TO THE MUSE.

:

Then let dumb nature in that plea rejoice,

Of age have robb’d thee of thy warlike charms, But be not thou to that dominion brought: And plac'd thee here, an image in my rhyme; For speech in thee, some men’s disparagement, The owl now haunts thee, and, oblivion's plant, Thy purer gifts with glory shall augment.

The creeping ivy, has o’er-veil'd thy towers;

And Rother, looking up with eye askant, In Parian marble of divinest price,

Recalling to his mind thy brighter hours, In fairest gems, in silver and in gold,

Laments the time, when, fair and elegant, In flow'ry sweets, that have been steeped thrice Beauty first laugh'd from out thy joyous bowers!

In Phæbus' beams, and now his image hold, In fountains, and in woods, in beauteous meads, In palaces of pomp, and love withal,

THE TEMPLES OF VENUS AND MARS. In scooped chariots, and in fiery steeds, I am, indeed, most rich and prodigal !

First, in the chapel of the Paphian queen, The Sun cannot behold a greater lord,

Wrought on the wall, there may by you be seen Nor doth the eye of Jove survey a man,

A sight indeed full piteous to behold, Whose fortune can such boundless wealth afford,

The broken sleep; and the sighs deadly cold; E'er since the artificial world began :

The sacred tears; the wailings, a whole quire; Thy face, which faults Olympus, is to me

The fiery strokes of the unrein'd desire ;
This orbed World, and Nature's treasury!

All, that love's servants in this world endure;
And all the oaths their covenants assure;

Pleasure; and hope ; desire ; fool-hardiness; Daughter of Jove, encircled by the Hours,

Beauty; and youth; and purchas'd wantonness; The warbling Spring comes dancing from the gate

Gold; charms; and force; and lies; and flattery: Of Heaven, and, ripe in majesty and state,

And waste expense; bus'ness; and jealousy, Pours from her golden ewer the purpling flowers

Upon whose head a golden sun-flower bland, On mead, on mountain, on the hallow'd marge

And the false cuckoo sate upon her hand; Of sacred rivers ; and the Mermaid chants

Feasts; instruments; and carols; and ripe dances; The seas into a calm ; and the wood-haunts

Lust; and array; and all the circumstances Of coy Diana 'echo all at large

Of Love; that I may reckon, and reckon on With the smooth songs of Philomel : awake,

Till the mid-summer, and yet ne'er have done; Daughter of Heaven, and blameless memory;

All these were painted the fresh wall upon, Put on thy flowery sandals, and uptake

And more than I can tell to any one; Thy golden rod, beloved of the Sky!

For Mount Cithæron was depicted there, And with a tongue, like vernal thunder, make

Where Venus hath her princely dwelling fair. Virtue the heir of immortality!

All the world glow'd with the delightful place,

The fount, eye, soul of passion and of grace; TO A BIRD THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LAKEN There was the garden, and the lustiness:

Be sure they not forgot the porter, Idleness; O melancholy bird, a winter's day,

Nor fair Narcissus, that from love is gone;
Thou standest by the margin of the pool;

Nor yet the folly of King Solomon;
And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school Nor strength of Hercules, that tore hell up;
To patience, which all evil can allay:

Nor Circe, nor Medea's charmed cup;
God has appointed thee the fish thy prey;

Nor Turnus, and his hard and fiery rage; And giv’n thyself a lesson to the fool

Nor golden Cræsus in the Persian cage: Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule,

By which it may be seen, that neither gold, And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. Nor stronger wisdom, nor the courage bold,

There need not schools, nor the professor's chair, Nor strength, nor art, nor beauty's powerful face, Though these be good, true wisdom to impart:

Can hold with Venus any equal pace : He, who has not enough for these to spare, What party in her realm have they, who rules Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart,

The rolling world, and makes all people fools; And teach his soul by brooks and rivers fair: Such as these were, who in her snare were caught, Nature is always wise in every part.

And often cried, “ Alas!" and all for nought:
And these examples may suffice; although

Ten thousands more may date from her their woe.
ON BEHOLDING BODIHAM CASTLE,
ON THE BANK OF THE ROTHER, IN SUSSEX.

