Illumining my slumbers, like the Moon Waxing and waning o'er Endymion. And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, And all my being became bright or dim As the Moon's image in a summer sea, According as she smiled or frowned on me;

And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed:

Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead :For at her silver voice came Death and Life,

Unmindful each of their accustomed strife,

Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother,

The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother,

And through the cavern without wings they flew,

And cried Away, he is not of our crew."

I wept, and though it be a dream, I weep.

What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep,

Blotting that Moon, whose pale and waning lips

Then shrank as in the sickness of

Was penetrating me with living light:
I knew it was the Vision veiled from me
So many years-that it was Emily.

Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth,

This world of love, this me; and inte birth fdart Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and

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 imperishable,

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.

Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, Treading each other's heels, unheededly. It is an Isle under Ionian skies, Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise,

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

(Which the rough shepherd treads but

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 humar

art,

But, as it were Titanic; in the heart
Of Earth having assumed its form, then

grown

Out of the mountains, from the living stone,

Lifting itself in caverns light and high;

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

and grew,

Till like two meteors of expanding flame, Those spheres instinct with it become the same,

Touch, mingle, are transfigured; ever still

Burning, yet ever inconsumable :

In one another's substance finding food, Like flames too pure and light and unimbued

To nourish their bright lives with baser prey,

Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away:

One hope within two wills, one will beneath

Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death,

One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality,
And one annihilation. Woe is me!
The winged words on which my soul
would pierce

Into the height of love's rare Universe, Are chains of lead around its flight of fire

I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!