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Piloted by the many-wandering blast, And the rare stars rush through them, dim and fast.

All this is beautiful in every land.

But what see you beside? A shabby stand
Of hackney-coaches-a brick house or wall
Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl
Of our unhappy politics ;-or worse-
A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse
Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade,
You must accept in place of serenade -
Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring
To Henry, some unutterable thing.

I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit
Built round dark caverns, even to the root

Of the living stems who feed them; in whose bowers

There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers;
Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn
Trembles not in the slumbering air, and borne
In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance,
Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance
Pale in the open moonshine; but each one
Under the dark trees seems a little sun,
A meteor tamed; a fixed star gone astray
From the silver regions of the Milky-way.
Afar the Contadino's song is heard,

Rude, but made sweet by distance ;-and a bird
Which cannot be a nightingale, and yet
I know none else that sings so sweet as it
At this late hour ;-and then all is still :-
Now Italy or London, which you will!

Next winter you must pass with me; I'll have
My house by that time turned into a grave
Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care,
And all the dreams which our tormentors are.
O that Hunt and
were there,

With every thing belonging to them fair!—
We will have books; Spanish, Italian, Greek,
And ask one week to make another week
As like his father, as I'm unlike mine.
Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,
Yet let's be merry; we'll have tea and toast;
Custards for supper, and an endless host
Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies,
And other such lady-like luxuries,-
Feasting on which we will philosophise.

And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood,

To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood.
And then we'll talk ;-what shall we talk about?
Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout
Of thought-entangled descant; as to nerves
With cones and parallelograms and curves,
I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare
To bother me,-when you are with me there.
And they shall never more sip laudanum
From Helicon or Himeros ;*-well, come,
And in spite of *** and of the devil,
Will make our friendly philosophic revel
Outlast the leafless time ;-till buds and flowers
Warn the obscure inevitable hours
Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew:-
"To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."

* "Iμepos, from which the river Himera was named, is, with some slight shade of difference, a synonyme of Love.

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And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver A haven, beneath whose translucent floor
Their snow-like waters into golden air,
Or under chasms unfathomable ever

Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear A subterranean portal for the river,

It fled the circling sunbows did upbear Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray, Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

XLIII.

And when the wizard lady would ascend

The labyrinths of some many-winding vale, Which to the inmost mountain upward tendShe called "Hermaphroditus !" and the pale And heavy hue which slumber could extend Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale A rapid shadow from a slope of grass, Into the darkness of the stream did pass.

XLIV.

And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions, With stars of fire spotting the stream below; And from above into the Sun's dominions

Flinging a glory, like the golden glow

In which spring clothes her emerald-winged
All interwoven with fine feathery snow [minions,
And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,
With which frost paints the pines in winter time.

XLV.

And then it winnowed the Elysian air

Which ever hung about that lady bright, With its ethereal vans-and speeding there, Like a star up the torrent of the night, Or a swift eagle in the morning glare

Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight; The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings, Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.

XLVI.

The water flashed like sunlight by the prow

Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven; The still air seemed as if its waves did flow

In tempest down the mountains,―loosely driven The lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro; Beneath, the billows having vainly striven Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel The swift and steady motion of the keel.

XLVII.

Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,
Or in the noon of interlunar night,
The lady-witch in visions could not chain

Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain

His storm-outspeeding wings, th' Hermaphrodite; She to the Austral waters took her way, Beyond the fabulous Thamondocona.

XLVIII.

Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake, With the Antarctic constellations paven,

Canopus and his crew, lay th' Austral lakeThere she would build herself a windless haven Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make The bastions of the storm, when through the sky The spirits of the tempest thundered by.

The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably, And around which the solid vapours hoar, Based on the level waters, to the sky Lifted their dreadful crags; and like a shore Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly Hemmed in with rifts and precipices grey, And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.

L.

And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash

Of the winds' scourge, foamed like a wounded And the incessant hail with stony clash [thing; Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering Fragment of inky thunder-smoke-this haven Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven.

LI.

On which that lady played her many pranks,
Circling the image of a shooting star,
Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks
Outspeeds the Antelopes which speediest are,
In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
She played upon the water; till the car
Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,
To journey from the misty east began.

LII.

And then she called out of the hollow turrets
Of those high clouds, white, golden, and vermilion,
The armies of her ministering spirits-

In mighty legions million after million
They came, cach troop emblazoning its merits

On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion,
Of the intertexture of the atmosphere,
They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.

LIII.

They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen
Of woven exhalations, underlaid
With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen

A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid
With crimson silk-cressets from the serene
Hung there, and on the water for her tread,
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

LIV.

And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught
Upon those wandering isles of aery dew,
Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,
She sate, and heard all that had happened new
Between the earth and moon since they had brought
The last intelligence-and now she grew
Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night-
And now she wept, and now she laughed outright.

LV.

These were tame pleasures.-She would often climb
The steepest ladder of the crudded rack
Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime,

And like Arion on the dolphin's back
Ride singing through the shoreless air. Oft time
Following the serpent lightning's winding track,
She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.

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