:

As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou

say'st, “ Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

ODE TO PSYCHE.

O GODDESS ! hear these tuneless numbers wrung

By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, And pardon that thy secrets should be sung,

Even into thine own soft-conched ear: Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see

The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes? I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,

And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side

In deepest grass, beneath the whispering roof Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran

A brooklet, scarce espied :
'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers fragrant-eyed,

Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass ;

Their arms embraced, and their pinions too ;

Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,
And ready still past kisses to outnumber
At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love :

The winged boy I knew ;
But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove ?

His Psyche true!

O latest-born and loveliest vision far

Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!
Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,

Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky; Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,

Nor altar heap'd with flowers ;
Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan

Upon the midnight hours ;
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet

From chain-swung censer teeming;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat

Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.
O brightest ! though too late for antique vows,

Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,

Holy the air, the water, and the fire ; Yet even in these days so far retired

From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,

Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

Upon the midnight hours !
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet

From swinged censer teeming:
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat

Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane

In some untrodden region of my mind, (pain, Where branched thoughts, new-grown with pleasant

Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind :

Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by

steep; And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and

bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulld to sleep ; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,

With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,

Who breeding flowers, will never breed the

same:

And there shall be for thee all soft delight

That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,

To let the warm Love in!

FANCY.

Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth ;
Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind's cage door,
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy ! let her loose ;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blussoming :
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting : What do then ?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon