Their interspaces, counterchanged
The level lake with diamond-plots
Of dark and bright. A lovely time,
For it was in the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschiq.

Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead,
Distinct with vivid stars inlaid,
Grew darker from that under-flame:
So, leaping lightly from the boat,
With silver anchor left afloat,
In marvel whence that glory came
Upon me, as in sleep I sank

In cool soft turf upon the bank,
Entranced with that place and time,
So worthy of the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Thence thro' the garden I was drawn-
A realm of pleasance, many a mound,
And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn
Full of the city's stilly sound,

And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round
The stately cedar, tamarisks,
Thick rosaries of scented thorn,
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks
Graven with emblems of the time,
In honor of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

With dazed vision unawares
From the long alley's latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat.
Right to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad-based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,

After the fashion of the time,
And humor of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

The fourscore windows all alight
As with the quintessence of flame,
A million tapers flaring bright
-From twisted silvers look'd to shame
The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd
Upon the mooned domes aloof
In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd
Hundreds of crescents on the roof

Of night new-risen, that marvellous time,
To celebrate the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Then stole I up, and trancedly
Gazed on the Persian girl alone,
Serene with argent-lidded eyes
Amorous, and lashes like to rays
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl
Tressed with redolent ebony.
In many a dark delicious curl,
Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone;
The sweetest lady of the time,
Well worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Six columns, three on either side,
Pure silver, underpropt a rich
Throne of the massive ore, from which
Down-droop'd in many a floating fold,
Engarlanded and diaper'd

With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold.
Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd
With merriment of kingly pride,

Sole star of all that place and time,
I saw him-in his golden prime,
THE GOOD HAROUN ALEASCHID!

ODE TO MEMORY.

1.

THOU who stealest fire,

From the fountains of the past, To glorify the present; oh, haste, Visit my low desire! Strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory.

2.

Come not as thou camest of late, Flinging the gloom of yesternight

On the white day; but robed in soften'd light
Of orient state.

Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,
Even as a maid, whose stately brow
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd,
When she, as thou,

Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall star

The black earth with brilliance rare.

3.

Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,

And with the evening cloud,

Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast, (Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind Never grow sere,

When rooted in the garden of the mind,
Because they are the earliest of the year).
Nor was the night thy shroud.

In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.
The eddying of her garments caught from thee
The light of thy great presence; and the cope
Of the half-attain'd futurity,

Though deep not fathomless,

Was cloven with the million stars which tremble
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
Small thought was there of life's distress;
For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful ·
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,
Listening the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years.

O strengthen me, enlighten me!

I faint in this obscurity,

Thou dewy dawn of memory.

4.

Come forth I charge thee, arise,

Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes!
Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines
Unto mine inner eye,
Divinest Memory!

Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall

Which ever sounds and shines

A pillar of white light upon the wall

Of purple cliffs, aloof descried:

Come from the woods that belt the gray hillside,

The seven elms, the poplars four

That stand beside my father's door,

And chiefly from the brook that loves
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,
The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland.
O hither lead thy feet!

Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,
Upon the ridged wolds,

When the first matin-song hath waken'd loud
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,
What time the amber morn

Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.

5.

Large dowries doth the raptured eye To the young spirit present

When first she is wed;

And like a bride of old

In triumph led,

With music and sweet showers

Of festal flowers,

Unto the dwelling she must sway.
Well hast thou done, great artist Memory,
In setting round thy first experiment
With royal frame-work of wrought gold;
Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,
And foremost in thy various gallery

Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls
Upon the storied walls;

For the discovery

And newness of thine art so pleased thee,
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest
Or boldest since, but lightly weighs
With thee unto the love thou bearest
The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like,
Ever retiring thou dost gaze

On the prime labor of thine early days:
No matter what the sketch might be;

Whether the high field on the bushless Pike,
Or even a sand-built ridge

Of heaped hills that mound the sea,
Overblown with murmurs harsh,

Or even a lowly cottage whence we see

Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh, Where from the frequent bridge,

Like emblems of infinity,

The trenched waters run from sky to sky; Or a garden bower'd close

With plaited alleys of the trailing rose,

Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,

Or opening upon level plots

Of crowned lilies, standing near

Purple-spiked lavender;

Whither in after life retired

From brawling storms,

From weary wind,

With youthful fancy reinspired,

We may hold converse with all forms

Of the many-sided mind,

And those whom passion hath not blinded, Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded,

My friend, with you to live alone,

Were how much better than to own

A crown, a sceptre, and a throne!

