Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march When the powers of the air are chain'd to my chair, The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, I am the daughter of earth and water, I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; For after the rain, when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. AN EXHORTATION. CHAMELEONS feed on light and air; Poets' food is love and fame : If in this wide world of care Poets could but find the same With as little toil as they, Would they ever change their hue Poets are on this cold earth, As chameleons might be, Where light is, chameleons change; Yet dare not stain with wealth or power MUTABILITY. THE flower that smiles to-day All that we wish to stay, Virtue, how frail it is! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy and all Which ours we call. Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou-and from thy sleep TO NIGHT. SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, Blind with thine hair the eyes of day, When I arose and saw the dawn, When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary day turned to his rest, Thy brother, Death, came, and cried, Thy sweet child, Sleep, thy filmy-eyed, Death will come when thou art dead, Sleep will come when thou art fled; TO A SKYLARK. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, Like a poet hidden Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view : Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves : Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine : I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus Hymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Match'd with thine would be all But an empty vaunt— |