A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy, And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head, Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye, And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread, At Christabel she look'd askance !- The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone, That look, those shrunken serpent eyes, That look of dull and treacherous hate! And when the trance was o'er, the maid 66 "By my mother's soul do I entreat That thou this woman send away!" She said and more she could not say: For what she knew she could not tell, O'er mastered by the mighty spell. Why is thy cheek so wan and wild, That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled, And wouldst thou wrong thy only child, Her child and thine? Within the Baron's heart and brain Dishonor'd thus in his old age; To the insulted daughter of his friend And said in tones abrupt, austere Why, Bracy! dost tnou loiter here? I bade thee hence! The bard obeyed; And turning from his own sweet maid, The aged knight, Sir Leoline, Led forth the lady Geraldine! 1800. 1816. THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE SECOND A fairy thing with red round cheeks, Such giddiness of heart and brain 1801. 1816. FRANCE: AN ODE I YE Clouds! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may control! Ye Ocean Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! Ye Woods! that listen to the nightbird's singing, Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save when your own imperious branches swinging, Have made a solemn music of the wind! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod, How oft, pursuing fancies holy, My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, Inspired beyond the guess of folly, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high! To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance, And shame too long delay'd and vain retreat! For ne'er, O Liberty! with partial aim I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame; But blessed the pæans of delivered France, And hung my head and wept at Britain's name. III And what," I said, "though Blasphemy's loud scream With that sweet music of deliverance strove! Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream! Ye storms, that round the dawning east assembled, The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light! And when to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled, The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and bright; When France her front deep-scarr'd and gory Concealed with clustering wreaths of glory; When insupports bly advancing, Her arm made mockery of the warrior's ramp; While timid looks of fury glancing. Domestic treason, crushed beneath her fatal stamp, Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore; Then I reproached my fears that would not flee; "And soon," I said, "shall Wisdom teach her lore In the low huts of them that toil and groan; And, conquering by her happiness alone, Shall France compel the nations to be free, Till Love and Joy look round, and call the earth their own." IV Forgive me, Freedom! O forgive those dreams! I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament, From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams! Heroes, that for your peaceful country perished, And ye, that fleeing, spot your mountain snows With bleeding wounds; forgive me, that I cherished One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes! To scatter rage and traitorous guilt Where Peace her jealous home had built; A patriot-race to disinherit Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear: And with inexpiable spirit To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind, And patriot only in pernicious toils! Are these thy boasts, Champion of human kind? Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, My play-mate when we both were clothed alike! Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought! My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes! For I was reared In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligi. ble Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, LOVE ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I Beside the ruined tower. The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene She leant against the armed man, Amid the lingering light. Few sorrows hath she of her own, The songs that make her grieve. I played a soft and doleful air, She listened with a flitting blush, I told her of the Knight that wore I told her how he pined: and ah! She listened with a flitting blush, Too fondly on her face! But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountainwoods, Nor rested day nor night; That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade, There came and looked him in the face And that unknowing what he did, The Lady of the Land! And how she wept, and clasped his knees; And how she tended him in vain- The scorn that crazed his brain ;And that she nursed him in a cave; And how his madness went away, When on the yellow forest-leaves A dying man he lay ; His dying words--but when I reached That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity! All impulses of soul and sense The rich and balmy eve; And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, She wept with pity and delight, And like the murmur of a dream, She fled to me and wept. She half enclosed me with her arms, 'Twas partly love, and partly fear, I calmed her fears, and she was calm, My bright and beauteous Bride, 1798-1799. December 21, 1799. THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE A FRAGMENT BENEATH yon birch with silver bark, And there upon the moss she sits, And drops and swells again. The sun was sloping down the sky, |