No fiction was it of the antique age : A sky-blue stone, within this sunless cleft, Which tiny Elves impresseil; on that smooth stage In secret revels-haply after theft Of some sweet Babe-Flower stolen, and coarse Weed For the distracted Mother to assuage Her grief with, as she might!-But, where, oh! where Is traccable a vestige of the notes That ruled those dances wild in character ? Deep underground? Or in the upper air, On the shrill wind of midnight? or where floats · O'er twilight fields the autumnal gossamer? XII. HINTS FOR THE FANCY. ON, loitering Muse-the swift Stream chides us-on ! Albeit his deep-worn channel doth immure Objects immense portrayed in miniature, Wild shapes for many a strange comparison ! Abodes of Naiads, calm abysses pure, Bright liquid mansions, fashioned to endure When the broad oak drops, a leafless skeleton, Palace and tower, are crumbled into dust. XIII. OPEN PROSPECT. IIAIL to the fields-with Dwellings sprinkled o'er, Gay June would scorn us. But when bleak winds roar V Through the stiff lance-like shoots of pollard ash, By wasteful steel unsmitten-then would I While the warm hearth exalts the mantling ale, At ali the merry pranks of Donnerdale! XIV. O MOUNTAIN Stream! the Shepherd and his Cot XV. FROM this deep chasm, where quivering sunbeams play Upon its loftiest crags, mine eyes behold A gloomy Nice, capacious, blank, and cold; A concave free from shrubs and mosses grey; In semblance fresh, as if, with dire affray, Some Statue, placed amid these regions old Then, when o'er highest hills the Deluge pass'd? |