Radiant sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
And the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures be,
And the sandhills of the sea;
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets,
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new ;
When the night is left behind

In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,

And the multitudinous

Billows murmur at our feet,

Where the earth and ocean meet,

And all things seem only one

In the universal sun.

TO JANE-THE RECOLLECTION.

I.

Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,

The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise !
Up to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled, —

-

For now the Earth has changed its face, A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

II.

We wandered to the Pine Forest

That skirts the Ocean's foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,

And on the bosom of the deep,

The smile of Heaven lay;

It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,

Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.

III.

We paused amid the pines that stood The giants of the waste,

Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,

And soothed by every azure breath,
That under heaven is blown,

To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own;
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,

Like green waves on the sea,

As still as in the silent deep

The ocean woods may be.

IV.

How calm it was!

the silence there

By such a chain was bound

That even the busy woodpecker

Made stiller by her sound

The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew

With its soft motion made not less

The calm that round us grew.

There seemed from the remotest seat

Of the white mountain waste,

To the soft flower beneath our feet,

A magic circle traced,

A spirit interfused around,

A thrilling silent life,

To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal nature's strife;

And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there,

Was one fair form that filled with love
The lifeless atmosphere.

V.

We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,

Each seemed as 'twere a little sky
Gulphed in a world below;

A firmament of purple light,

Which in the dark earth lay,

More boundless than the depth of night,

And purer than the day –

In which the lovely forests grew

As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue

Than any spreading there.

There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, And through the dark green wood

The white sun twinkling like the dawn Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen,

Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green.

And all was interfused beneath

With an elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.

Like one beloved the scene had lent

To the dark water's breast,

Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth exprest ; Until an envious wind crept by,

Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from the mind's too faithful eye Blots one dear image out.

Though thou art ever fair and kind,

The forest ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind,
Than calm in waters seen.