The small, clear, silver lute of the young Fair sister nymphs, who made long years

Ocean. Thy steeds will pause at even, till when Henceforth we will not part. There is

The loud deep calls me home even now All overgrown with trailing odorous plants,

With azure calm out of the emerald Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers,

Which stand for ever full beside my And paved with veinèd emerald, and a

And thee, who art the form they ani- The tears she brought, which yet were

We will entangle buds and flowers and Given and returned; swift shapes and beams sounds, which grow Which twinkle on the fountain's brim, More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind,

and make Strange combinations out of common And, veil by veil, evil and error fall: Such virtue has the cave and place

things,

Like human babes in their brief inno

cence;

around.

[Turning to the Spirit of the Hour. And we will search, with looks and For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains.

words of love,

Ione,

For hidden thoughts, each lovelier than Give her that curvèd shell, which Pro

the last,

Our unexhausted spirits; and like lutes Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind,

Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new,

teus old

Made Asia's nuptial boon, breathing within it

A voice to be accomplished, and which thou

From difference sweet where discord Didst hide in grass under the hollow

Which meet from all the points of Than all thy sisters, this is the mystic

heaven, as bees

From every flower aërial Enna feeds,
At their known island-homes in Himera,
The echoes of the human world, which
tell

Of the low voice of love, almost un-
heard,

shell;

See the pale azure fading into silver
Lining it with a soft yet glowing light:
Looks it not like lulled music sleeping
there?

Spirit. It seems in truth the fairest
shell of Ocean:

And dove-eyed pity's murmured pain, Its sounds must be at once both sweet

From the embrace of beauty, whence And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling

Of which these are the phantoms, cast Thou breathe into the many-folded shell,

on them

The gathered rays which are reality,
Shall visit us, the progeny immortal

Loosening its mighty music; it shall be
As thunder mingled with clear echoes:

then

cave.

Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy, Return; and thou shalt dwell beside our
And arts, tho' unimagined, yet to be.
The wandering voices and the shadows
these

Of all that man becomes, the mediators
Of that best worship love, by him and

us

And thou, O, Mother Earth!-
The Earth.
I hear, I feel;
Thy lips are on me, and thy touch runs
down

Even to the adamantine central gloom

Along these marble nerves; 'tis life, 'tis But to the uncommunicating dead.

joy,

And through my withered, old, and icy frame

The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down

Death is the veil which those who live call life :

They sleep, and it is lifted and meanwhile

In mild variety the seasons mild

Circling. Henceforth the many child- With rainbow - skirted showers, and

ren fair

odorous winds,

Folded in my sustaining arms; all And long blue meteors cleansing the plants, dull night, And creeping forms, and insects rainbow- | And the life-kindling shafts of the keen

sun's

And birds, and beasts, and fish, and All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled

winged,

Which drew disease and pain from my Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence wan bosom, mild,

Draining the poison of despair, shall Shall clothe the forests and the fields,

And spoke, and were oracular, and lured erring nations round to mutual war,

And men and beasts in happy dreams The shall gather

Strength for the coming day, and all its And faithless faith, such as Jove kept joy: with thee; And death shall be the last embrace of Which breath now rises, as amongst tall her

weeds

Who takes the life she gave, even as a A violet's exhalation, and it fills mother With a serener light and crimson air Folding her child, says, "Leave me not Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods again." around;

Asia. Oh, mother! wherefore speak It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine,

the name of death?

Cease they to love, and move, and And the dark linkèd ivy tangling wild, breathe, and speak, And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms

Who die? The Earth. It would avail not to Which star the winds with points of reply: coloured light,

Thou art immortal, and this tongue is As they rain thro' them, and bright golden globes

known

Of fruit, suspended in their own green The lamp which was thine emblem; heaven, even as those And thro' their veinèd leaves and amber Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope

The flowers whose purple and translucid Into the grave, across the night of life,

Who let his lamp out in old time with A light, like a green star, whose emerald

gazing On eyes from which he kindled it anew Are twined with its fair hair! how, as With love, which is as fire, sweet

Trampling the torrent streams and glassy The loveliest of the planets; and some

It made its childish confidence, and told Or other such foul masks, with which her

All it had known or seen, for it saw

much,

ill thoughts

Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man;

Yet idly reasoned what it saw; and And women too, ugliest of all things called her

evil,

For whence it sprung it knew not, nor (Tho' fair, even in a world where thou

May I then play beside thee the long A sentinel was sleeping at the gate:

And happier too; happier and wiser The music pealed along. I hid myself both. Within a fountain in the public square, Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, Where I lay like the reflex of the moon and loathly worms, Seen in a wave under green leaves; and

And venomous and malicious beasts,

and boughs

soon

Those ugly human shapes and visages That bore ill berries in the woods, were Of which I spoke as having wrought me

An hindrance to my walks o'er the Past floating thro' the air, and fading green world: still

And that, among the haunts of human- Into the winds that scattered them ; and kind, those Hard-featured men, or with proud, From whom they past seemed mild and angry looks, lovely forms

Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow | After some foul disguise had fallen, and all

smiles,

Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignor- Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise

ance,