As like the whirlwind I have flown along
Winged with ecstatic mind, and carried away,
Like Ganymede of old, o'er cloud-capt Ida,
Or Alps, or Andes, or the ice-bound shores
Of Arctic or Antarctic-stolen from earth
Her sister-planets and the twinkling eyes
That watched her from afar, to the pure seat
Of rarest Matter's last-created world,
And brilliant halls of self-existing Light.*

THE SONG OF AN ALPINE ELF.

Ha, ha, ha!—My coy Jungfra

Is tall, and robed in snow;
Yet at a leap to the cloudy steep
I bound from the glen below;
On her dizziest peak I sit and shriek
To the winds that around me blow,
And heard from afar is my ha, ha, ha!
The wild laugh echoes so.

In the forests dun round Lauterbrunn
That line each dark ravine,

I hide me away from the garish day
Till the howling winter's e'en;

Then I jump on high thro' the coal-black sky,
And light on some cliff of snow

That nods to its fall like a tottering wall,

And I rock it to and fro!

My summer's home is the cataract's foam,
As it floats in a frothing heap,

My winter's rest is the weasel's nest,
Or deep with the mole I sleep:

I ride for a freak on the lightning-streak,
And mingle among the clouds

My swarthy form with the thunder-storm,
Wrapped in its sable shrouds.

Often I launch the huge avalanche,
And make it my milk-white sledge,
When unappal'd to the Grindelwald
I slide from the Shrikehorn's edge:
Silent and soft to the ibex oft

I have stolen, and hurried him o'er
The precipice to the brittling ice

That smokes with his scarlet gore.

But my greatest joy is to lure and decoy
To the chasm's slippery brink

The hunter bold, when he's weary and old,
And there let him suddenly sink:

A thousand feet-dead!-he dropped like lead,
Ha! he couldn't leap like me;

With broken back, as a felon on rack,

He hangs in a split pine-tree.

And there mid his bones, that echoed with groans,

I make me a nest of his hair;

The ribs dry and white rattle loud as in spite

When I rock in my cradle there:

Hurrah, hurrah, and ha, ha, ha!

I'm in a merry mood,

For I'm all alone in my palace of bone,
That's tapestried fair with the old man's hair,
And dappled with clots of blood;

And when I look out all around and about,
The storm shouts high to the coal-black sky,
And the icicle sleet falls thick and fleet,
And all that I hear on the mountain drear,
And all I behold in the valleys cold,

Is death, and solitude.

DREAMS.

A DREAM-mysterious word-a dream!
What joys and sorrows are enshrined
In those still hours we fondly deem
A playtime for the truant mind :

It is a happy thing to dream,

When rosy thoughts and visions bright
Pour on the soul a golden stream
Of rich luxurious delight:

It is a weary thing to dream,

When from the hot and aching brain,
As from a boiling cauldron, steam
The myriad forms in fancy's train.

It is a curious thing to dream,

When shapes grotesque of all quaint things Like laughing water-witches seem To sport in reason's turbid springs:

It is a glorious thing to dream,

When full of wings and full of eyes, Borne on the whirlwind or sun-beam, We race along the startled skies:

It is a wondrous thing to dream

Of tumbling with a fearful shock
From some tall cliff where eagles scream,
-To light upon a feather rock:

It is a terrible thing to dream

Of strangled throats and heart-blood spilt, And ghosts that in the darkness gleam, And horrid eyes of midnight guilt.

I love a dream, I dread a dream,

Sometimes all bright, and full of gladness, But other times my brain will teem

With sights that urge the mind to madness.

INFANT CHRIST, WITH A WREATH OF FLOWERS.

FROM A PICTURE BY CORREGGIO.

YES: I can fancy, in the spring
Of childhood's sunny hours,
That nature's infant priest and king
Loved to gaze on flowers:

For lightly, mid the wreck of all,
When torn from Eden's bowers,
Above the billows of the fall
Floated gentle flowers.

Unfallen, sinless, undefiled,

Fresh bathed in summer showers,
What wonder that the holy child
Loved to play with flowers?

In these he saw his Father's face,
All Godhead's varied powers,
And joy'd each attribute to trace
In sweet unconscious flowers:

In these he found where Wisdom hides
And modest beauty cowers,
And where Omnipotence resides,

And Tenderness-in flowers.

Innocent child, a little while,

Ere yet the tempest lowers,
Bask thy young heart in Nature's smile,
Her lovely smile of flowers;

Thy young heart—is it not arrayed
In feelings such as ours?

Yes, being now of thorns afraid,

I see thee crown'd with flowers.

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

A SAD, Sweet gladness, full of tears,
And thoughts, that never cloy,
Of careless childhood's happier years,
Is memory's tranquil joy.

A rapturous and delusive dream
Of pleasures ne'er to be,
That o'er life's troubled waters gleam,
Is Hope's sweet revery.

Yet before Memory can look back,
When Hope is lost in sight,
Ah! where is Memory's fairy track,
Ah! where is Hope's delight?

The present is a weary scene,
And always wish'd away;
We live on "to be," and "has been,"
But never on "to-day."

ON A BULBOUS ROOT,

WHICH BLOSSOMED, AFTER HAVING LAIN FOR AGES IN THE HAND OF

AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY.

WHAT, wide awake, sweet stranger, wide awake?

And laughing coyly at an English sun,

And blessing him with smiles for having thawed
Thine icy chain, for having woke thee gently
From thy long slumber of three thousand years?
Methinks I see the eye of wonder peering
From thy tall pistil, looking strangely forth
As from a watch-tow'r at thy fellow-flowers,
Admiring much the rich variety
Of many a gem in nature's jewel-case
Unknown to thee-the drooping hyacinth,
The prim ranunculus, and gay geranium,

Y