The little cloud-it floats away,

Away it goes; away so soon?
Alas! it has no power to slay:
Its hues are dim, its hues are grey-

Away it passes from the moon!
How mournfully it seems to fly,

Ever fading more and more, To joyless regions of the sky-

And now 't is whiter than before!
As white as my poor check will be,

When, Lewti! on my couch I lie,
A dying man for love of thee.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind

yet thou didst not look unkind.

O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot
Crushing the purple whorts; while oft unseen,
Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves,
The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil,
I know not, ask not whither! A new joy,
Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust,
And gladsome as the first-born of the spring,
Beckons me on, or follows from behind,
Playmate, or guide! The master-passion quell'd,
I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark
The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak,
Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake
Soar

up, and form a melancholy vault
High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.

And

I saw a vapour in the sky,

Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse;
Thin, and white, and very high ;

Here too the love-lorn man who, sick in soul,
I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud :

And of this busy human heart aweary,
Perhaps the breezes that can fly

Worships the spirit of unconscious life
Now below and now above,

In tree or wild-flower.-Gentle Lunatic!
Have snatch'd aloft the lawny shroud

If so he might not wholly cease to be,
Of Lady fair-that died for love.

He would far rather not be that, he is ;
For maids, as well as youths, liave perish'd But would be something, that he knows not of,
From fruitless love too fondly cherish'd.

in winds or waters, or among the rocks!
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind-
For Lewti never will be kind.

But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagion here!

No myrtle-walks are these : these are no groves
Husle! my heedless feet from under

Where Love dare loiter! If in sullen mood
Slip the crumbling banks for ever :

He should stray hither, the low stumps

shall

gore Like echoes to a distant thunder,

His dainty feet, the briar and the thorn
They plunge into the gentle river.

Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird The river-swans have heard my tread,

Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs, And startle from their reedy bed.

Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades! O beauteous Birds! methinks ye measure

And you, ye Earth-winds ! you

that make at morn Your movements to some heavenly tune! The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs! O beauteous Birds!'t is such a pleasure

You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep between
To see you move beneath the moon,

The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze,
I would it were your true delight

Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon, To sleep by day and wake all night.

The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed

Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp, I know the place where Lewti lies,

Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.
When silent night has closed her eyes :

Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes !
It is a breezy jasmine-bower,

With prickles sharper than his darts bemock
The nightingale sings o'er her head:

His little Godship, making him perforce
Voice of the Night! had I the power

Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back.
That leafy labyrinth to thread,
And
creep,

This is my hour of triumph! I can now ,

like thee, with soundless tread, I then might view her bosom white

With my own fancies play the merry fool, Heaving lovely to my sight,

And laugh away worse folly, being free. As these two swans together heave

Here will I seat myself, beside this old, On the gently swelling wave.

Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine

Clothes as with pet-work: here will I couch my limbs, Oh! that she saw me in a dream,

Close by this river, in this silent shade,
And dreamt that I had died for care;

As safe and sacred from the step of man
All pale and wasted I would seem,

As an invisible world-unheard, unseen,
Yet fair withal, as spirits are!

And list’ning only to the pebbly brook
I'd die indeed, if I might see

That murmurs with a dead, yel tinkling sound; Her bosom heave, and heave for me!

Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk Soothe, gentle image! soothe

mind!

Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me, To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

Was never Love's accomplice, never raised

The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow, 1795.

And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek;

Ne'er play'd the wanton-never half disclosed
THE PICTURE, OR THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION. The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence
THROUGI Weeds and thorns, and matted underwood Eye-poisons for some love-distemper'd youth,
I force my way; now climb, and now descend

Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove

my

eyes !

Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart

Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Throbbing within them, Heart at once and Eye !

With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds, Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright,

The stains and shadings of forgotten tears, Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast,

Dimness o'erswum with lustre! Such the hour That swells its little breast, so full of song,

Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds; Singing above me, on the mountain-ash.

And hark, the noise of a near waterfall ! And thou too, desert Stream! no pool of thine,

pass forth into light-I find myself Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve,

Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe,

Of forest-trees, the Lady of the woods), The face, the form divine, the downcast look

Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock Contemplative! Behold! her open palm

That overbrows the cataract. How bursts Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests

The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree,

Fold in behind each other, and so make That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile

A circular vale, and land-lock'd, as might seem, Had from her countenance turn’d, or look'd by stealth With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages, (For fear is true love's cruel nurse), he now

Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet, With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye,

The whortle-herries are bedew'd with spray, Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes

Dash'd upwards by the furious waterfall.
Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain,

How solemnly the pendent ivy mass
E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed, Swings in its winnow: All the air is calm.
But not unheeded gazed : for see, ah! see,

The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light, The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks

Rises in columns; from this house alone, The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,

Close by the waterfall, the column slants, Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells :

And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this? And suddenly, as one that toys with time,

That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke, Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm And close beside its porch a sleeping child, Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair

His dear head pillow'd on a sleeping dogVanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,

One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand And each mis-shapes the other. Stay awhile,

Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers, Poor youth, who scarcely darest lift up thipe

Unfilleted, and of unequal lengths.
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon A curious picture, with a master's haste
The visions will return ! And lo! he stays :

Sketch'd on a strip of pinky-silver skin,
And soon the fragments diin of lovely forms

Peeld from the birchen bark! Divinest maid! Come trembling back, unite, and now once more Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries The pool becomes a mirror; and behold

Her pencil! See, the juice is scarcely dried Each wild-flower on the marge inverted there,

On the fine skin! She has been newly here; And there the half-uprooted tree-but where,

And lo! yon patch of heath has been her couchO where the virgin's snowy arm, that lean'd

The pressure still remains! O blessed couch! On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone!

For this mayst thou flower early, and the Sun, Homeward she steals through many a woodland maze Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long Which he shall seek in vain. Il-fated youth!

Upon thy purple bells! O Isabel! Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime

Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids! In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook,

More beautiful than whom Alcæus wooed, Till sickly thoughts bewitch thinc eyes, and thou The Lesbian woman of immortal song! Behold'st her shadow still abiding there,

O child of genius! stately, beautiful, The Naiad of the Mirror!

And full of love to all, save only me,

And not ungentle e'en to me! My heart,
Not to thee,

Why beats it thus ? Through yonder coppice-wood O wild and desert Stream! belongs this tale :

Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straightway Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firs

On to her father's house. She is alone! Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed, The night draws on-such ways are hard to hitMaking thee doleful as a cavern-well :

And fit it is I should restore this sketch, Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest Dropt unawares, no doubt. Why should I yearn On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream! To keep the relique ? 't will but idly feed

The passion that consumes me. Let me haste! This be my chosen haunt-emancipate

| The picture in my hand which she has left, From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone,

She cannot blame me that I follow'd her ; I rise and trace its devious course. O lead,

And I may be her guide the long wood through. Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms. Lo! stealing through the canopy of firs, How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock,

THE NIGHT-SCENE.
Isle of the river, whose disparted waves

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.
Dart off asunder with an angry sound,
How soon to re-unite! And see! they meet,
Each in the other lost and found : and see

You loved the daughter of Don Manrique ?

SANDOVAL.