GENEVIEVE.

MAID of my love, sweet Genevieve!
In beauty's light you glide along:
Your eye is like the star of eve,
And sweet your voice as seraph's song.
Yet not your heavenly beauty gives
This heart with passion soft to glow:
Within your soul a voice there lives!
It bids you hear the tale of woe:
When sinking low, the sufferer wan
Beholds no hand outstretched to save,
Fair as the bosom of the swan
That rises graceful o'er the wave,
I've seen your breast with pity heave,
And therefore love I you, sweet Gene-
vieve !

A DAY-DREAM.

My eyes make pictures when they're shut:

I see a fountain large and fair, A willow and a ruined hut,

And thee, and me, and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow!

Bend o'er us like a bower, my beautiful green willow!

A wild rose roofs the ruined shed,
And that and summer will agree;
And lo! where Mary leans her head

Two dear names carved upon the tree! And Mary's tears, they are not tears of

sorrow:

Our sister and our friends will both be here to-morrow.

'Twas day! But now, few, large, and bright,

The stars are round the crescent moon! And now it is a dark, warm night,

The balmiest of the month of June. A glow-worm fallen, and on the marge remounting

Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain!

Oh, ever, ever be thou blest!

For dearly, Nora, love I thee! This brooding warmth across my breast,

This depth of tranquil bliss-ah, me! Fount, tree, and shed are gone- I know not whither;

But in one quiet room, we three are stil} together.

The shadows dance upon the wall,

By the still-dancing fire-flames made; And now they slumber, moveless all!

And now they melt to one deep shade! But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee:

I dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel thee.

Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play; 'Tis Mary's hand upon my brow! But let me check this tender lay, Which none may hear but she and thou!

Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming,

Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women!

THE HAPPY HUSBAND.

OFT, oft methinks, the while with thee I breath, as from the heart, thy dear And dedicated name, I hear

A promise and a mystery,

A pledge of more than passing life,
Yea, in that very name of wife!

A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep! A feeling that upbraids the heart With happiness beyond desert, That gladness half requests to weep! Nor bless I not the keener sense And unalarming turbulence

Of transient joys that ask no sting

From jealous fears, or coy denying; But born beneath love's brooding wing And into tenderness soon dying, Wheel out their giddy moment, then Resign the soul to love again.

A DREAM.

A FRAGMENT.

[IN the summer of the year 1797, the author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farmhouse between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effect of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in "Purchas's Pilgrimage": "Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto: and thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall." The author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter.

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

The shadow of the dome of plea

sure

Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled

measure

From the fountain and the caves, It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of

ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould
win me,

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of
ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY. AN ALLEGORY.

ON the wide level of a mountain's head, (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place)

Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread,

Two lovely children run an endless race,

A sister and a brother!

That far outstripped the other;
Yet ever runs she with reverted face,
And looks and listens for the boy be-
hind:

For he, alas! is blind!

O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed,

And knows not whether he be first or last.

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 leaned 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!

And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved- she stept aside,
As conscious of my look she stept
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.

THE EOLIAN HARP.

[Composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire.]

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined

Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is

To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown With white-flowered jasmin, and the broad-leaved myrtle,

(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)

And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,

Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve

Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be)

Shine opposite! How exquisite the

scents

Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!

The stilly murmur o' the distant sea Tells us of silence. And that simplest lute,

Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!

How by the desultory breeze caressed, Like some coy maid half-yielding to her lover,

It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs

Tempt to repeat the wrong! and now, its strings

Boldlier swept, the long sequacious

notes

Over delicious surges sink and rise,

Such a soft floating witchery of sound As twilight Elfins make, when they at

eve

Voyage on gentle gales from FairyLand,

Where melodies round honey-dropping flowers,

Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,

Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!

O! the one life, within us and abroad, Which meets all motion, and becomes its soul,

A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,

Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere.

Methinks, it should have been impossible

Not to love all things in a world so filled,

Where the breeze warbles and the mute still air

Is Music slumbering on her instrument! And thus, my love! as on the midway slope

Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at

noon,

Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold

The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,

And tranquil muse upon tranquillity; Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,

And many idle flitting phantasies, Traverse my indolent and passive brain,

As wild and various as the random gales

That swell and flutter on this subject lute!

And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps

Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,

At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

But thy more serious eye a mild re

proof

Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts

Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,

And biddest me walk humbly with my God.

Meek daughter in the family of Christ! Well hast thou said and holily dispraised

These shapings of the unregenerate mind,

Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break