The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,
And the thin white moon lay withering there,
To tower, and cavern, and rift and tree,
The owl and the bat fled drowsily.
Day had kindled the dewy woods,

And the rocks above and the stream below,
And the vapours in their multitudes,

10

And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow, And clothed with light of aëry gold

15

The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.

Day had awakened all things that be,

The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,
And the milkmaid's song and the mower's scythe,
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee:
Fire-flies were quenched on the dewy corn,
Glow-worms went out on the river's brim,
Like lamps which a student forgets to trim:
The beetle forgot to wind his horn,

The crickets were still in the meadow and hill:
Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun
Night's dreams and terrors, every one,
Fled from the brains which are their prey
From the lamp's death to the morning ray.

All rose to do the task He set to each,

Who shaped us to his ends and not our own; The million rose to learn, and one to teach What none yet ever knew or can be known.

And many rose

Whose woe was such that fear became desire ;—
Melchior and Lionel were not among those;
They from the throng of men had stepped aside,
And made their home under the green hill side.
It was that hill, whose intervening brow

Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye,
Which the circumfluous plain waving below,
Like a wide lake of green fertility,
With streams and fields and marshes bare,

Divides from the far Apennines—which lie
Islanded in the immeasurable air.

"What think you, as she lies in her green cove,
Our little sleeping boat is dreaming_of?"
"If morning dreams are true, why I should guess
That she was dreaming of our idleness,

And of the miles of watery way

We should have led her by this time of day."

"Never mind," said Lionel,

Give care to the winds, they can bear it well
About yon poplar tops; and see

The white clouds are driving merrily,

And the stars we miss this morn will light
More willingly our return to-night.-
How it whistles, Dominic's long black hair!
List my dear fellow; the breeze blows fair:
Hear how it sings into the air."

"Of us and of our lazy motions,"
Impatiently said Melchior,

"If I can guess a boat's emotions;

And how we ought, two hours before.
To have been the devil knows where."
And then, in such transalpine Tuscan
As would have killed a Della-Cruscan,

So, Lionel according to his art

Weaving his idle words, Melchior said:

She dreams that we are not yet out of bed; We'll put a soul into her, and a heart

Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat."

"Ay, heave the ballast overboard,

And stow the eatables in the aft locker."

"Would not this keg be best a little lowered?"
No, now all's right." "Those bottles of warm tea-
(Give me some straw)-must be stowed tenderly;
Such as we used, in summer after six,

To cram in great-coat pockets, and to mix
Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton,

And, couched on stolen hay in those green harbours Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbours, Would feast till eight."

With a bottle in one hand,

As if his very soul were at a stand,

Lionel stood when Melchior brought him steady:-
"Sit at the helm-fasten this sheet-all ready!"

The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,
The living breath is fresh behind,

As with dews and sunrise fed,

Comes the laughing morning wind;-
The sails are full, the boat makes head
Against the Serchio's torrent fierce,
Then flags with intermitting course,

And hangs upon the wave, and stems
The tempest of the . . .

Which fervid from its mountain source
Shallow, smooth and strong doth come,-
Swift as fire, tempestuously

It sweeps into the affrighted sea;
In morning's smile its eddies coil,
Its billows sparkle, toss and boil,
Torturing all its quiet light
Into columns fierce and bright.

The Serchio, twisting forth

Between the marble barriers which it clove
At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm
The wave that died the death which lovers love,
Living in what it sought; as if this spasm
Had not yet past, the toppling mountains cling,
But the clear stream in full enthusiasm
Pours itself on the plain, then wandering

Down one clear path of effluence crystalline,
Sends its superfluous waves, that they may fling
At Arno's feet tribute of corn and wine,
Then, through the pestilential desarts wild

Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted pine,
It rushes to the Ocean.

MUSIC.

I.

I PANT for the music which is divine,
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
Pour forth the sound like inchanted wine,
Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain,
I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.

II.

Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,
More, O more,-I am thirsting yet,

It loosens the serpent which care has bound
Upon my heart to stifle it;

The dissolving strain, through every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.

III.

As the scent of a violet withered up,

Which grew by the brink of a silver lake;
When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup,

And mist there was none its thirst to slake-
And the violet lay dead while the odour flew
On the wings of the wind o'er the waters blue-

IV.

As one who drinks from a charmed cup

Of foaming, and sparkling and murmuring wine, Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up,

Invites to love with her kiss divine.....

SONNET TO BYRON.

[I AM afraid these verses will not please you, but]

If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill
Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair
The ministration of the thoughts that fill

The mind which, like a worm whose life may share
A portion of the unapproachable,

Marks your creations rise as fast and fair
As perfect worlds at the Creator's will.
But such is my regard that nor your power
To soar above the heights where others [climb],
Nor fame, that shadow of the unborn hour
Cast from the envious future on the time,

Move one regret for his unhonoured name

Who dares these words:-the worm beneath the sod May lift itself in homage of the God.

TWO FRAGMENTS ON LOVE.

I.

I FAINT, I perish with my love! I grow
Frail as a cloud whose [splendours] pale
Under the evening's ever-changing glow:
I die like mist upon the gale,

And like a wave under the calm I fail.

II.

Faint with love, the Lady of the South

Lay in the paradise of Lebanon

Under a heaven of cedar boughs; the drought
Of love was on her lips; the light was gene
Out of her eyes.

FRAGMENT.

COME, thou awakener of the spirit's ocean,
Zephyr, whom to thy cloud or cave

No thought can trace! speed with thy gentle motion!

FRAGMENT.

THE gentleness of rain was in the wind