O strengthen me, enlighten me!

I faint in this obscurity,

Thou dewy dawn of memory.

SONG. 1.

A SPIRIT haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:

To himself he talks;

For at eventide, listening earnestly,

At his work you may hear him sob and sigh In the walks;

Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks

Of the mouldering flowers:

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

2.

The air is damp, and hush'd, and close,
As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;

My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,

And the breath

Of the fading edges of box beneath, And the year's last rose.

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly,
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

ADELINE.
1.

MYSTERY of mysteries,

Faintly smiling Adeline, Scarce of earth nor all divine, Nor unhappy, nor at rest,

But beyond expression fair With thy floating flaxen hair; Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes

Take the heart from out my breast. Wherefore those dim looks of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

2.

Whence that aery bloom of thine,
Like a lily which the sun
Looks thro' in his sad decline,

And a rose-bush leans upon,
Thou that faintly smilest still,
As a Naiad in a well,
Looking at the set of day,
Or a phantom two hours old
Of a maiden past away,

Ere the placid lips be cold? Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, Spiritual Adeline?

3.

What hope or fear or joy is thine?
Who talketh with thee, Adeline?

For sure thou art not all alone:
Do beating hearts of salient springs
Keep measure with thine own?

Hast thou heard the butterflies,
What they say betwixt their wings?
Or in stillest evenings

With what voice the violet woos
To his heart the silver dews?
Or when little airs arise,

How the merry bluebell rings

To the mosses underneath?

Hast thou look'd upon the breath Of the lilies at sunrise? Wherefore that faint smile of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

Some honey-converse feeds thy mind,
Some spirit of a crimson rose
In love with thee forgets to close
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs
All night long on darkness blind.
What aileth thee? whom waitest thou
With thy soften'd, shadow'd brow,

And those dew-lit eyes of thine.
Thou faint smiler, Adeline?

5.

Lovest thou the doleful wind
When thou gazest at the skies?

In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants, It would fall to the ground if you came in.

In the middle leaps a fountain

Like sheet lightning,

Ever brightening

With a low melodious thunder;
All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder:
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,

And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love;
And yet, tho' its voice be so clear and full,
You never would hear it; your ears are so dull;
So keep where you are: you are foul with sin;
It would shrink to the earth if you came in.

THE SEA-FAIRIES.

SLOW Sail'd the weary mariners and saw,
Betwixt the green brink and the running foam,
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
To little harps of gold; and while they mused,
Whispering to each other half in fear,

Shrill music reach'd them on the middle sea.

Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly no

more.

Whither away from the high green field, and the

happy blossoming shore?

Day and night to the billow the fountain calls; Down shower the gambolling waterfalls

From wandering over the lea:

Out of the live-green heart of the dells

They freshen the silvery-crimson shells,

And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells
High over the full-toned sea:

O hither, come hither and furl your sails,
Come hither to me and to me:

Hither, come hither and frolic and play;
Here it is only the mew that wails;

We will sing to you all the day:

Mariner, mariner, furl your sails,

For here are the blissful downs and dales,
And merrily merrily carol the gales,
And the spangle dances in bight and bay,
And the rainbow forms and flies on the land

Over the islands free;

And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand;
Hither, come hither and see;

And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave,
And sweet is the color of cove and cave,

And sweet shall your welcome be:

O hither, come hither, and be our lords,

For merry brides are we :

We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words:
O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten
With pleasure and love and jubilee:

O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten
When the sharp clear twang of the golden chords
Runs up the ridged sea.

Who can light on as happy a shore

All the world o'er, all the world o'er?

Whither away? listen and stay: mariner, mariner. fly no more.

THE DESERTED HOUSE.

1.

LIFE and Thought have gone away Side by side,

Leaving door and windows wide: Careless tenants they!

2.

All within is dark as night:
In the windows is no light;
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.

Close the door, the shutters close,

Or thro' the windows we shall see The nakedness and vacancy Of the dark deserted house.