Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered | Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse

on,

Day after day, a weary waste of hours,
Bearing within his life the brooding care
That ever fed on its decaying flame.
And now his limbs were lean; his scat-
tered hair

Sered by the autumn of strange suffering

Sung dirges in the wind; his listless

hand

High over the immeasurable main.

Hung like dead bone within its withered His eyes pursued its flight.-"Thou hast a home,

skin;

Life, and the lustre that consumed it, Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine shone

As in a furnace burning secretly
From his dark eyes alone. The cot-
tagers,

Who ministered with human charity
His human wants, beheld with wonder-
ing awe

Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,

By nature, would interpret half the woe That wasted him, would call him with false names

Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand

urged

His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,

Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.

It rose as he approached, and with strong wings

Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright

course

Encountering on some dizzy precipice
That spectral form, deemed that the
Spirit of wind

With lightning eyes, and eager breath,
and feet

Disturbing not the drifted snow, had
paused

In its career: the infant would conceal
His troubled visage in his mother's robe
In terror at the glare of those wild eyes, Of desperate hope wrinkled his quiver-
To remember their strange light in
many a dream

ing lips.

For sleep, he knew, kept most relent

Of after-times; but youthful maidens, taught

At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path

Of his departure from their father's door.

At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore He paused, a wide and melancholy waste

home,

Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck

With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes

Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy.
And what am I that I should linger
here,

With voice far sweeter than thy dying
notes,
Spirit more vast than thine, frame more
attuned

To beauty, wasting these surpassing
powers

In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven

That echoes not my thoughts?" A gloomy smile

lessly

Its precious charge, and silent death
exposed,
Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy
lure,

With doubtful smile mocking its own
strange charms.

Startled by his own thoughts he looked around.

There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight

Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind.

Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam

Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;

Now pausing on the edge of the riven

As one that in a silver vision floats
Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds
Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly
Along the dark and ruffled waters fled
The straining boat.-A whirlwind swept
it on,
With fierce gusts and precipitating force,
Through the white ridges of the chafed
Higher and higher

sea.

The waves arose.
still
Their fierce necks writhed beneath the
tempest's scourge

Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone Like serpents struggling in a vulture's Among the stars like sunlight, and grasp.

around

Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast

Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves Bursting and eddying irresistibly Descending, and black flood on whirl- | Rage and resound for ever. --Who shall pool driven

save?-

wave;

Now leaving far behind the bursting

mass

That fell, convulsing ocean. Safely fled

As if that frail and wasted human form,
Had been an elemental god.
At midnight
The moon arose: and lo! the ethereal
cliffs

The boat fled on,-the boiling torrent Seized by the sway of the ascending drove,

stream,

The crags closed round with black and With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, jagged arms, and round, The shattered mountain overhung the Ridge after ridge the straining boat

sea,

arose,

Till on the verge of the extremest curve, Where, through an opening of the rocky bank, The little boat was driven. A cavern The waters overflow, and a smooth spot there Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides Yawned, and amid its slant and wind- Is left, the boat paused shuddering.ing depths Shall it sink The boat

Down the abyss? Shall the reverting

Ingulphed the rushing sea. fled on

stress

And faster still, beyond all human speed,
Suspended on the sweep of the smooth

wave,

With unrelaxing speed.
Love!'

•

- Vision and Of that resistless gulph embosom it? Now shall it fall?-A wandering stream of wind,

The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheld

The path of thy departure.

Sleep and

death

Shall not divide us long!'

The boat pursued The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone

At length upon that gloomy river's flow;
Now, where the fiercest war among the

waves

Is calm, on the unfathomable stream The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,

Exposed those black depths to the azure
sky,

Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell
Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound
That shook the everlasting rocks, the

Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,

And, lo! with gentle motion, between banks

Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark!

The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar, With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.

Where the embowering trees recede, and leave

A little space of green expanse, the cove
Is closed by meeting banks, whose
yellow flowers

For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes,
Reflected in the crystal calm. The

wave

Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,

mass

Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm;

Which nought but vagrant bird, or
wanton wind,

Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,
Circling immeasurably fast, and laved
With alternating dash the gnarlèd roots
Of mighty trees, that stretched their Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet

Or falling spear-grass, or their own
decay

giant arms

longed

In darkness over it. I' the midst was To deck with their bright hues his
left,
withered hair,
Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud,
A pool of treacherous and tremendous
calm.

But on his heart its solitude returned,
And he forebore. Not the strong im-

pulse hid

In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and These twine their tendrils with the shadowy frame

wedded boughs

Uniting their close union; the woven leaves

Had yet performed its ministry: it hung
Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud
Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the
floods
Of night close over it.

Make net-work of the dark blue light of day,

And the night's noontide clearness, mutable

The noonday sun Now shone upon the forest, one vast

As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns

mass

Of mingling shade, whose brown mag- Beneath these canopies extend their nificence

swells,

A narrow vale embosoms.

caves,

Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever.

There, huge Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms Scooped in the dark base of their aëry|| Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen rocks Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine, A soul-dissolving odour, to invite The meeting boughs and implicated To some more lovely mystery. Through leaves

Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led
By love, or dream, or god, or mightier
Death,

He sought in Nature's dearest haunt,
some bank,

Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark

And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,

Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
Embraces the light beech.
The pyra-

mids Of the tall cedar overarching frame Most solemn domes within, and far below,

Of azure sky, darting between their
chasms;

Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves
Its portraiture, but some inconstant star

Like clouds suspended in an emerald Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,

sky,

Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the

The ash and the acacia floating hang Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed

In rainbow and in fire, the parasites, Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around

the dell,

Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep

Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,

Like vaporous shapes half seen; beyond, a well,

Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent

wave,

Images all the woven boughs above, And each depending leaf, and every speck

The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,

With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,

moon,

Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
Have spread their glories to the gaze of

noon.

His eyes

Hither the Poet came.
beheld

Their own wan light through the re
flected lines

Fold their beams round the hearts of Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark those that love,

depth

Of that still fountain; as the human Then through the plain in tranquil heart,

wanderings crept,

Reflecting every herb and drooping bud
That overhung its quietness.-'O stream!
Whose source is inaccessibly profound,

The motion of the leaves, the grass that Whither do thy mysterious waters tend? Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,

Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,
Sees its own treacherous likeness there.
He heard

sprung

Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel

An unaccustomed presence, and the sound

Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs

Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed

To stand beside him-clothed in no bright robes

Of shadowy silver or enshrining light, Borrowed from aught the visible world affords

Of grace, or majesty, or mystery ;-
But undulating woods, and silent well,
And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom
Now deepening the dark shades, for
speech assuming,

Held commune with him, as if he and it
Were all that was,-only

his regard

Was raised by intense pensiveness,

Beside the grassy shore when Of the small stream he went; he did impress

.. On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught

two eyes,

Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one

thought,

the couch

And seemed with their serene and azure Roused by some joyous madness from smiles To beckon him.

Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulphs,

Thy searchless fountain, and invisible

course

Have each their type in me: and the wide sky,

And measureless ocean may declare as

Obedient to the light That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing

soon

What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud

Contains thy waters, as the universe Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched

Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste

I' the passing wind !'

Of fever, he did move; yet not like him
Forgetful of the grave, where, when
the flame

Of his frail exultation shall be spent,
He must descend. With rapid steps

The windings of the dell.-The rivulet Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine

he went Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow

Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now it fell The forest's solemn canopies were changed

Among the moss with hollow harmony Dark and profound. Now on the For the uniform and lightsome evening polished stones

sky.

It danced; like childhood laughing as Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed

it went :