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 !-
One moment-and the sight was fled!
But Christabel in dizzy trance
Stumbling on the unsteady ground
Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound;
And Geraldine again turned round,
And like a thing, that sought relief,
Full of wonder and full of grief,
She rolled her large bright eyes divine
Wildly on Sir Leoline.

The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone,
She nothing sees-no sight but one!
The maid, devoid of guile and sin,
I know not how, in fearful wise,
So deeply had she drunken in

That look, those shrunken serpent eyes,
That all her features were resigned
To this sole image in her mind:
And passively did imitate

That look of dull and treacherous hate!
And thus she stood, in dizzy trance,
Still picturing that look askance
With forced unconscious sympathy
Full before her father's view-
As far as such a look could be
In eyes so innocent and blue !

And when the trance was o'er, the maid
Paused awhile, and inly prayed:
Then falling at the Baron's feet,

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,
Sir Leoline? Thy only child
Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride,
So fair, so innocent, so mild;
The same, for whom thy lady died!
O by the pangs of her dear mother,
Think thou no evil of thy child!
For her, and thee, and for no other,
She prayed the moment ere she died:
Prayed that the babe for whom she died
Might prove her dear lord's joy and
pride!

That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled,
Sir Leoline!

And wouldst thou wrong thy only child,

Her child and thine?

Within the Baron's heart and brain
If thoughts, like these, had any share,
They only swelled his rage and pain,
And did but work confusion there.
His heart was cleft with pain and rage,
His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were
wild,

Dishonor'd thus in his old age;
Dishonor'd by his only child,
And all his hospitality

To the insulted daughter of his friend
By more than woman's jealousy
Brought thus to a disgraceful end-
He rolled his eye with stern regard
Upon the gentle minstrel bard,

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 little child, a limber elf,
Singing, dancing to itself,

A fairy thing with red round cheeks,
That always finds, and never seeks,
Makes such a vision to the sight
As fills a father's eyes with light;
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon his heart, that he at last
Must needs express his love's excess
With words of unmeant bitterness.
Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.
And what, if in a world of sin
(O sorrow and shame should this be
true!)

Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So talks as it's inost used to do.

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,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
February, 1798. 1798.

LOVE

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,

Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve:
And she was there, my hope, my joy
My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace
And she forgave me, that I gazed

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
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than
death

The Lady of the Land!

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;

And how she tended him in vain-
And ever strove to expiate

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
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin
shame;

And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stepped-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye

She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace:
And bending back her head, looked up.
And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,

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 boughs so pendulous and fair,
The brook falls scatter'd down the rock:
And all is mossy there!

And there upon the moss she sits,
The Dark Ladié in silent pain;
The heavy tear is in her eye,

And drops and swells again.
Three times she sends her little page
Up the castled mountain's breast,
If he might find the Knight that wears
The Griffin for his crest.

The sun was sloping down the sky,
And she had linger'd there all day,
Counting moments, dreaming fears--
Oh wherefore can he stay?