Other spirits float and flee

O'er that gulf; even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folding winds they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it

To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell mid lawny hills

Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine

Of all flowers that breathe and shine.

We may live so happy there,

That the spirits of the air,
Envying us, may even entice
To our healing paradise

The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued

By that clime divine and calm,

And the winds whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
With its own deep melodies;

And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood.
They, not it, would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon

FROM "THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS."

KNOW ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine :

Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl in her bloom! Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, And the voice of the nightingale never is mute, Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky,

FROM "PARADISE AND THE PERI.'
Now, upon Syria's land of roses
Softly the light of eve reposes,
And, like a glory, the broad sun
Hangs over sainted Lebanon ;
Whose head in wintry grandeur towers,
And whitens with eternal sleet,
While summer, in a vale of flowers,
Is sleeping rosy at his feet.

To one who looked from upper air
O'er all the enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, how sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sunlight falls ;
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruined shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;

And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam

Of the warm west, - - as if inlaid

With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span
The unclouded skies of Peristan !

And then, the mingling sounds that come,
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,

Starred with drops of golden rain Gleam above the sunlight woods, As in silent multitudes

On the morning's fitful gale
Through the broken mist they sail;
And the vapors cloven and gleaming
Follow down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright and clear and still
Round the solitary hill.

-

Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath day's azure eyes,
Ocean's nursling, Venice, lies,
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo the sun upsprings behind,
Broad, red, radiant, half reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright,
Column, tower, and dome, and spire
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
To the sapphire-tinted skies;
As the flames of sacrifice

From the marble shrines did rise
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sun-girt city! thou hast been
Ocean's child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey,
If the power that raised thee here
Hallow so thy watery bier.
A less drear ruin then than now
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne among the waves,
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew
Flies, as once before it flew,
O'er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace-gate,
With green sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of ocean's own,
Topples o'er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way
Wandering at the close of day
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,

Lest thy dead should, from their sleep

Bursting o'er the starlight deep,
Lead a rapid mask of death
O'er the waters of his path.

Noon descends around me now:
"T is the noon of autumn's glow,
When a soft and purple mist
Like a vaporous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolvéd star
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon's bound
To the point of heaven's profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath; the leaves unsodden
Where the infant frost has trodden
With his morning-wingéd feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines
Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one;

And my spirit, which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,
Interpenetrated lie

By the glory of the sky;
Be it love, light, harmony,
Odor, or the soul of all

Which from heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.

Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn's evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine moon
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister
Half the crimson light she brings
From the sunset's radiant springs :
And the soft dreams of the morn
(Which like wingéd winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
Mid remembered agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be
In the sea of life and agony;

Other spirits float and flee

O'er that gulf; even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folding winds they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it

To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell mid lawny hills

Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine

Of all flowers that breathe and shine.
We may live so happy there,

That the spirits of the air,
Envying us, may even entice
To our healing paradise
The polluting multitude;

But their rage would be subdued

By that clime divine and calm,

And the winds whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
With its own deep melodies;

And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood.
They, not it, would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain,

And the earth grow young again!

To one who looked from upper air
O'er all the enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, how sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sunlight falls ;-
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruined shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;
And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam

THE VALE OF CASHMERE. "THE LIGHT OF THE HARem.' WHO has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave,

THE LION'S RIDE.

[Translation.]

THE lion is the desert's king; through his do

main so wide

From the sandy sea uprising, as the water-spout from ocean,

A whirling cloud of dust keeps pace with the courser's fiery motion.

and sly,

At evening, on the Table Mount, when ye can

see no more

The changeful play of signals gay; when the gloom is speckled o'er

With kraal fires; when the Caffre wends home through the lone karroo ;

When the boshbok in the thicket sleeps, and by the stream the gnu;

By the footprints wet with gore and sweat, their monarch's course they trace.

They see him on his living throne, and quake with fear, the while

With

claws of steel he tears piecemeal his cushion's painted pile.

On! on! no pause, no rest, giraffe, while life and strength remain !

in vain.

astride

Upon his giant courser's back. Did ever king so

ride?

Had ever king a steed so rare, caparisons of state To match the dappled skin whereon that rider sits elate?

In the muscles of the neck his teeth are plunged with ravenous greed;

His tawny mane is tossing round the withers of the steed.

Up leaping with a hollow yell of anguish and surprise,

Away, away, in wild dismay, the camel-leopard flies.

His feet have wings; see how he springs across the moonlit plain!

As from their sockets they would burst, his glaring eyeballs strain;

In thick black streams of purling blood, full fast his life is fleeting;

The stillness of the desert hears his heart's tumultuous beating.

Like the cloud that, through the wilderness, the path of Israel traced,

Like an airy phantom, dull and wan, a spirit of