And a cold glare, intenser than the noon,
But icy cold, obscured with [blinding] light
The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon,

When on the sunlit limits of the night
Her white shell trembles amid crimson air,
And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might,

Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear

The ghost of its dead mother, whose dim frown Bends in dark ether from her infant's chair,

So came a chariot on the silent storm
Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape
So sate within, as one whom years deform,

Beneath a dusky hood and double cape,
Crouching within the shadow of a tomb;
And o'er what seem'd the head a cloud-like crape

Was bent, a dun and faint ethereal gloom Tempering the light upon the chariot beam; A Janus-visaged shadow did assume

The guidance of that wonder-winged team;
The shapes which drew in thick lightnings

Were lost-I heard alone on the air's soft stream

The music of their ever-moving wings.
All the four faces of that charioteer
Had their eyes banded; little profit brings

Speed in the van and blindness in the rear,
Nor then avail the beams that quench the sun,
Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere

Of all that is, has been or will be done;
So ill was the car guided—but it past
With solemn speed majestically on.

The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast,
Or seem'd to rise, so mighty was the trance,
And saw, like clouds upon the thunder's blast,

The million with fierce song and maniac dance
Raging around-such seem'd the jubilee
As when to meet some conqueror's advance

Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea,
From senate-house, and forum, and theatre,
] upon the free

When [

Had bound a yoke, which soon they stoop'd to bear. Nor wanted here the just similitude

Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er

The chariot roll'd, a captive multitude

Was driven;-all those who had grown old in power
Or misery,-all who had their subdued
age

By action or by suffering, and whose hour
Was drain'd to its last sand in weal or woe,
So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;-

All those whose fame or infamy must grow Till the great winter lay the form and name Of this green earth with them for ever low;

<< Out of the deep cavern, with palms so tender, Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow; She glided along the river, and did bend her

Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow,
Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream
That whisper'd with delight to be its pillow.

«As one enamour'd is upborne in dream
O'er lily-paven lakes 'mid silver mist,
To wondrous music, so this shape might seem

Partly to tread the waves with feet which kiss'd
The dancing foam; partly to glide along
The air which roughen'd the moist amethyst,

Or the faint morning beams that fell among The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees; And her feet, ever to the ceaseless song

And falling drops, moved to a measure new Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze,

<< Up from the lake a shape of golden dew Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon, Dances i' the wind, where never eagle flew;

And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune To which they moved, seem'd as they moved, to blot The thoughts of him who gazed on them; and soon

All that was, seem'd as if it had been not; And all the gazer's mind was strewn beneath Her feet like embers; and she, thought by thought,

Trampled its sparks into the dust of death; As day upon the threshold of the east Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath

. Of darkness re-illumine even the least Of heaven's living eyes-like day she came, Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased

To move, as one between desire and shame Suspended, I said—If, as it doth seem, Thou comest from the realm without a name,

<< Into this valley of perpetual dream,
Show whence I came, and where I am, and why-
Pass not away upon the passing stream.

Arise and quench thy thirst, was her reply.
And as a shut lily, stricken by the wand
Of dewy morning's vital alchemy,

. I rose; and, bending at her sweet command, Touch'd with faint lips the cup she raised, And suddenly my brain became as sand

« Where the first wave had more than half erased The track of deer on desert Labrador; Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,

<< Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore, Until the second bursts;-so on my sight Burst a new vision, never seen before,

And the fair shape waned in the coming light, As veil by veil the silent splendour drops From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite

Of sun-rise, ere it tinge the mountain-tops; And as the presence of that fairest planet, Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes

<< That his day's path may end as he began it, In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,

Or the soft note in which his dear lament The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress That turn'd his weary slumber to content; '

The presence of that shape which on the stream Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,

Which they extinguish'd; and, like tears, they were A veil to those from whose faint lids they rain'd In drops of sorrow. I became aware

Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stain'd The track in which we moved. After brief space, From every form the beauty slowly waned;

« From every firmest limb and fairest face
The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left
The action and the shape without the grace

Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft
With care;
and in those eyes where once hope shone,
Desire, like a lioness bereft

These lines were written after a day's excursion among those lonely mountains which surround what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, of Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion of the introductory lines, which image forth the sudden relief of a state of deep despondency by the radiant visions disclosed by the sudden burst of an Italian sunrise in autumn on the highest peak of those delightful mountains, I can only offer as my excuse, that they were not erased at the request of a dear friend, with whom added years of intercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and who would have had more right than any one to complain, that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness.

MANY a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track;
Whilst above, the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail, and cord, and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o'er-brimming deep;
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity;
And the dim low line before
Of a dark and distant shore
Still recedes, as ever still
Longing with divided will,