That canopied his path o'er the waste deep;
Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks
O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of Day;
Night followed clad with stars. On every side
More horribly the multitudinous streams

Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war
Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock
The calm and spangled sky. The little boat
Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam
Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;
Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;
Now leaving far behind the bursting mass,
That fell, convulsing ocean ;-safely fled—
As if that frail and wasted human form
Had been an elemental god.

At midnight

The moon arose and lo! the ethereal cliffs

Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone

Among the stars like sunlight, and around

Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves,
Bursting and eddying irresistibly,

Rage and resound for ever.--Who shall save?—
The boat fled on, the boiling torrent drove,-
The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,
The shattered mountain overhung the sea;

And faster still, beyond all human speed,
Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,
The little boat was driven. A cavern there
Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths
Engulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on
With unrelaxing speed.
The Poet cried aloud, 'I
The path of thy departure.
Shall not divide us long.'

'Vision and Love!'
have beheld

Sleep and Death

The boat pursued

The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone
At length upon that gloomy river's flow.

Now, where the fiercest war among the waves

Is calm, on the unfathomable stream

The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,
Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,

Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell
Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound

That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass
Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm ;
Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,
Circling immeasurably fast, and laved
With alternating dash the gnarlèd roots

Of mighty trees that stretched their giant arms
In darkness over it. I' the midst was left,
Reflecting yet distorting every cloud,

A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.
Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,
With dizzy swiftness, round and round and round,
Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose;
Till on the verge of the extremest curve,
Where through an opening of the rocky bank
The waters overflow, and a smooth spot

Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides

Is left, the boat paused shuddering. Shall it sink
Down the abyss? shall the reverting stress

Of that resistless gulf embosom it?

Now shall it fall?-A wandering stream of wind,
Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail;
And lo! with gentle motion, between banks

Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream,
Beneath a woven grove, it sails: and, hark!
The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar

With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.
Where the embowering trees recede, and leave

A little space of green expanse, the cove

Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers
For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes
Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave
Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,
Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,
Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay,

Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed

To deck with their bright hues his withered hair;
But on his heart its solitude returned,

And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid

In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame,
Had yet performed its ministry: it hung

Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud

Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods
Of night close over it.

The noonday sun
Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,
Scooped in the dark base of their aëry rocks,
Mocking its moans respond and roar for ever.
The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as, led
By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,
He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,
Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark
And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,
Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
Of the tall cedar, overarching, frame
Most solemn domes within; and far below,
Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
The ash and the acacia floating hang,
Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents clothed
In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,

Starred with ten-thousand blossoms, flow around
The grey trunks; and, as gamesome infants' eyes,
With gentle meanings and most innocent wiles,
Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,
Uniting their close union; the woven leaves
Make network of the dark-blue light of day
And the night's noontide clearness, mutable
As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
Beneath these canopies extend their swells,

Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen

Sends from its woods of musk-rose twined with jasmine
A soul-dissolving odour, to invite

To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,
Silence and Twilight here, twin sisters, keep
Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,
Like vaporous shapes half-seen. Beyond, a well,
Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
Images all the woven boughs above,
And each depending leaf, and every speck
Of azure sky darting between their chasms;
Nor aught e'se in the liquid mirror laves
Its portraiture, but some inconstant star
Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
Or painted bird sleeping beneath the moon,
Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.

Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
Their own wan light through the reflected lines
Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
Of that still fountain; as the human heart,
Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,

Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard
The motion of the leaves; the grass that sprung
Startled, and glanced and trembled, even to feel
An unaccustomed presence; and the sound
Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs
Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed
To stand beside him-clothed in no bright robes
Of shadowy silver or enshrining light

Borrowed from aught the visible world affords
Of grace or majesty or mystery;

But, undulating woods, and silent well,

And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom

Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,— Held commune with him, as if he and it

Were all that was. Only-when his regard
Was raised by intense pensiveness-two eyes,
Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought
And seemed with their serene and azure smiles
To beckon him.

When on the threshold of the green recess

The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death
Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,

Did he resign his high and holy soul

To images of the majestic past,

That paused within his passive being now,

Like winds that bear sweet music when they breathe
Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place
His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone
Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest,
Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink
Of that obscurest chasm ;-and thus he lay,
Surrendering to their final impulses
The hovering powers of life.

Hope and Despair,

The torturers, slept: no mortal pain or fear
Marred his repose; the influxes of sense,
And his own being unalloyed by pain,
Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed

The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there
At peace, and faintly smiling. His last sight
Was the great moon, which o'er the western line
Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,
With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed
To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
It rests; and still, as the divided frame
Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,
That ever beat in mystic sympathy

With Nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still.
And, when two lessening points of light alone
Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp
Of his faint respiration scarce did stir