LXXVIII.

These were the pranks she played among the cities
Of mortal men, and what she did to sprites
And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties
To do her will, and show their subtle slights,
I will declare another time; for it is

A tale more fit for the weird winter nights,
Than for these garish summer days, when we
Scarcely believe much more than we can see.

THE WANING MOON.

AND like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky east,
A white and shapeless mass.

TO THE MOON.

ART thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye

That finds no object worth its constancy?

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY.

I.

THE fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle ;-
Why not I with thine?

II.

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
'No sister flower would be forgiven,
If it disdained it's brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

ARETHUSA.

1.

ARETHUSA arose

From her couch of snows

In the Acroceraunian mountains,

From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag,

Shepherding her bright fountains.

She leapt down the rocks,

With her rainbow locks

Streaming among the streams;
Her steps paved with green

The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western gleams :
And gliding and springing

She went, ever singing,

In murmurs as soft as sleep;

The Earth seemed to love her,

And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep.

II.

Then Alpheus bold,

On his glacier cold,

With his trident the mountains strook; And opened a chasm

In the rocks; - with the spasm

All Erymanthus shook.

And the black south wind

It concealed behind

The urns of the silent snow,

And earthquake and thunder

Did rend in sunder

The bars of the springs below:

The beard and the hair

Of the River-god were

Seen through the torrent's sweep,
As he followed the light

Of the fleet nymph's flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.

III.

"Oh, save me! Oh, guide me!

And bid the deep hide me,

For he grasps me now by the hair!" The loud Ocean heard,

To its blue depth stirred, And divided at her prayer;

And under the water

The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam;

Behind her descended

Her billows, unblended

With the brackish Dorian stream:

Like a gloomy stain
On the emerald main

Alpheus rushed behind,—
As an eagle pursuing
A dove to its ruin

Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

IV.

Under the bowers

Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones, Through the coral woods Of the weltering floods, Over heaps of unvalued stones;

Through the dim beams

Which amid the streams

Weave a net-work of coloured light;

And under the caves,

Where the shadowy waves

Are as green as the forest's night : —