Like a wide lake of green fertility,

With streams and fields and marshes bare,
Divides from the far Apennines, which lie
Islanded in the immeasurable air.

"What think you, as she lies in her green cove,
Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?"
"If morning dreams are true, why I should guess
That she was dreaming of our idleness,

And of the miles of watery way

We should have led her by this time of day."

"Never mind!" said Lionel.

"Give care to the winds; they can bear it well
About yon poplar tops.

And see!

The white clouds are driving merrily,

And the stars we miss this morn will light
More willingly our return to-night.

How it whistles, Dominic's long black hair!
List my dear fellow; the breeze blows fair :
Hear how it sings into the air."
"Of us and of our lazy motions,"
Impatiently said Melchior,

"If I can guess a boat's emotions;

And how we ought, two hours before,
To have been the devil knows where."
And then, in such transalpine Tuscan
As would have killed a Della-Cruscan,

So, Lionel according to his art

Weaving his idle words, Melchior said: "She dreams that we are not yet out of bed; We'll put a soul into her, and a heart

Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat."

'Ay, heave the ballast overboard,

And stow the eatables in the aft locker. "

"Would not this keg be best a little lowered?"

"No, now all's right."

"Those bottles of warm tea

(Give me some straw)--must be stowed tenderly;

Such as we used, in summer after six,

To cram in great-coat pockets, and to mix

Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton,

And, couched on stolen hay in those green harbours Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbours, Would feast till eight."

With a bottle in one hand,

As if his very soul were at a stand,

Lionel stood when Melchior brought him steady:"Sit at the helm-fasten this sheet-all ready!"

XXXVI.

THE ZUCCA.

I. SUMMER was dead, and Autumn was expiring,
And infant Winter laughed upon the land
All cloudlessly and cold ;—when I, desiring
More in this world than any understand,
Wept o'er the beauty which, like sea retiring,

Had left the earth bare as the wave-worn sand
Of my lorn heart,-and o'er the grass and flowers
Pale for the falsehood of the flattering Hours.
2. Summer was dead, but I yet lived to weep
The instability of all but weeping;
And on the Earth lulled in her winter sleep
I woke, and envied her as she was sleeping.
Too happy Earth! over thy face shall creep
The wakening vernal airs, until thou, leaping
From unremembered dreams, shalt
No death divide thy immortality.

3. I loved-oh no! I mean not one of ye, Or any earthly one, though ye are dear As human heart to human heart may be ;

see

I loved I know not what. But this low sphere, And all that it contains, contains not thee,

Thou whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere. From heaven and earth, and all that in them are, Veiled art thou, like a [storm-benighted?] star.

4. By heaven and earth, from all whose shapes thou flowest, Neither to be contained, delayed, nor hidden;

Making divine the loftiest and the lowest,

When for a moment thou art not forbidden

To live within the life which thou bestowest;

And leaving noblest things vacant and chidden,

Cold as a corpse after the spirit's flight,

Blank as the sun after the birth of night.

5. In winds and trees and streams, and all things common; In music, and the sweet unconscious tone

Of animals, and voices which are human,

Meant to express some feelings of their own;

In the soft motions and rare smile of woman;

In flowers and leaves; and in the grass fresh-shown, Or dying in the autumn; I the most

Adore thee present, or lament thee lost.

6. And thus I went lamenting, when I saw
A plant upon the river's margin lie,
Like one who loved beyond his nature's law,
And in despair had cast him down to die.

Its leaves, which had outlived the frost, the thaw
Had blighted; like a heart which hatred's eye
Can blast not, but which pity kills. The dew
Lay on its spotted leaves like tears too true.
7. The Heavens had wept upon it, but the Earth
Had crushed it on her unmaternal breast;
And the blue Winter's eye of boundless mirth

It owed its welcome death [and] bitter birth
To that great mother-in-law, even as the rest.

8. I bore it to my chamber, and I planted
It in a vase full of the lightest mould.
The winter beams which out of heaven slanted
Fell through the window panes, disrobed of cold,
Upon its leaves and flowers; the star which panted
In evening for the day, whose car has rolled
Over the horizon's wave, with looks of light
Smiled on it from the threshold of the night.

9. The mitigated influences of air

And light revived the plant; and from it grew
Strong leaves and tendrils; and its flowers fair,
Full as a cup with the vine's burning dew,
O'erflowed with golden colours. An atmosphere
Of vital warmth enfolded it anew ;
And every impulse sent to every part
The unbeheld pulsations of its heart.

