ON THE AFFECTIONS. And now we reached the orchard-plot ; In one of those sweet dreams I slept, My horse moved on; hoof after hoof 167 What fond and wayward thoughts will slide Into a lover's head! "O mercy!" to myself I cried, "If Lucy should be dead!" Wordsworth. SEE the kitten on the wall, Withered leaves-one-two-and three From the lofty elder tree! Through the calm and frosty air Sylph or Fairy hither tending, In his wavering parachute. -But the Kitten, how she starts Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts! First at one and then its fellow, THE KITTEN AND FALLING LEAVES. Just as light and just as yellow; With a tiger-leap, half way Has it in her power again : Now she works with three or four, Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart, Were her antics played in the eye For the plaudits of the crowd? Over happy to be proud, 169 Wordsworth. ( 170 ) HUMAN LIFE. (THE WIFE.) His house she enters-there to be a light ADONAIS. MIDST others of less note, came one frail Form, ADONAIS. Actæon-like, and now he fled astray 171 With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey. A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift A love in desolation masked ;—a Power A breaking billow;-even whilst we speak His head was bound with pansies over-blown, And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue; And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew Yet dripping with the forest's noon-day dew, Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart Shook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crew He came the last, neglected and apart; A herd-abandoned deer, struck by the hunter's dart. Shelley. |