For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love;

Nor shall the tongue of envious pride
Presume those interweavings to reprove
In you, which that fair progeny of Jove,
Learned from the tuneful spheres that glide
In endless union, earth and sea above."

-I sing in vain;-the pines have hushed their waving:
A peerless Youth expectant at my side,
Breathless as they, with unabated craving
Looks to the earth, and to the vacant air;
And, with a wandering eye that seems to chide,
Asks of the clouds what occupants they hide :-
But why solicit more than sight could bear,
By casting on a moment all we dare?
Invoke we those bright Beings one by one;

And what was boldly promised, truly shall be done.

"Fear not a constraining measure!

-Yielding to this gentle spell,

Lucida! from domes of pleasure,
Or from cottage-sprinkled dell,
Come to regions solitary,

Where the eagle builds her aery,

Above the hermit's long-forsaken cell!"

-She comes!-behold

That Figure, like a ship with silver sail!

Nearer she draws; a breeze uplifts her veil;
Upon her coming wait

VOL. II.

As pure a sunshine and as soft a gale
As e'er, on herbage covering earthly mold,
Tempted the bird of Juno to unfold

His richest splendour-when his veering gait
And
every motion of his starry train

Seem governed by a strain

Of music, audible to him alone.

"O Lady, worthy of earth's proudest throne! Nor less, by excellence of nature, fit

Beside an unambitious hearth to sit

Domestic queen, where grandeur is unknown;
What living man could fear

The worst of Fortune's malice, wert Thou near,
Humbling that lily-stem, thy sceptre meek,

That its fair flowers may brush from off his cheek The too, too happy tear?

-Queen, and handmaid lowly!

Whose skill can speed the day with lively cares,
And banish melancholy

By all that mind invents or hand prepares ;
O Thou, against whose lip, without its smile
And in its silence even, no heart is proof;
Whose goodness, sinking deep, would reconcile
The softest Nursling of a gorgeous palace
To the bare life beneath the hawthorn-roof
Of Sherwood's Archer, or in caves of Wallace-
Who that hath seen thy beauty could content
His soul with but a glimpse of heavenly day?
Who that hath loved thee, but would lay

His strong hand on the wind, if it were bent
To take thee in thy majesty away?

-Pass onward (even the glancing deer

Till we depart intrude not here ;)

That mossy slope, o'er which the woodbine throws

A canopy, is smoothed for thy repose!"

Glad moment is it when the throng
Of warblers in full concert strong
Strive, and not vainly strive, to rout

The lagging shower, and force coy Phoebus out,
Met by the rainbow's form divine,

Issuing from her cloudy shrine ;

So may the thrillings of the lyre
Prevail to further our desire,

While to these shades a sister Nymph I call.

66

Come, if the notes thine ear may pierce,

Come, youngest of the lovely three,

Submissive to the might of verse

And the dear voice of harmony,

By none more deeply felt than Thee !"

-I sang; and lo! from pastimes virginal

She hastens to the tents

Of nature, and the lonely elements.

Air sparkles round her with a dazzling sheen ;
But mark her glowing cheek, her vesture green
And, as if wishful to disarm

Or to repay the potent charm,

She bears the stringèd lute of old romance,
That cheered the trellised arbour's privacy,
And soothed war-wearied knights in raftered hall.
How vivid, yet how delicate, her glee!

So tripped the Muse, inventress of the dance;
So, truant in waste woods, the blithe Euphrosyne !

But the ringlets of that head
Why are they ungarlanded?
Why bedeck her temples less
Than the simplest shepherdess?
Is it not a brow inviting

Choicest flowers that ever breathed,
Which the myrtle would delight in
With Idalian rose enwreathed?

But her humility is well content

With one wild floweret (call it not forlorn)

FLOWER OF THE WINDS, beneath her bosom worn

Yet more for love than ornament.

Open, ye thickets! let her fly,

Swift as a Thracian Nymph o'er field and height!

For She, to all but those who love her shy,
Would gladly vanish from a Stranger's sight;
Though where she is beloved and loves,
Light as the wheeling butterfly she moves ;
Her happy spirit as a bird is free,

That rifles blossoms on a tree,

Turning them inside out with arch audacity.

Alas! how little can a moment show
Of an eye where feeling plays

In ten thousand dewy rays;

A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!
-She stops-is fastened to that rivulet's side;
And there (while, with sedater mien,

O'er timid waters that have scarcely left
Their birth-place in the rocky cleft
She bends) at leisure may be seen
Features to old ideal grace allied,

Amid their smiles and dimples dignified—
Fit countenance for the soul of primal truth;
The bland composure of eternal youth!

What more changeful than the sea?

But over his great tides

Fidelity presides;

And this light-hearted Maiden constant is as he.

High is her aim as heaven above,

And wide as ether her good-will;

And, like the lowly reed, her love

Can drink its nurture from the scantiest rill:

Insight as keen as frosty star

Is to her charity no bar,

Nor interrupts her frolic graces

When she is, far from these wild places,

Encircled by familiar faces.

O the charm that manners draw,
Nature, from the genuine law!