Of despondency and gloom

Rush over it again,

Receive me! Save me!

[He plunges into the crater.

CALLICLES (from below).

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,

Thick breaks the red flame ;

All Etna heaves fiercely

Her forest-clothed frame.

Not here, O Apollo !

Are haunts meet for thee.

But where Helicon breaks down

In cliff to the sea,

Where the moon-silvered inlets

Send far their light voice

Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!

On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliffside the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks;

In the moonlight the shepherds,

Soft lulled by the rills,

Lie wrapt in their blankets,
Asleep on the hills.

What forms are these coming So white through the gloom? What garments out-glistening The gold-flowered broom?

What sweet-breathing presence Out-perfumes the thyme?

What voices enrapture

The night's balmy prime ? —

"Tis Apollo comes leading

His choir, the Nine.

-The leader is fairest,

But all are divine.

They are lost in the hollows!

They stream up again!

What seeks on this mountain

The glorified train?

They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by their road;
Then on to Olympus,

Their endless abode !

Whose praise do they mention?

Of what is it told?

What will be forever;

What was from of old.

First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then

The rest of immortals,

The action of men.

The day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;

The night in her silence,
The stars in their calm.

THYRSIS.

A MONODY, TO COMMEMORATE THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND,

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

WHO DIED AT FLORENCE, 1861.*

OW changed is here each spot man makes or fills!

HOW

In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same;

The village-street its haunted mansion lacks, And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,

And from the roofs the twisted chimney stacks.

Are ye too changed, ye hills?

See, 't is no foot of unfamiliar men

To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays!
Here came I often, often, in old days;

Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then.

Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,
Up past the wood, to where the elm-tree crowns

*Throughout this Poem there is reference to another piece, "The Scholar-Gypsy," printed in the first volume of the author's Poems.

The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames? The Signal-Elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,

The Vale, the three lone wears, the youthful Thames ?

This winter-eve is warm,

Humid the air; leafless, yet soft as spring,

The tender purple spray on copse and briers; And that sweet City with her dreaming spires She needs not June for beauty's heightening.

Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night.
Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power
Befalls me wandering through this upland dim.

Once passed I blindfold here, at any hour;

Now seldom come I, since I came with him.

That single elm-tree bright

Against the west

I miss it! is it gone?

We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, Our friend, the Scholar-Gypsy, was not dead; While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!

But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick; And with the country-folk acquaintance made