"And ye with them will perish one by one: If I must sigh to think that this shall be, If I must weep when the surviving Sun

Shall smile on your decay-Oh, ask not me To love you till your little race is run;

I cannot die as ye must-over me [ye dwell Your leaves shall glance-the streams in which Shall be my paths henceforth, and so farewell!"

XXV.

She spoke and wept: the dark and azure well Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears, And every little circlet where they fell,

Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres And intertangled lines of light :—a knell

Of sobbing voices came upon her ears From those departing Forms, o'er the serene Of the white streams and of the forest green.

XXVI.

All day the wizard lady sat aloof,

Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity,
Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof;
Or broidering the pictured poesy

Of some high tale upon her growing woof
Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye
In hues outshining heaven-and ever she
Added some grace to the wrought poesy.

XXVII.

While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece Of sandal-wood, rare gums, and cinnamon; Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is,

Each flame of it is as a precious stone Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this

Belongs to each and all who gaze upon The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.

XXVIII.

This lady never slept, but lay in trance

All night within the fountain-as in sleep.
Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance:
Through the green splendour of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance

Like fireflies and withal did ever keep
The tenor of her contemplations calm,
With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.

XXIX.

And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
She passed at dewfall to a space extended,

Where, in a lawn of flowering asphodel
Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,
There yawned an inextinguishable well
Of crimson fire, full even to the brim,
And overflowing all the margin trim.

xxx.

Within the which she lay when the fierce war Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor In many a mimic moon and bearded star,

O'er woods and lawns-the serpent heard it flicker In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar

And when the windless snow descended thicker Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came Melt on the surface of the level flame.

ΧΧΧΙ.

She had a Boat which some say Vulcan wrought
For Venus, as the chariot of her star;
But it was found too feeble to be fraught
With all the ardours in that sphere which are,
And so she sold it, and Apollo bought

And gave it to this daughter: from a car
Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat
Which ever upon mortal stream did float.

Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard
The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals
Thrill through those roofless halls;
The oracular thunder penetrating shook

The listening soul in my suspended blood;

I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke-
I felt, but heard not:-through white columns
The isle-sustaining Ocean flood, [glowed
A plane of light between two heavens of azure:
Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre
Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure
Were to spare Death, had never made erasure;
But every living lineament was clear
As in the sculptor's thought; and there
The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine,
Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow,
Seemed only not to move and grow
Because the crystal silence of the air
Weighed on their life; even as the Power divine,
Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.

EPODE II. a.

Then gentle winds arose,

With many a mingled close

Of wild Æolian sound and mountain odour keen; And where the Baian ocean

Welters with airlike motion,

Within, above, around its bowers of starry green,
Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves,
Even as the ever stormless atmosphere
Floats o'er the Elysian realm,

It bore me like an Angel, o'er the waves
Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air
No storm can overwhelm;

I sailed where ever flows
Under the calm Serene
A spirit of deep emotion,
From the unknown graves

Of the dead kings of Melody.*
Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm
The horizontal æther; heaven stript bare
Its depths o'er Elysium, where the prow
Made the invisible water white as snow;
From that Typhæan mount, Inarime,
There streamed a sunlight vapour, like the standard
Of some ethereal host;

Whilst from all the coast,

Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered
Over the oracular woods and divine sea
Prophesyings which grew articulate-
They seize me-I must speak them ;-be they fate!

STROPHE a. 1.

NAPLES! thou Heart of men, which ever pantest Naked, beneath the lidless eye of heaven!

Elysian City, which to calm enchantest

The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even
As sleep round Love, are driven !
Metropolis of a ruined Paradise

Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained! Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice,

Which armed Victory offers up unstained
To Love, the flower-enchained!

Homer and Virgil.