The froth-born Goddess, ravishing to see, O thou, brave ruin of the passed time,

Was naked, fleeting in the ample sea; When glorious spirits shone in burning arms, And, downwards from the waist, was hid from sight

And the brave trumpet, with its sweet alarms, By the green waves, as any crystal bright:
Call’d honour! at the matin hour sublime,

A citole in her right hand softly held;
And the grey ev'ning; thou hast had thy prime, And on her head, a type of summer swellid

And thy full vigour, and the eating harms And blush'd like fire, aad like all Eden smellid,

IN THE WINTER.

A garland of the rose; and a white pair

Every great pillar of this house of war
Of doves above her flicker'd in the air:

Was tun-great, of bright iron blazing far.
And her son, Cupid, stood before her feet ;
Two wings upon his shoulders, fair and fleet, There saw I first the dark imagining
And blind as night, as he is often seen:

Of felony, and all the compassing ;
A bow he bare, and arrows bright and keen. The cruel ire, as red as burning coal;

The pick-purse; and pale fear, with ghastly soul; And now to tell you, on the westward side,

The smiler, with the knife under the cloke; What colours the great painters did provide, The stables burning with the pitchy smoke; What portraiture upon the wall was spread, The treason of the murdering of the bed ; Within the temple of grim Mars the red ;

The open war, whose wounds for ever bled; All painted was the wall, in dismal grace,

Contest with bloody knife, and menace keen, Like to the inward of the grisly place,

And full of scritching cries the doleful scene; Calld the great temple of the God in Thrace, The slayer of himself then saw I there, Where Mars his sovereign mansion still doth hold, His own heart-blood had bathed all his hair; In frosty regions and eternal cold.

The nail, too, driven in the skull at night;

The cold death with the gaping mouth upright; A forest on the wall was there exprest

Amidst of all the temple sate Mischance, In which there never wons nor man nor beast, With great discomfort, and pale countenance ; With knotty, knarry, barren trees, right old, And saw I Madness, laughing in his ire ; And sharp with stubs, and hideous to behold, Armed Complaint; Outery; and fierce Desire Where, like the thunder, ran a rumble through, Of fiery outrage; in the bushes put, As though a storm would break down ev'ry bough, I saw the corpse of him whose throat was cut; And downward, (and a savage hill o'erbent,) And flow'd the crimson blood on slaughter's bed, There stood the fane of Mars armipotent;

A thousand slain, and not of sickness dead; Wrought all of burned steel : the entrance keen The tyrant with his prey from subject reft; Was long, and strait, and ghastly to be seen; The town destroy'd, and not a rafter left; And thereout came a rage, and air, God knows, The burnt ships dancing on the waves I saw; The gates from their great hinges heav'd and rose: The hunter strangled in the wild bear's paw; The northern liglit in at the door there shone; The child, eat by the fretting sow in cradle; For window on the massy wall was none,

The cook, too, scalded, maugre his long ladle; Through which men might the open light discern: And every mortal act in every part; The door was all of adamant eterne,

The carter, over-ridden with his cart, And clenched overthwart, and end-ways long, Under the wheel full low he lay adown. With iron tough, and, for to make it strong,

JOHN KEATS.

Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;

Be still the unimaginable lodge
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress

For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken; Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
hearken

That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
The dreary melody of bedded reeds

Gives it a touch ethereal-a new birth:
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds Be still a symbol of immensity ;
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth ;

A firmament reflected in a sea;
Bethinking thee, bow melancholy loth

An element filling the space between ;
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx-do thou now, An unknown-but no more: we humbly screen
By thy love's milky brow!

With uplift hands our foreheads lowly bending,
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,

And giving out a shout most heaven-rending, Hear us, great Pan !

Conjure thee to receive our humble Pæan,

Upon thy Mount Lycean!" “ Othou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles Passion their voices cooingly among myrtles,

Ever while they brought the burden to a close, What time thou wanderest at eventide

A shout from the whole multitude arose,
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom

Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow-girted bees Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Their golden honeycombs ; our village-leas Young companies nimbly began dancing
Their fairest blossom'd beans and poppied corn; To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn, Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries To tunes forgotten-out of memory:

[bred Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies

Fair creatures! whose young children's children
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year Thermopylæ its heroes not yet dead,
All its completions—be quickly near,

But in old marbles ever beautiful.
By every wind that nods the mountain-pine,
O forester divine !

