Here sate he with his love, his dark eye bent
With eagle gaze along the firmament;

Now turned it upon her, but ever then
It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.

"Ianthe, dearest, see, how dim that ray!
How lovely 't is to look so far away!
She seemed not thus upon that autumn eve
I left her gorgeous halls, nor mourned to leave.
That eve, that eve, I should remember well,
The sun-ray dropped in Lemnos with a spell
On the arabesque carving of a gilded hall
Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall,
And on my eyelids. Oh, the heavy light,
How drowsily it weighed them into night!
On flowers before, and mist, and love, they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan.

But oh, that light! I slumbered; Death, the while, Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle

So softly that no single silken hair

Awoke that slept, or knew that he was there.

"The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon
Was a proud temple called the Parthenon;
More beauty clung around her columned wall
Than even thy glowing bosom beats withal;
And when old Time my wing did disenthrall,
Thence sprang I as the eagle from his tower,
And years I left behind me in an hour.
What time upon her airy bounds I hung,
One half the garden of her globe was flung,
Unrolling as a chart unto my view;
Tenantless cities of the desert too!
Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
And half I wished to be again of men."

"My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee,
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And woman's loveliness, and passionate love."

"But list, Ianthe! when the air so soft Failed as my pennoned spirit leapt aloft, Perhaps my brain grew dizzy-but the world I left so late was into chaos hurled, Sprang from her station, on the winds apart, And rolled, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart. Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar, And fell not swiftly as I rose before, But with a downward, tremulous motion, through Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto; Nor long the measure of my falling hours, For nearest of all stars was thine to ours; Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth, A red Dædalion on the timid Earth."

but not to us

"We came, and to thy Earth
Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:
We came, my love; around, above, below,
Gay firefly of the night, we come and go,
Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod
She grants to us, as granted by her God.
But, Angelo, than thine gray Time unfurled
Never his fairy wing o'er fairier world!
Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes
Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea;
But when its glory swelled upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,

We paused before the heritage of men,
And thy star trembled as doth Beauty then!"

Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away

The night that waned, and waned, and brought no day. They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts

Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.

"THE HAPPIEST DAY, THE HAPPIEST

THE

HOUR"

HE happiest day, the happiest hour My seared and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power,

I feel hath flown.

Of power, said I? yes! such I ween;

But they have vanished long, alas! The visions of my youth have been — But let them pass.

And, pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may even inherit
The venom thou hast poured on me
Be still, my spirit!

The happiest day, the happiest hour

-

Mine eyes shall see - have ever seen,

The brightest glance of pride and power,
I feel have been.

But were that hope of pride and power
Now offered, with the pain

Even then I felt, that brightest hour
I would not live again.

For on its wing was dark alloy,
And, as it fluttered, fell

An essence, powerful to destroy
A soul that knew it well.

STANZAS

How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;

Her woods her wilds her mountains
Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence!

1

BYRON: The Island.

N youth have I known one with whom the Earth, In secret, communing held, as he with it,

In daylight, and in beauty from his birth;

Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit

From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light-such for his spirit was fit-

And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour
Of its own fervor, what had o'er it power.

2

Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er;
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told; or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more,

That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
As dew of the night-time o'er the summer grass?