Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,
One nightingale in an interfluous wood
Satiate the hungry dark with melody.
And as a vale is watered by a flood,
Or as the moonlight fills the open sky

Struggling with darkness-as a tuberose

Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie

Like clouds above the flower from which they rose

The singing of that happy nightingale

In this sweet forest, from the golden close
Of evening till the star of dawn may fail,
Was interfused upon the silentness.
The folded roses and the violets pale

Heard her within their slumbers; the abyss
Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear
Of the night-cradled Earth; the loneliness
Of the circumfluous waters. Every sphere,

And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, And every wind of the mute atmosphere,

And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, And every bird lulled on its mossy bough,

And every silver moth fresh from the grave
Which is its cradle (ever from below

Aspiring, like one who loves too fair, too far,
To be consumed within the purest glow
Of one serene and unapproachèd star,
As if it were a lamp of earthly light,—

Unconscious, as some human lovers are,
Itself how low, how high beyond all height

The heaven where it would perish), and every form That worshiped in the temple of the night,

Was awed into delight, and by the charm

Girt as with an interminable zone ;

Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm

Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion

Out of their dreams. Harmony became love In every soul but one.

.

And so this man returned with axe and saw
At evening-close from killing the tall treen;
The soul of whom, by Nature's gentle law,
Was each a Wood-nymph, and kept ever green
The pavement and the roof of the wild copse,
Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene
With jagged leaves, and from the forest-tops
Singing the winds to sleep, or weeping oft
Fast showers of aërial water-drops

Into her mother's bosom, sweet and soft,-1
Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness.
Around the cradles of the birds aloft