Its white effulgence. Through my heart I feel
Thy influence glide, thy beams of snowy light
Steal on mine eyes, and swimming slumber veils
The consciousness of vision: then awake
The eye and ear of fancy: then the soul
Slides round the visionary sphere more swift
And wildly sportive than the swallow's wing
That hovering skims the surface of the stream.
Oh happy! whom imagination seeks
Where'er he rests his head; on feathery down,
Or the hard pallet; on the reeling deck,
Scourged by the waves; or on the moonshine bank,
Bower'd by the hazel's foliage, where the dew
On primrose and on violet hangs its gems.
The lover-no, reality itself

Scarce equals that bless'd moment when he grasps The hand so long withheld, that trembles soft Within his trembling pressure: when his eyes -Drink in the lucid languishment of look

That thrills the shivering nerves; the mystic glance
Avowing all unutterable things,
And kindling hope to madness. Rise not yet,
Unwelcome sun! for never shall he know
So sweet a moment: never, though he clasp
Possession, shall he feel an hour like that;
When even impossibility gave way

At Fancy's bidding: and the sighs, the smiles,
The murmur'd accents, and the glowing touch,
Heard, felt, and seen in slumber's ecstasy,
Mingled the zest of mystery with bliss,
The tumult of amazement! These are thine,
Creative slumber! by thy magic power
Consign'd to more than mortal blessedness
The poet smiles; and muses that the bough

Of ivy wreathes his temples: that the car
Triumphal bears him to the fane on high,
Where sat Petrarca with his laurel crown:
That blushing maidens roll their sparkling eyes
To gratulate his coming: and intwine
With ivory fingers myrtle and the rose,
To shadow him with showers of paradise.
By slumber's charm whole oceans interposed
Shrink, and are dry: the friend whom chance of war
Had severed from thee sits beside thee now,
As in time past: the selfsame oak above
Expands its dome of leaves; the rivulet sends
The same cool murmur to thy tranquil ear:
And sweet it is to stretch thy limbs in shade
Beside the man thou lovest, and feel the hours
In blithest converse with the rivulet's haste
Glide fast away. By secret sympathy
The tender wife, amid the city's crowds
Perchance awhile forgotten, twines in sleep
Around the fibres of the conscious brain;
And the heart melts to know that placid smile
So fond and so confiding: then the gloom
Of midnight brightens: 'tis the scene of home!-
Beneath noon's azure arch the sunny field
Spreads green its flowery grass; he looks, he sees
The graceful boy's clear eye, and forehead pure
As very snow; he sees his crisped locks
Unraveling on the breeze their flaxen rings,
The whilst his bounding feet elastic leap
Among the meadow-lambs and hedge-row birds,
The fellows of his pastime : lo! again-
The fireside light reflects on rubied cheeks,
And little hands are twined within his grasp;
The prattled tale, the scream of merriment,

The babe's sweet laughter and half tottering step,
The mother's gaze of modest ardency,

All, all are present; and the well known group
Dawns like a vision on the slumbering man.
Oh gentle sleep! thy silent potency

Can teach the happy keener happiness;
Can cheer the wretched with a glimpse of bliss.
Nay-the dark grave is open'd, and the form
Of loveliness that slept once more awakes,
And blooms, and smiles, and musically speaks,
And fires the brain with such delirious joy
That oh! it were felicity to dream

For ever thus, nor wake, unless in heaven.

ELTON.

THE FAIRY TEMPLE;

OR,

› Oberon's Chapel.

DEDICATED TO MR. JOHN MERRIFIELD.

RARE temples thou hast seen I know,
And rich for in and outward show;
Survey this chapel, built alone,
Without or lime or brick or stone;
Then say if thou hast seen more fine
Than this, the fairies' once, now thine.
A way enchased with glass and beads
There is, that to the chapel leads,
Whose structure, for his holy rest,
Is here the halcyon's curious nest;
Into the which who looks shall see
His temple of idolatry,

Where he of godheads has such store,
As Rome's Pantheon had not more.
His house of Rimmon* this he calls,
Girt with small bones instead of walls:
First, in a niche more black than jet
His idol cricket there is set;
Then, in a polish'd oval by
There stands his idol beetle-fly;
Next, in an arch akin to this
His idol canker seated is;
Then in a round is placed by these
His golden god Cantharides:
So that where'er ye look ye see
No capital, no cornice free,

Or frieze, from this fine frippery.

Now this the fairies would have known,
Theirs is a mix'd religion;

And some have heard the elves it call
Part pagan, part papistical.

If unto me all tongues were granted,

I could not speak the saints here painted-
Saint Tit, Saint Nit, Saint Is, Saint Itis,
Who against Mab's state placed here right is;
Saint Will-o'-the-wisp, of no great bigness,
But alias called here Fatuus ignis;

Saint Frip, Saint Trip, Saint Fill, Saint Filly;
Neither those other saintships will I
Here go about for to recite,

Their number almost infinite;

Which one by one here set down are
In this most curious calendar.

First, at the entrance of the gate,

A little puppet-priest doth wait,

A Hebrew word signifying a pomegranate, and was an

idol mentioned in Scripture. Kings ii. ch. v. 18.

6

Who squeaks to all the comers there,
'Favour your tongues, who enter here;
Pure hands bring hither without stain :'
A second pules, hence, hence, profane!'
Hard by i'the shell of half a nut
The holy water there is put;
A little brush of squirrel's hairs,
Composed of odd, not even pairs,
Stands in the platter, or close by,
To purge the fairy family.
Near to the altar stands the priest,
There offering up the holy grist,
Ducking in mood, and perfect tense,
With, much good do't him, reverence.
The altar is not here foursquare,
Nor in a form triangular;

Nor made of glass or wood or stone,
But of a little transverse bone,

Which boys and bruckled* children call,

Playing for points and pins, cockall;

Whose linen drapery is a thin

Subtile and ductile codling's skin;

Which o'er the board is smoothly spread,
With little seal-work damasked:
The fringe that circumbinds it too
Is spangle-work of trembling dew,
Which, gently gleaming, makes a show
Like frost-work glittering on the snow.
Upon this feateous board doth stand
Something for showbread; and at hand,
Just in the middle of the altar,
Upon an end, the fairy psalter,
Graced with the trout-fly's curious wings,
Which serve for watchet ribandings.

* Dirty, a north country word.