Magnetic might into its central heart; And lift its billows and its mists, and guide By everlasting laws, each wind and tide To its fit cloud, and its appointed cave; And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers The armies of the rainbow-wingéd showers; And, as those married lights, which from the towers Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe In liquid sleep and splendor, as a robe; And all their many-mingled influence blend, If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end ;So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway Govern my sphere of being, night and day! Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might: Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light; And, through the shadow of the seasons three, Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes, Will be as of the trees of Paradise. The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me. To whatsoe'er of dull mortality Is mine, remain a vestal sister still; To the intense, the deep, the imperish- 1 able, Not mine but me, henceforth be thou united Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. The hour is come:-the destined Star has risen Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set The sentinels-but true love never yet Was thus constrained: it overleaps all fence: Like lightning, with invisible violence Piercing its continents; like Heaven's free breath, Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death, Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array Of arms; more strength has Love than he or they; For it can burst his charnel, and make free The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, The soul in dust and chaos. Emily, A ship is floating in the harbor now, A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow; There is a path on the sea's azure floor, No keel has ever ploughed that path before: The halcyons brood around the foamless isles; [wiles; The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its The merry mariners are bold and free: Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me? Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest And Day, and storm, and Calm, pursue their flight, Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, And, for the harbors are not safe and good, This land would have remained a solitude But for some pastoral people native there, Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, Simple and spirited; innocent and bold. The blue Egean girds this chosen home, With ever-changing sound and light and foam, Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide: There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide : And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, As clear as elemental diamond, Or serene morning air; and far beyond, The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer ness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess: Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of th' Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen O'er the gray rocks, blue waves, and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices.— But the chief marvel of the wilderness Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how None of the rustic island-people know; 'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height It overtops the woods; but, for delight, Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime Had been invented, in the world's young prime, Reared it, a wonder of that simple time. An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. It scarce seems now a wreck of human Looking towards the golden Eastern air, And level with the living winds, which flow Like waves above the living waves below. I have sent books and music there, and all Those instruments with which high spirits call The future from its cradle, and the past Out of its grave, and make the present last In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die. Folded within their own eternity. Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury, to waste The scene it would adorn, and therefore still. Nature with all her children, haunts the hill. The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate, and the slow, silent night Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. Be this our home in life, and when years heap Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay, Let us become the overhanging day, The living soul of this Elysian isle, Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile We two will rise, and sit, and walk together, Under the roof of blue Ionian weather, And wander in the meadows, or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend With lightest winds, to touch their para |