With music and sweet showers

Of festal flowers,

Unto the dwelling she must sway. Well hast thou done, great artist Memory, In setting round thy first experiment

With royal frame-work of wrought gold;
Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,
And foremost in thy various gallery

Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls
Upon the storied walls;

For the discovery

And newness of thine art so pleased thee,
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest

Or boldest since, but lightly weighs

With thee unto the love thou bearest
The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like,
Ever retiring thou dost gaze

On the prime labour of thine early days:

No matter what the sketch might be ;

Whether the high field on the bushless Pike,

Or even a sand-built ridge

Of heaped hills that mound the sea,,

Overblown with murmurs harsh,

Or even a lowly cottage whence we see

Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,

Where from the frequent bridge,

Like emblems of infinity,

The trenched waters run from sky to sky;

Or a garden bower'd close

With plaited alleys of the trailing rose,

Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,

Or opening upon level plots

Of crowned lilies, standing near
Purple-spiked lavender :

Whither in after life retired
From brawling storms,
From weary wind,

With youthful fancy reinspired,

We may hold converse with all forms
Of the many-sided mind,

And those whom passion hath not blinded,
Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.

My friend, with you to live alone,
Were how much better than to own

A crown, a sceptre, and a throne !
O strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.

SONG.

I.

A

SPIRIT haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers :
To himself he talks ;

For at eventide, listening earnestly,

At his work you may hear him sob and sigh In the walks ;.

Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks

Of the mouldering flowers :

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;

Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

2.

The air is damp, and hush'd, and close,

As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;

My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath

Of the fading edges of box beneath,

And the year's last rose.

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

ADELINE.

I.

MYSTERY of mysteries,

Faintly smiling Adeline,

Scarce of earth nor all divine,
Nor unhappy, nor at rest,
But beyond expression fair
With thy floating flaxen hair;

Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes

Take the heart from out my breast. Wherefore those dim looks of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

2.

Whence that aery bloom of thine,
Like a lily which the sun

Looks thro' in his sad decline,
And a rose-bush leans upon,
Thou that faintly smilest still,
As a Naiad in a well,
Looking at the set of day,
Or a phantom two hours old

Of a maiden past away,
Ere the placid lips be cold?

Wherefore those faint smiles of thine,
Spiritual Adeline?

3.

What hope or fear or joy is thine?
Who talketh with thee, Adeline?

For sure thou art not all alone:

Do beating hearts of salient springs Keep measure with thine own?

Hast thou heard the butterflies

What they say betwixt their wings?
Or in stillest evenings

With what voice the violet woos

To his heart the silver dews?

Or when little airs arise,

How the merry bluebell rings

To the mosses underneath?

Hast thou look'd upon the breath

Of the lilies at sunrise?

Wherefore that faint smile of thine,
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

4.

Some honey-converse feeds thy mind,
Some spirit of a crimson rose

In love with thee forgets to close

His curtains, wasting odorous sighs All night long on darkness blind. What aileth thee? whom waitest thou With thy soften'd, shadow'd brow, And those dew-lit eyes of thine,

Thou faint smiler, Adeline?

5.

Lovest thou the doleful wind

When thou gazest at the skies?
Doth the low-tongued Orient

Wander from the side of the morn,
Dripping with Sabæan spice

On thy pillow, lowly bent

With melodious airs lovelorn,
Breathing Light against thy face,
While his locks a-dropping twined
Round thy neck in subtle ring
Make a carcanet of rays,

And ye talk together still,
In the language wherewith Spring
Letters cowslips on the hill?
Hence that look and smile of thine,
Spiritual Adeline.

A CHARACTER.

7ITH a half-glance upon the sky

WITH

At night he said, "The wanderings

Of this most intricate Universe

Teach me the nothingness of things."