Air sparkles round her with a dazzling sheen; But mark her glowing cheek, her vesture green! And, as if wishful to disarm Or to repay the potent Charm, She bears the stringèd lute of old romance, So tripped the Muse, inventress of the dance; But the ringlets of that head Choicest flowers that ever breathed, With one wild floweret (call it not forlorn) FLOWER OF THE WINDS, beneath her bosom wornYet more for love than ornament. Open, ye thickets! let her fly, Swift as a Thracian Nymph o'er field and height! Turning them inside out with arch audacity. Of an eye where feeling plays In ten thousand dewy rays; A face o'er which a thousand shadows go! O'er timid waters that have scarcely left Their birth-place in the rocky cleft What more changeful than the sea ? Fidelity presides; And this light-hearted Maiden constant is as he. High is her aim as heaven above, And, like the lowly reed, her love Can drink its nurture from the scantiest rill : Insight as keen as frosty star Nor interrupts her frolic graces O the charm that manners draw, She, in benign affections pure, In self-forgetfulness secure, Sheds round the transient harm or vague mis chance A light unknown to tutored elegance : Leaving this Daughter of the mountains free Over their mirthful triumph clapping hands. "Last of the Three, though eldest born, Reveal thyself, like pensive Morn Touched by the skylark's earliest note, Ere humbler gladness be afloat. But whether in the semblance drest Of Dawn-or Eve, fair vision of the west, By woman's gentle fortitude, Each grief, through meekness, settling into rest. -Or I would hail thee when some high-wrought page Of a closed volume lingering in thy hand Her brow hath opened on me see it there, Nor dread the depth of meditative eye; What would'st thou more? In sunny glade, Or under leaves of thickest shade, The laughter of the Christmas hearth With sighs of self-exhausted mirth Ye feelingly reprove; And daily, in the conscious breast, Your visitations are a test And exercise of love. When some great change gives boundless scope Oft, startled and made wise Ye daunt the proud array of war, As sail hath been unfurled; "Tis said, that warnings ye dispense, Emboldened by a keener sense; That men have lived for whom, With dread precision, ye made clear The hour that in a distant year Should knell them to the tomb. Unwelcome insight! Yet there are Blest times when mystery is laid bare, Truth shows a glorious face, While on that isthmus which commands The councils of both worlds, she stands, Sage Spirits! by your grace. God, who instructs the brutes to scent All changes of the element, Whose wisdom fixed the scale Of natures, for our wants provides By higher, sometimes humbler, guides, When lights of reason fail. The form and rich habiliments of One Whose countenance bore resemblance to the sun, Poised like a weary cloud, in middle air He hung, then floated with angelic ease tide breeze. Upon the apex of that lofty cone Alighted, there the Stranger stood alone; Fair as a gorgeous Fabric of the east Suddenly raised by some enchanter's power, Where nothing was; and firm as some old Tower Of Britain's realm, whose leafy crest Waves high, embellished by a gleaming shower! II. Beneath the shadow of his purple wings Rested a golden harp;-he touched the strings; "No wintry desolations, And free from semblance of decline ;- |