MUSIC.

I PANT for the music which is divine,
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,
Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
Like a herbless plain for the gentle rain,
I faint, till they wake again.

gasp,

Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,
More, O more! I am thirsting yet,

It loosens the serpent which care has bound
Upon my heart, to stifle it;

The dissolving strain, through every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.

As the scent of a violet withered up,

Which grew by the brink of a silver lake, When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup,

And mist there was none its thirst to slakeAnd the violet lay dead while the odour flew On the wings of the wind o'er the waters blue

As one who drinks from a charmed cup

Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine, Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up, Invites to love with her kiss divine.

ΤΟ

WHEN passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!

It were enough to feel, to see
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,

And dream the rest-and burn and be

The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

After the slumber of the year

The woodland violets re-appear;
All things revive in field or grove.

And sky and sea; but two, which move,
And for all others, life and love.

A BRIDAL SONG.

THE golden gates of sleep unbar

Where strength and beauty, met together, Kindle their image like a star

In a sea of glassy weather!

Night, with all thy stars look down,-
Darkness, weep thy holiest dew,-
Never smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true.

Let eyes not see their own delight;-
Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight
Oft renew.

Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!
Holy powers, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,
Dawn, ere it be long.

O joy! O fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun!
Come along!

A FRAGMENT.

THEY were two cousins, almost like two twins,
Except that from the catalogue of sins

Nature had razed their love-which could not be
But by dissevering their nativity.

And so they grew together, like two flowers

Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers
Lull or awaken in their purple prime,

Which the same hand will gather-the same clime
Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see
All those who love,-and who e'er loved like thee,
Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,

Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow
The ardours of a vision which obscure

The very idol of its portraiture;

He faints, dissolved into a sense of love;

But thou art as a planet sphered above,
But thou art Love itself-ruling the motion
Of his subjected spirit:-such emotion

Must end in sin or sorrow, if sweet May

Had not brought forth this morn-your wedding-day.

GOOD-NIGHT.

GOOD-NIGHT? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,

Ther it will be good night.

How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight!
Be it not said, thought, understood,
That it will be good night.

To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night.

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!

Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep :
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,

So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the dead-cold year to-day;
Solemn hours! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the year:-be calm and mild,
Trembling hours; she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps-but, O ye hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers.

POEMS WRITTEN IN 1822.

THE ZUCCA.*

SUMMER was dead and Autumn was expiring,
And infant Winter laughed upon the land
All cloudlessly and cold;-when I, desiring
More in this world than any understand,
Wept o'er the beauty, which, like sea retiring,

Had left the earth bare as the wave-worn sand
Of my poor heart, and o'er the grass and flowers
Pale for the falsehood of the flattering hours.

Summer was dead, but I yet lived to weep
The instability of all but weeping;
And on the earth lulled in her winter sleep

I woke, and envied her as she was sleeping.
Too happy Earth! over thy face shall creep
The wakening vernal airs, until thou, leaping
From unremembered dreams shalt [
No death divide thy immortality.
] see

I loved-O no, I mean not one of ye,

Or any earthly one, though ye are dear

As human heart to human heart may be ;

I loved, I know not what-but this low sphere,

And all that it contains, contains not thee,

Thou, whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere, Dim object of my soul's idolatry.

By Heaven and Earth, from all whose shapes thou flowest, Neither to be contained, delayed, or hidden,

Making divine the loftiest and the lowest,

When for a moment thou art not forbidden

To live within the life which thou bestowest,

And leaving noblest things, vacant and chidden,

Cold as a corpse after the spirit's flight,

Blank as the sun after the birth of night.

In winds, and trees, and streams, and all things common, In music, and the sweet unconscious tone

Of animals, and voices which are human,

Meant to express some feelings of their own; In the soft motions and rare smile of woman,

In flowers and leaves, and in the fresh grass shown,

Or dying in the autumn, I the most

Adore thee present, or lament thee lost.

And thus I went lamenting, when I saw

A plant upon the river's margin lie,
Like one who loved beyond his Nature's law,
And in despair had cast him down to die;
Its leaves which had outlived the frost, the thaw
Had blighted as a heart which hatred's eye
Can blast not, but which pity kills; the dew
Lay on its spotted leaves like tears too true.

The Heavens had wept upon it, but the Earth
Had crushed it on her unmaternal breast

I bore it to my chamber, and I planted
It in a vase full of the lightest mould;

The winter beams which out of Heaven slanted
Fell through the window panes, disrobed of cold,
Upon its leaves and flowers; the star which panted
In evening for the Day, whose car has rolled
Over the horizon's wave, with looks of light
Smiled on it from the threshold of the night.

The mitigated influences of air

And light revived the plant, and from it grew
Strong leaves and tendrils, and its flowers fair,
Full as a cup with the vine's burning dew,
O'erflowed with golden colours; an atmosphere
Of vital warmth, infolded it anew,
And every impulse sent to every part
The unbeheld pulsations of its heart.

Well might the plant grow beautiful and strong,
Even if the sun and air had smiled not on it;
For one wept o'er it all the winter long

Tears pure as Heaven's rain, which fell upon
Hour after hour; for sounds of softest song
Mixed with the stringed melodies that won it
To leave the gentle lips on which it slept,
Had loosed the heart of him who sat and wept;

it