In silence watched the gentle strife

Of Nature leading back to life;

Then eased his Soul at length by praise

Of God, and Heaven's pure Qeeen - the blissful Mary
Then said he, "Take her to thy heart,
Sir Galahad! a treasure that God giveth,
Bound by indissoluble ties to thee
Through mortal change and immortality;
Be happy and unenvied, thou who art
A goodly Knight that hath no Peer that liveth!"
Not long the nuptials were delayed;
And sage tradition still rehearses
The pomp, the glory of that hour

When toward the Altar from her bower
King Arthur led the Egyptian Maid,
And Angels carolled these far-echoed verses

Who shrinks not from alliance
Of evil with good Powers,

To God proclaims defiance,
And mocks whom he adores.

A Ship to Christ devoted
From the Land of Nile did go;
Alas! the bright Ship floated,
An Idol at her Prow.

By magic domination,
The Heaven-permitted vent
Of purblind mortal passion,
Was wrought her punishment.

The Flower, the Form within it,
What served they in her need?
Her port she could not win it,
Nor from mishap be freed.

The tempest overcame her,
And she was seen no more;
But gently gently blame her,
She cast a Pearl ashore.

The Maid to Jesu hearkened,
And kept to him her faith,
Till sense in death was darkened,
Or sleep akin to death.

But Angels round her pillow
Kept watch, a viewless band;
And, billow favouring billow,
She reached the destined strand.

Blest Pair! whate'er befall you,
Your faith in Him approve
Who from frail earth can call vou,

To bowers of endless love'

THE SIMPLON PASS.

BROOK and road

Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy pass,
And with them did we journey several hours
At a slow step. The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,
The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
And in the narrow rent, at every turn,
Winds thwarting winds bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside
As if a voice were in them, the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light-
Where all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,
Characters of the great Apocalypse,
The types and symbols of Eternity,

Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.

AN EVENING ODE,

COMPOSED UPON AN EVENING OF EXTRAORDINARY SPLENDOUR AND BEAUTY.

I.

HAD this effulgence disappeared

With flying haste, I might have sent,
Among the speechless clouds, a look
Of blank astonishment;

But 't is endued with power to stay,
And sanctify one closing day,
That frail mortality may see-
What is ah no, but what can be!
Time was when field and watery cove
With modulated echoes rang,
While choirs of fervent angels sang
Their vespers in the grove;

Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height,
Warbled, for heaven above and earth below,

Strains suitable to both. Such holy rite,

Of beamy radiance, that imbues,
Whate'er it strikes, with gem-like hues!
In vision exquisitely clear,

Herds range along the mountain side;
And glistening antlers are descried;
And gilded flocks appear.

Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal Eve!
But long as god-like wish, or hope divine,
Informs my spirit, ne'er can I believe
That this magnificence is wholly thine!
- From worlds not quickened by the sun
A portion of the gift is won;
An intermingling of Heaven's pomp is spread
On ground which British shepherds tread!

III.

And if there be whom broken ties
Afflict, or injuries assail,
Yon hazy ridges to their eyes*
Present a glorious scale,

Climbing suffused with sunny air,

To stop no record hath told where! And tempting fancy to ascend,

And with immortal spirits blend !

-Wings at my shoulders seem to play; † But, rooted here, I stand and gaze

On those bright steps that heaven-ward raise Their practicable way.

Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad, And see to what fair countries

ye are bound! And if some traveller, weary of his road, Hath slept since noon-tide on the grassy ground Ye Genii! to his covert speed;

And wake him with such gentle heed

As may attune his soul to meet the dower
Bestowed on this transcendant hour!

The multiplication of mountain-ridges described at the commencement of the third Stanza of this Ode, as a kind of Jacob's Ladder, leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapours, or sunny haze ;-in the present instance by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode, entitled 'Intimations of Immortality,' pervade the last stanza of the foregoing Poem.

+ In these lines I am under obligation to the exquisite picture of "Jacob's Dream," by Mr. Allston, now in America. It is pleasant to make this public acknowledg. ment to a man of genius, whom I have the honour to rank among my friends.

Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve
No less than nature's threatening voice,
If aught unworthy be my choice,
From THEE if I would swerve;

O, let thy grace remind me of the light
Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored;
Which, at this moment, on my waking sight
Appears to shine, by miracle restored;
My soul, though yet confined to earth,
Rejoices in a second birth!

-'Tis past, the visionary splendour fades;
And night approaches with her shades.

TO THE CLOUDS.

ARMY of Clouds! ye winged Host in troops
Ascending from behind the motionless brow
Of that tall rock, as from a hidden world,
O whither with such eagerness of speed?
What seek ye, or what shun ye? of the gale
Companions, fear ye to be left behind,
Or racing o'er your blue ethereal field
Contend ye with each other? of the sea
Children, thus post ye over vale and height
To sink upon your mother's lap and rest?
Or were ye rightlier hailed, when first mine eyes
Beheld in your impetuous march the likeness
Of a wide army pressing on to meet
Or overtake some unknown enemy?
But your smooth motions suit a peaceful aim;
And Fancy, not less aptly pleased, compares
Your squadrons to an endless flight of birds
Aerial, upon due migration bound

