I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under ;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast ;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder-
It struggles and howls by fits.

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The spirit he loves remains ;

And I, all the while, bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning-star shines dead;

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle, alit, one moment may sit,

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardours of rest and love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof:

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ;
I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air,

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous and clear and fresh thy music doth surpass. Teach me, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine;

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so Divine.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chant,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be ;

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee;

Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not;

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate and pride and fear;
If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever could come near.

Better than all measures

Of delight and sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

M

POETICAL GEMS.*

SMOOTH run the waters where the brook is deep.

Shakspere's Henry VI

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Pope's Essay on Man.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.

Keats's Endymion.

There was never yet philosopher

That could endure the tooth-ache patiently.

Shakspere's Much Ado about Nothing.

Shakspere's Henry V.

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,

Would men observingly distil it out.

The evil that men do lives after them ;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.

Shakspere's Julius Cæsar.

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Shakspere's Merchant of Venice.

*Most of these are 66 'gems" which, in the opinion of the Editor, ought to find a place in the memory of all young people.