THE MOON.
“ Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service: whether to surprise

By the feud
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit; 'Twixt nothing and Creation, I here swear,
Or upward ragged precipices flit

Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister fair
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw ; Is of all these the gentlier mightiest.
Or by mysterious enticement draw

When thy gold breath is misting in the west,
Bewilder'd shepherds to their path again;

She unobserved steals unto her throne,
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main, And there she sits most meek and most alone;
And gather up all fancifullest shells

As if she had not pomp subservient;
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,

As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping ; Towards her with the Muses in thine heart;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,

As if the ministring stars kept not apart,
The while they pelt each other on the crown Waiting for silver-footed messages.
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown- O Moon! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees
By all the echoes that about thee ring,

Feel palpitations when thou lookest in:
Hear O satyr king!

O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din

The while they feel thine airy fellowship. “ O Hearkener to the loud-clapping shears, Thou dost bless every where with silver lip, While ever and anon to his shorn peers

Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine,
A ram goes bleating : Winder of the horn,

Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine:
When snouted wild boars routing tender corn Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,
Anger our huntsmen : Breather round our farms, Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes ;
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms : And yet thy benediction passeth not
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,

One obscure hiding place, one little spot
That come a swooning over hollow grounds, Where pleasure may be sent: the nested wren
And wither drearily on barren moors :

Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken,
Dread opener of the mysterious doors

And from beneath a sheltering ivy-leaf Leading to universal knowledge-see,

Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a relief Great son of Dryope,

To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps The many that are come to pay their vows

Within its pearly house.—The mighty deeps, With leaves about their brows!

The monstrous sea is thine-the myriad sea!

us,

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O Moon! far-spooming Ocean bows to thee,

With long-forgotten story, and wherein And Tellus feels his forehead's cumbrous load. No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin

But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls, Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine

Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rade
Such utmost beauty? Alas! thou dost pine In ponderous stone, developing the mood
For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale

Of ancient Nox;—then skeletons of man,
For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh? And elephant and eagle, and huge jaw
Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye, Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe
Or what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo!

These secrets struck into him; and unless
How chang'd, how full of ache, how gone in woe! Dian had chac'd away that heaviness,
She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness

He might have died: but now, with cheered feel, Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,

About the labyrinth in his soul of love.
Dancing upon the waves, as if to please
The curly foam with amorous influence.

“What is there in thee, Moon! that thou should's O, not so idle : for down-glancing thence

My heart so potently? When yet a child (move She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about

I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil'd. O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out

Thou seem'dst my sister; hand in hand we went The thorny sharks from hiding-holes,and frightning From eve to morn across the firmament. Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning. No apples would I gather from the tree, Where will the splendor be content to reach ? Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously: O love! how potent hast thou been to teach No tumbling water ever spake romance, Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells, But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance: In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells,

No woods were green enough, no bower divine, In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,

Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine: Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won. In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take, Amid his toil thou gav'st Leander breath ;

Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death; And, in the summer-tide of blossoming,
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;

No one but thee hath heard me blithely sing
And now, O winged Chieftain, thou hast sent And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.
A moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world, No melody was like a passing spright
To find Endymion.

If it went not to solemnize thy reign.

Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain
On gold sand impearl'd

By thee were fashion’d to the self-same end;
With lily shells, and pebbles milky white,

And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her light With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen; Against his pallid face: he felt the charm

Thou wast the mountain-top—the sage's penTo breathlessness, and suddenly a warm

The poet's harp—the voice of friends—the sun; Of his heart's blood : 'twas very sweet; he stay'd Thou wast the river—thou wast glory won; His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid Thou wast my clarion's blast—thou wast my steedHis bead upon a tuft of straggling weeds,

My goblet full of wine-my topmost deed :To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads, Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon! Lash'd from the crystal roof by fishes' tails.

O what a wild and harmonized tune And so he kept until the rosy veils

My spirit struck from all the beautiful!
Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand On some bright essence could I lean, and lull
Were lifted from the water's breast, and fann'd Myself to immortality.
Into sweet air; and sober'd morning came
Meekly through billows:-when like taper-flame
Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,

THE INDIAN LADY'S SONG.
He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare
Along his fated way.

“O Sorrow,

Why dost borrow
Far had he roam'd,

The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips? With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd

To give maiden blushes Above, around, and at his feet; save things

To the white rose bushes ?
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:

Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips ?
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;

“O Sorrow, Rudders that for a hundred years had lost

Why dost borrow
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd The lustrous passion from a falcon eye -