Of witch, and demon, and large coffin

worm,

Were long be-nightmar'd. Angela the old

Died palsy-twitch'd, with meagre face deform;

The Beadsman, after thousand aves told, For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.

January, 1819. 1820.

THE EVE OF SAINT MARK

A FRAGMENT

UPON a Sabbath-day it fell;
Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell,
That call'd the folks to evening prayer;
The city streets were clean and fair
From wholesome drench of April rains;
And, on the western window panes,
The chilly sunset faintly told
Of unmatur'd green valleys cold,
Of the green thorny bloomless hedge,
Of rivers new with spring-tide sedge,
Of primroses by shelter'd rills,
And daisies on the aguish hills.
Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell :
The silent streets were crowded well
With staid and pious companies,
Warm from their fire-side orat ries;
And moving, with demurest air,
To even-song, and vesper prayer.
Each arched porch, and entry low,
Was fill'd with patient folk and slow,
With whispers hush, and shuffling feet,
While play'd the organ loud and sweet.

The bells had ceas'd, the prayers begun,
And Bertha had not yet half done
A curious volume, patch'd and torn,
That all day long, from earliest morn,
Had taken captive her two eyes,
Among its golden broideries;

Perplex'd her with a thousand things.-
The stars of Heaven, and angels' wings,
Martyrs in a fiery blaze,

Azure saints and silver rays,
Moses' breastplate, and the seven
Candlesticks John saw in Heaven,
The winged Lion of St. Mark,
And the Covenantal Ark,
With its many mysteries,
Cherubim and golden mice.

Bertha was a maiden fair,

Dwelling in th' old Minster-square ; From her fire-side she could see, Sidelong, its rich antiquity,

Far as the Bishop's garden-wall;
Where sycamores and elm-trees tali,
Full-leav'd, the forest had outstript,
By no sharp north-wind ever nipt,
So shelter'd by the mighty pile.
Bertha arose, and read awhile,
With forehead 'gainst the window-pane
Again she try'd, and then again,
Until the dusk eve left her dark
Upon the legend of St. Mark.
From plated lawn-frill, fine and thin,
She lifted up her soft warm chin.
With aching neck and swimming eyes,
And daz'd with saintly imageries.

All was gloom, and silent all,
Save now and then the still foot-fall
Of one returning homewards late,
Past the echoing minster-gate.
The clamorous daws, that all the day
Above tree-tops and towers play,
Pair by pair had gone to rest,
Each in its ancient belfry nest,
Where asleep they fall betimes,
To music and the drowsy chimes.

All was silent, all was gloom,
Abroad and in the homely room:
Down she sat, poor cheated soul;
And struck a lamp from the dismal coal;
Lean'd forward, with bright drooping

hair

And slant look, full against the glare.
Her shadow, in uneasy guise,
Hover'd about, a giant size,

On ceiling-beam and old oak chair,
The parrot's cage, and panel square ;
And the warm angled winter-screen,
On which were many monsters seen,
Call'd doves of Siam, Lima mice,
And legless birds of Paradise,
Macaw, and tender Avadavat,
And silken-furr'd Angora cat.
Untir'd she read, her shadow still
Glower'd about, as it would fill
The room with wildest forms and shades,
As though some ghostly queen of spades
Had come to mock behind her back,
And dance, and ruffle her garments
black.

Untir'd she read the legend page,
Of holy Mark, from youth to age,
On land, on sea, in pagan chains,
Rejoicing for his many pains.
Sometimes the learned eremite,
With golden star, or dagger bright,
Referr'd to pious poesies

Written in smallest crow-quill size
Beneath the text: and thus the rhyme

Was parcel'd out from time to time: Als writeth he of swevens,

Men han before they wake in bliss, Whanne that hir friendes thinke him bound

In crimped shroude farre under grounde:
And how a litling childe mote be
A scint er its nativitie,

Gif that the modre (God her blesse !)
Kepen in solitarinesse,

And kissen devout the holy croce.
Of Goddes love, and Sathan's force,-
He writith; and thinges many mo
Of swiche thinges I may not show.
Bot I must tellen verilie

Somdel of Saintè Cicilie,

And chiefly what he auctorethe
Of Sainte Markis life and dethe:"

At length her constant eyelids come
Upon the fervent martyrdom;
Then lastly to his holy shrine,
Exalt amid the tapers' shine
At Venice,-

January and September, 1819. 1848.

ODE ON INDOLENCE

"They toil not, neither do they spin."

ONE morn before me were three figures

seen,

With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;

And one behind the other stepp'd serene, In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;

They pass, like figures on a marble urn, When shifted round to see the other

side:

They came again; as when the urn

once more

Is shifted round, the first seen shades

return;

And they were strange to me, as may betide

With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

How is it. Shadows! that I knew ye not? How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?

Was it a silent deep-disguised plot

To steal away, and leave without a task

My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour:

The blissful cloud of summer-indolence

BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wond'rous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns

Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodious truth:
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you, Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week;

ODE TO PSYCHE

O GODDESS! hear these tuneless ram bers, wrung

By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,

And pardon that thy secrets should be sung

Even into thine own soft-conched ear; Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?

I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly, And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, [side Saw two fair creatures, couched side by In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof

Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran

A brooklet, scarce espied: 'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,

Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian, They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;

Their arms embracéd, and their pinions too;

Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,

As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,
And ready still past kisses to outnumber
At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:
The winged boy I knew;
But who wast thou, O happy, happy
dove?

Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan Upon the midnight hours;

No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet

From chain-swung censer teeming ; No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

O brightest! though too late for antique

Vows,

Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,

When holy were the haunted forest boughs,

Holy the air, the water, and the fire; Yet even in these days so far retir'd

From happy pieties, thy lucent fans, Fluttering among the faint Olympians,

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired. So let me be thy choir, and make a moan Upon the midnight hours;

Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet

From swinged censer teeming; Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat

Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,

Instead of pines shall murmar in the wind:

Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees

Fledge the wild-ridged mountains

steep by steep;

And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,

The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;

And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath'd trellis of a working
brain,

With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,

With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,

Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same: [light

And there shall be for thee all soft de

That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at

night,

To let the warm Love in !

April, 1819. 1820.

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new ; More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious

priest,