Most exquisite it was indeed to see
How those blithe damsels guided variously,
Before, behind, beside. Some forward stood
As in well-managed chariots, or pursued
Their trusting way as in self-moving ones;
And some sat up, or as in tilted chair
With silver back seemed slumbering through the air,
Or leaned their cheek against a pillowy place
As if upon their smiling, sleepy face
They felt the air, or heard aerial tunes.
Some were like maids who sit to wash their feet
On rounded banks beside a rivulet;
Some sat in shade beneath a curving jut
As at a small hill's foot;
And some behind upon a sunny mound
With twinkling eyes. Another only shewed
On the far side a foot and leg, that glowed
Under the cloud; a sweeping back another,
Turning her from us like a suckling mother;
She next, a side, lifting her arms to tie
Her locks into a flowing knot; and she
That followed her, a smooth down-arching thigh
Tapering with tremulous mass internally.
Others lay partly sunk, as if in bed,
Shewing a white raised bosom and dark head,
And dropping out an arm.
A little from itsEvery lady bowed
A little from its side without a word,
And swept my lids with breathless lips serene,
As Alan's mouth was stooped to by a Queen.
And hey, what's this? the walls, look,
Are wrinkling as a skin does;
And now they are bent
To a silken tent,
And there are chrystal windows;
And look! there's a balloon love!
Round and bright as the moon above.
Now we loosen—now—take care;
What a spring from earth was there!
Like an angel mounting fierce,
We have shot the night with a pierce;
And the moon, with slant-up beam,
Makes our starting faces gleam.
Lovers below will stare at the sight,
And talk of the double moon last night.
Then tea made by one, who although my wife she be,
If Jove were to drink it, would soon be his Hebe,
Then silence a little, a creeping twilight,
Then an egg for your supper with lettuces white,
And a moon and friend's arm to go home with at night.
Now this I call passing a few devout hours,
Beseeming a world that has friendship and flowers,
That has lips also, made for still more than to chat to,
And if it has rain, has a rainbow for that too!
You'll guess why I can't see the snow-covered streets,
Without thinking of you and your visiting feats!
When you call to remembrance how you and one more,
When I wanted it most, used to knock at my door.
For when the sad winds told us rain would come down,
Or snow upon snow fairly clogged up the town,
And dun yellow fogs brooded over it's white,
So that scarcely a being was seen towards night,
Then, then said the lady yclept near and dear!
"Now mind what I tell you,—the L.'s will be here."
So I poked up the flame, and she got out the tea!
And down we both sat, as prepared as could be!
And there, sure as fate, came the knock of you two,
Then the lanthorn, the laugh, and the "Well, how d'ye do?"
Then your palm tow'rds the fire, and your face turned to me,
And shawls and great-coats being—where they should be,—
And due "never saw's" being paid to the weather,
We cherished our knees, and sat sipping together,
And leaving the world to the fogs and the fighters,
Discussed the pretensions of all sorts of writers.
O Spirit, O muse of mine,
Frank, and quick-dimpled to all social glee,
And yet most sylvan of the earnest Nine,
Who on the fountain-shedding hill,
Leaning about among the clumpy bays
Look at the clear Apollo while he plays;—
Take me, now, now, and let me stand
On some such lovely land,
Where I may feel me, as I please,
In dells among the trees,
Or on some outward slope, with ruffling hair,
Be level with the air;
For a new smiling sense has shot down through me,
And from the clouds, like stars, bright eyes are beckoning to me.
There lie they, lulled by little whiffling tones
Of rills among the stones,
Or by the rounder murmur, glib and flush,
Of the escaping gush,
That laughs and tumbles, like a conscious thing,
For joy of all its future travelling.
The lizard circuits them; and his grave will
The frog, with reckoning leap, enjoys apart,
Till now and then the woodcock frights his heart
With brushing down to dip his dainty bill.
