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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 snow-white sail!
Nearer she draws; a breeze uplifts her veil;
Upon her coming wait

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 from his cheek
Brush the 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.
"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 wornYet 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 thy genuine law!

If from what her hand would do,
Her voice would utter, aught ensue
Untoward or unfit;

She, in benign affections pure,

In self-forgetfulness secure,

Sheds round the transient harm or vague mischance

A light unknown to tutored elegance:

Her's is not a cheek shame-stricken,

But her blushes are joy-flushes;

And the fault (if fault it be)
Only ministers to quicken
Laughter-loving gaiety,

And kindle sportive wit

Leaving this Daughter of the mountains free

As if she knew that Oberon king of Faery

Had crossed her purpose with some quaint vagary,

And heard his viewless bands

Over their mirthful triumph clapping hands.
"Last of the Three, though eldest born,
Reveal thyself, like pensive Morn
Touched by the skylark's earliest note,
Ere humbler gladness be afloat.

But whether in the semblance drest
Of Dawn-or Eve, fair vision of the west,
Come with each anxious hope subdued
By woman's gentle fortitude,

Each grief, through meekness, settling into rest.
-Or I would hail thee when some high-wrought page
Of a closed volume lingering in thy hand
Has raised thy spirit to a peaceful stand
Among the glories of a happier age."
Her brow hath opened on me-see it there,
Brightening the umbrage of her hair;
So gleams the crescent moon, that loves
To be descried through shady groves.
Tenderest bloom is on her cheek;
Wish not for a richer streak;

Nor dread the depth of meditative eye;
But let thy love, upon that azure field
Of thoughtfulness and beauty, yield
Its homage offered up in purity.

What would'st thou more? In sunny glade,
Or under leaves of thickest shade,
Was such a stillness e'er diffused
Since earth grew calm while angels mused?
Softly she treads, as if her foot were loth

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