LAST CHORUS OF 'HELLAS.'

The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,

The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn:

Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;

A new Peneus rolls his fountains

Against the morning star;

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

Oh write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be-
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free,
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if nought so bright may live,
All earth can take or heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than one who rose,
Than many unsubdued:

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.

Oh cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy!

The world is weary of the past,—

Oh might it die or rest at last!

LINES.

I.

When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead; When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed;

When the lute is broken, Sweet notes are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot.

II.

As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute :-
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind in a ruined cell,

Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

(1822.)

III.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possessed.
O Love, who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

IV.

Its passions will rock thee,

As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee,

Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter

Will rot, and thine eagle home

Leave thee naked to laughter

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

TO JANE--THE RECOLLECTION.

I.

We wandered to the pine-forest

That skirts the ocean's foam;

The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,

And on the bosom of the deep

The smile of heaven lay;

It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,

Which scattered from above the sun
A light of paradise.

(1822.)

II.

We paused amid the pines that stood, The giants of the waste,

Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,

And soothed, by every azure breath
That under heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own;

Now all the tree-tops lay asleep
Like green waves on the sea,

As still as in the silent deep
The ocean-woods may be.

III.

How calm it was!-The silence there By such a chain was bound,

That even the busy woodpecker

Made stiller with her sound

The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew

With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.

There seemed, from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain-waste,

To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,-

A spirit interfused around,
A thrilling silent life :

To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal nature's strife.

And still, I felt, the centre of

The magic circle there

Was one fair form that filled with love The lifeless atmosphere.

IV.

We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest-bough.

Each seemed as 't were a little sky
Gulfed in a world below:

A firmament of purple light

Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day-

In which the lovely forests grew
As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.

There lay the glade, the neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark-green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen,

Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green;

And all was interfused beneath
With an elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.

Like one beloved, the scene had lent

To the dark water's breast

Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth expressed;

Until an envious wind crept by,-
Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from the mind's too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.

Though thou art ever fair and kind,

And forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind
Than calm in water seen.

(February 2, 1822.)