herself? She saw the inner form most bright and fair— LXVII. Alas, Aurora! what wouldst thou have given Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina LXVIII. 'Tis said in after times her spirit free Before she stooped to kiss Endymion, Than now this lady-like a sexless bee Tasting all blossoms, and confined to noneAmong those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen. LXIX. To those she saw most beautiful, she gave They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave, Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul, Was as a green and over-arching bower LXX. For on the night that they were buried, she Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took LXXI. And there the body lay, age after age, Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, Like one asleep in a green hermitage, With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing, And living in its dreams beyond the rage Of death or life; while they were still arraying In liveries ever new the rapid, blind, And fleeting generations of mankind. LXXII. And she would write strange dreams upon the brain Which the sand covers,-all his evil gain The miser in such dreams would rise and shake Into a beggar's lap ;-the lying scribe Would his own lies betray without a bribe. LXXIII. The priests would write an explanation full, And nothing more; and bid the herald stick The same against the temple doors, and pull The old cant down; they licensed all to speak Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats and geese, By pastoral letters to each diocese. LXXIV. The king would dress an ape up in his crown And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat, And on the right hand of the sunlike throne Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat The chatterings of the monkey.-Every one Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet Of their great Emperor when the morning came; And kissed-alas, how many kiss the same! LXXV. The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and Walked out of quarters in somnambulism, Round the red anvils you might see them stand Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm, Beating their swords to ploughshares;-in a band The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism Free through the streets of Memphis ; much, I wis, To the annoyance of king Amasis. LXXVI. And timid lovers who had been so coy, They hardly knew whether they loved or not, Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, To the fulfilment of their inmost thought; And when next day the maiden and the boy Met one another, both, like sinners caught, Blushed at the thing which each believed was done Only in fancy-till the tenth moon shone; LXXVII. And then the Witch would let them take no ill: She did unite again with visions clear LXXVIII. These were the pranks she played among the cities Of mortal men, and what she did to sprites And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties, To do her will, and show their subtle slights, I will declare another time; for it is A tale more fit for the weird winter nightsThan for these garish summer days, when we Scarcely believe much more than we can see. Tom surtibe from Somos & Rev. ART thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, Among the stars that have a different birth, And ever-changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy? |