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Doth the low-tongued Orient

Wander from the side o' the morn

Dripping with Sabæan spice

On thy pillow, lowly bent

With melodious airs lovelorn,

Breathing Light against thy face,

While his locks a-dropping twined

Round thy neck in subtle ring

Make a carcanet of rays,

And ye talk together still,

In the language wherewith Spring

Letters cowslips on the hill?

Hence that look and smile of thine,

Spiritual Adeline.

A CHARACTER.

1.

WITH a half-glance upon the sky

At night he said, "The wanderings
Of this most intricate Universe

Teach me the nothingness of things."
Yet could not all creation pierce

Beyond the bottom of his eye.

II.

He spake of beauty that the dull

:

Saw no divinity in grass,

Life in dead stones, or spirit in air;

Then looking as 'twere in a glass,

He smooth'd his chin and sleek'd his hair,

And said the earth was beautiful.

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III.

He spake of virtue: not the gods

More purely, when they wish to charm

Pallas and Juno sitting by:

And with a sweeping of the arm,

And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye,

Devolved his rounded periods.

IV.

Most delicately hour by hour
He canvass'd human mysteries,

And trod on silk, as if the winds

Blew his own praises in his

eyes,

And stood aloof from other minds

In impotence of fancied power.

V.

With lips depress'd as he were meek,

Himself unto himself he sold :

Upon himself himself did feed:

Quiet, dispassionate, and cold,

And other than his form of creed,

With chisell'd features clear and sleek.

THE POET.

THE poet in a golden clime was born,

With golden stars above;

Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,

The love of love.

He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,

He saw thro' his own soul.

The marvel of the everlasting will,

An open scroll,

Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded

The secret'st walks of fame :

The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed

And wing'd with flame,

Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue,

And of so fierce a flight,

From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung,

Filling with light

And vagrant melodies the winds which bore
Them earthward till they lit;

Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower,
The fruitful wit

Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew

Where'er they fell, behold

Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew
A flower all gold,

And bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling

The winged shafts of truth,

To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring

Of Hope and Youth.

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