And lo, there issued from beside the trees,
Through the blue air, a most delicious sight,
A troop of clouds, rich, separate, three parts white,
As beautiful as pigeons that one sees
Round a glad homestead reeling at their ease,
But large, and slowly; and what made the sight
Such as I say, was not that piled white,
Nor their more rosy backs, nor forward press
Like sails, nor yet their surfy massiveness
Light in it's plenitude, like racks of snow.
As they stooped them near,
Lo, I could hear
How the smooth silver clouds, lasping with care,
Make a bland music to the fawning air,
Filling with such a roundly-slipping tune
The hollow of the great attentive noon,
That the tall sky seemed touched; and all the trees
Thrilled with the coming harmonies;
And the fair waters looked as if they lay
Their cheek against the sound, and so went kissed away.
You finer people of the earth,
Nymphs of all names, and woodland Geniuses,
I see you, here and there, among the trees,
Shrouded in noon-day respite of your mirth:
This hum in air, which the still ear perceives,
Is your unquarrelling voice among the leaves;
And now I find, whose are the laughs and stirrings
That make the delicate birds dart so in whisks and whirrings.
Then northward what a range,—with heath and pond,
Nature's own ground; woods that let mansions through,
And cottaged vales with pillowy fields beyond,
And clump of darkening pines, and prospects blue,
And that clear path through all, where daily meet
Cool cheeks, and brilliant eyes, and morn-elastic feet.
Thrice did great Hector drag him by the feet
Backward, and loudly shouted to the Trojans;
And thrice did the Ajaces, springy-strength'd,
Thrust him away; yet still he kept the ground,
Sure of his strength; and now and then rushed on
Into the thick, and now and then stood still,
Shouting great shouts; and not an inch gave he.
To walk in his anguish about the green places,
And see where his mistress lay dreaming of Acis.
I fancy him now, coming just where she sleeps;
He parts the close hawthorns, and hushes, and creeps;—
The moon slips from under the dark clouds, and throws
A light, through the leaves, on her smiling repose.
There, there she lies, bower'd;—a slope for her bed;
One branch, like a hand, reaches over her head;
Half naked, half shrinking, with side-swelling grace,
A crook's 'twixt her bosom, and crosses her face,—
The crook of her shepherd; and close to her lips
Lies the Pan-pipe he blows, which in sleeping she sips;—
The giant's knees totter, with passions diverse;
Ah, how can he bear it! Ah! what could be worse!
He's ready to cry out, for anguish of heart:
And tears himself off, lest she wake with a start.
'Tis well you think me truly one of those
Whose sense discerns the loveliness of things, &c.
A crown of ivy!—I submit my head
To the young hand that gives it—young, 'tis true,
But with a right, for 'tis a poet's too.
How pleasant the leaves feel!! and how they spread
With their broad angles, like a nodding shed
Over both eyes!! and how complete and new,
As on my hand I lean, to feel them strew
My sense with freshness, Fancy's rustling bed!
It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind,
Thus to be topped with leaves; to have a sense
Of honour-shaded thought—an influence
As from great nature's fingers, and be twined
With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind,
As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence,
A head that bows to her benevolence,
Midst pomp of fancied trumpets in the wind!!!!
'Tis what's within us crowned.
To John Hamilton Reynolds,
On his Lines upon the Story of Rimini.
Reynolds, whose Muse, from out thy gentle embraces,
Holding a little crisp and dewy flower,
Came to me in my close-entwined bower.
Where many fine-eyed Friendships and glad Graces,
Parting the boughs, have looked in with like faces.
And thanked the song which had sufficient power
With Phœbus to bring back a warmer hour,
And turn his southern eye to our green places.
To ——— ———, M. D.
On his giving me a Lock of Milton's Hair.
I felt my spirit leap, and look at thee
Through my changed colour with glad grateful stare,
When after shewing us this glorious hair,
Thou didst turn short, and bending pleasantly
With gracious hand gav'st the great lock to me!!
An honouring gift indeed! which I will wear
About me, while I breathe this strenuous air,
That nursed his Apollonian tresses free.
"The force of nature could no farther go—
To make one Fool, she joined the other two."