2

Dark-brow'd sophist, come not anear;
All the place1 is holy ground;
Hollow smile and frozen sneer
Come not here.

Holy water will I pour

Into every spicy flower

Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.
In your eye there is death,

There is frost in your breath
Which would blight the plants.

Where you stand you cannot hear
From the groves within

The wild-bird's din.

In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants,
It would fall to the ground if you came in.
In the middle leaps a fountain
Like sheet lightning,

Ever brightening

With a low melodious thunder;

All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder :
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love;

And yet, tho' 2 its voice be so clear and full,
You never would hear it; your ears are so dull;
So keep where you are: you are foul with sin;
It would shrink to the earth if you came in.

11830. The poet's mind. With this may be compared the opening stanza of Gray's Installation Ode: "Hence! avaunt! 'tis holy ground." and for the sentiments cf. Wordsworth's Poet's Epitaph.

2 1830 to 1851. Though.

THE SEA-FAIRIES

First published in 1830 but excluded from all editions till its restoration, when it was greatly altered, in 1853. I here give the text as it appeared in 1830; where the present text is the same as that of 1830 asterisks indicate it.

This poem is a sort of prelude to the Lotus-Eaters, the burthen being the same, a siren song: "Why work, why toil, when all must be over so soon, and when at best there is so little to reward?"

Whither away, whither away, whither away? Fly no more!

Whither away wi1 the singing sail? whither away wi' the oar?

Whither away from the high green field and the happy blossoming shore? Weary mariners, hither away,

Whither away wi' the sail? whither away wi' the oar?
Day and night to the billow, etc.

Whither away, whither away, whither away with the sail and the oar?

Slow sail'd the weary mariners and saw,

Betwixt the green brink and the running foam,
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
To little harps of gold; and while they mused,
Whispering to each other half in fear,

Shrill music reach'd them on the middle sea.

Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly

no more.

Whither away from the high green field, and the
happy blossoming shore?

Day and night to the billow the fountain calls;
Down shower the gambolling waterfalls

From wandering over the lea

:

Out of the live-green heart of the dells

They freshen the silvery-crimsoned shells,

And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells

High over the full-toned sea :

O hither, come hither and furl your sails,

Come hither to me and to me:

Hither, come hither and frolic and play;
Here it is only the mew that wails;
We will sing to you all the day :
Mariner, mariner, furl your sails,
For here are the blissful downs and dales,

And merrily merrily carol the gales,

And the spangle dances in bight1 and bay,

And the rainbow forms and flies on the land

Over the islands free;

And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand;
Hither, come hither and see;

And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave,

And sweet is the colour of cove and cave,

1 Bight is properly the coil of a rope; it then came to mean a bend, and so a corner or bay. The same phrase occurs in the Voyage of Maledune, v.: "and flung them in bight and bay".