To milder climes; or rather do ye urge
In caravan your hasty pilgrimage
To pause at last on more aspiring heights
Than these, and utter your devotion there
With thunderous voice? Or are ye jubilant,
And would ye, tracking your proud lord the Sun,
Be present at his setting; or the pomp
Of Persian mornings would ye fill, and stand
Poising your splendours high above the heads
Of worshippers kneeling to their up-risen God?
Whence, whence, ye clouds! this eagerness of speed?
Speak, silent creatures. They are gone, are fled,
Buried together in yon gloomy mass

That loads the middle heaven; and clear and bright
And vacant doth the region which they thronged
Appear; a calm descent of sky conducting
Down to the unapproachable abyss,
Down to that hidden gulf from which they rose
To vanish fleet as days and months and years,
Fleet as the generations of mankind,
Power, glory, empire, as the world itself,

The lingering world, when time hath ceased to be.
But the winds roar, shaking the rooted trees,
And see! a bright precursor to a train
Perchance as numerous, overpeers the rock
That sullenly refuses to partake

Of the wild impulse. From a fount of life
Invisible, the long procession moves
Luminous or gloomy, welcome to the vale
Which they are entering, welcome to mine eye
That sees them, to my soul that owns in them,

And in the bosom of the firmament

O'er which they move, wherein they are contained, A type of her capacious self and all

Her restless progeny.

A humble walk

Here is my body doomed to tread, this path,
A little hoary line and faintly traced,
Work, shall we call it, of the shepherd's foot
Or of his flock?-joint vestige of them both.
I pace it unrepining, for my thoughts
Admit no bondage and my words have wings.
Where is the Orphean lyre, or Druid harp,
To accompany the verse? The mountain blast
Shall be our hand of music; he shall sweep
The rocks, and quivering trees, and billowy lake,
And search the fibres of the caves, and they
Shall answer, for our song is of the clouds
And the wind loves them; and the gentle gales-
Which by their aid re-clothe the naked lawn
With annual verdure, and revive the woods,
And moisten the parched lips of thirsty flowers-
Love them; and every idle breeze of air
Bends to the favourite burthen. Moon and stars
Keep their most solemn vigils when the clouds
Watch also, shifting peaceably their place
Like bands of ministering spirits, or when they lie,
As if some Protean art the change had wrought,
In listless quiet o'er the ethereal deep
Scattered, a Cyclades of various shapes
And all degrees of beauty. O ye lightnings!
Ye are their perilous offspring; and the sun-
Source inexhaustible of life and joy,

And type of man's far-darting reason, therefore
In old time worshipped as the god of verse,
A blazing intellectual deity -

Loves his own glory in their looks, and showers
Upon that unsubstantial brotherhood
Visions with all but beatific light

STANZAS

ON

THE POWER OF SOUND.

ARGUMENT.

The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined in studied harmony. Sources and effects of those sounds (to the close of 6th Stanza). — The power of music, whence proceeding, exemplified in the idiot.—Origin of music, and its effect in early ages-how produced (to the middle of 10th Stanza).-The mind recalled to sounds acting casually and severally.-Wish uttered (11th Stanza) that these could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and intellectual contemplation. (Stanza 12th.) The Pythagorean theory of numbers and music, with their supposed power over the motions of the universeimaginations consonant with such a theory. - Wish expressed (in 11th Stanza) realized, in some degree, by the representation of all sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the Creator. -(Last Stanza) the destruction of earth and the planetary system-the survival of audible harmony, and its support in the Divine Nature, as revealed in Holy Writ.

1.

THY functions are etherial,

As if within thee dwelt a glancing Mind,
Organ of Vision! And a Spirit aerial
Informs the cell of hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;

Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers, for the heart, their slave;

And shrieks, that revel in abuse

Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose
The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair;

Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,
And requiems answered by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

2.

The headlong Streams and Fountains

Serve Thee, Invisible Spirit, with untired powers;
Cheering the wakeful Tent on Syrian mountains,
They lull perchance ten thousand thousand Flowers.
That roar, the prowling Lion's Here I am,
How fearful to the desert wide!

That bleat, how tender! of the Dam
Calling a straggler to her side.

Shout, Cuckoo! let the vernal soul

Go with thee to the frozen zone;

Toll from thy loftiest perch, lone Bell-bird, toll!

At the still hour to Mercy dear,

Mercy from her twilight throne
Listening to Nun's faint sob of holy fear,

To Sailor's prayer breathed from a darkening sea,
Or Wido v's cottage lullaby.

3.

Ye Voices, and ye Shadows,

And Images of voice to hound and horn
From rocky steep and rock-bestudded meadows
Flung back, and, in the sky's blue caves, reborn,
On with your pastime! till the church-tower balls
A greeting give of measured glee;
And milder echoes from their cells
Repeat the bridal symphony.
Then, or far earlier, let us rove
Where mists are breaking up or gone,
And from aloft look down into a cove
Besprinkled with a careless quire,
Happy Milk-maids, one by one
Scattering a ditty each to her desire,
A liquid concert matchless by nice Art,
A stream as if from one full heart.

Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste
Best eloquence avails not, Inspiration
Mounts with a tune, that travels like a blast
Piping through cave and battlemented tower;
Then starts the Sluggard, pleased to meet
That voice of Freedom, in its power
Of promises, shrill, wild, and sweet!
Who, from a martial pageant, spreads
Incitements of a battle-day,

Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless heads,
Even She whose Lydian airs inspire

Peaceful striving, gentle play

Of timid hope and innocent desire

Shot from the dancing Graces, as they move

Fanned by the plausive wings of Love.

How oft along thy mazes,

6.

Regent of Sound, have dangerous Passions trod !