10. Well might the plant grow beautiful and strong,
Even if the air and sun had smiled not on it;
For one wept o'er it all the winter long

Tears pure as heaven's rain, which fell upon it
Hour after hour; for sounds of softest song,

Mixed with the stringèd melodies that won it
To leave the gentle lips on which it slept,
Had loosed the heart of him who sat and wept;

II. Had loosed his heart, and shook the leaves and flowers
On which he wept, the while the savage storm,

Waked by the darkest of December's hours,

Was raving round the chamber hushed and warm. The birds were shivering in their leafless bowers, The fish were frozen in the pools, the form

Of every summer plant was dead;

Whilst this

January 1822.

XXXVII.

THE ISLE.

THERE was a little lawny islet,
By anemone and violet,

Like mosaic, paven :

And its roof was flowers and leaves
Which the summer's breath enweaves,

Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze
Pierce the pines and tallest trees,--
Each a gem engraven :

Girt by many an azure wave

With which the clouds and mountains pave
A lake's blue chasm.

XXXVIII.

FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA,

The following fragments are part of a Drama undertaken for the amusement of the individuals who composed our intimate society, but left unfinished. I have preserved a sketch of the story as far as it had been shadowed in the poet's mind.

An Enchantress, living in one of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, saves the life of a Pirate, a man of savage but noble nature. She becomes enamoured of him; and he, inconstant to his mortal love, for a while returns her passion: but at length, recalling the memory of her whom he left, and who laments his loss, he escapes from the Enchanted Island, and returns to his lady. His mode of life makes him again go to sea, and the Enchantress seizes the opportunity to bring him, by a spirit-brewed tempest, back to her Island.

M. W. S.

Scene, before the Cavern of the Indian Enchantress.
The Enchantress comes forth.

ENCHANTRESS.

HE came like a dream, in the dawn of life;
He fled like a shadow, before its noon.
He is gone, and my peace is turned to strife,
And I wander and wane like the weary moon.
O sweet Echo, wake,
And for my sake

Make answer the while my heart shall break!

But my heart has a music which Echo's lips,
Though tender and true, yet can answer not,
And the shadow that moves in the soul's eclipse
Can return not the kiss by his now forgot;
Sweet lips! he who hath
On my desolate path

Cast the darkness of absence, worse than death!
The Enchantress makes her spell: she is answered by a Spirit.
Spirit. Within the silent centre of the earth

My mansion is: where I have lived insphered

From the beginning, and around my sleep

Have woven all the wondrous imagery

Of this dim spot which mortals call the world,-
Infinite depths of unknown elements
Massed into one impenetrable mask,

Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins

Of gold and stones and adamantine iron.
And as a veil in which I walk through heaven

I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds,
And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns

In the dark space of interstellar air.

A good Spirit, who watches over the Pirate's fate, leads, in a mysterious manner, the lady of his love to the Enchanted Isle; and has also led thither a Youth, who loves the lady, but whose passion she returns only with a sisterly affection. The ensuing scene takes place between them on their arrival at the Isle, where they meet, but without distinct mutual recognition.

INDIAN YOUTH AND LADY.

Indian. And, if my grief should still be dearer to me Than all the pleasures in the world beside,

Why would you lighten it?

Lady.

That which I seek, some human sympathy,

In this mysterious island.

Indian.

My sister, my beloved! .

I offer only

Oh! my friend,

What do I say!

My brain is dizzy, and I scarce know whether

I speak to thee or her.

Lady.

Peace, perturbed heart!
I am to thee only as thou to mine,-

The passing wind which heals the brow at noon,
And may strike cold into the breast at night,

Yet cannot linger where it soothes the most,

Or long soothe could it linger.

Indian.

You also loved?

Lady.

But you said

Loved! Oh! I love!-Methinks

This word of "love" is fit for all the world;

And that for gentle hearts another name

Would speak of gentler thoughts than the world owns.
I have loved.

Indian. And thou lovest not? If so,
Young as thou art, thou canst afford to weep.
Lady. Oh! would that I could claim exemption
From all the bitterness of that sweet name!
I loved, I love; and, when I love no more,
Let joys and grief perish, and leave despair
To ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me,
The embodied vision of the brightest dream
Which like a dawn heralds the day of life;
The shadow of his presence made my world
A paradise. All familiar things he touched,
All common words he spoke, became to me
Like forms and sounds of a diviner world.
He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,
As terrible and lovely as a tempest;
He came, and went, and left me what I am.