From Chance, and Death, and Mutability,
The clogs of that which else might oversoar
The loftiest star of unascended heaven,
Pinnacled dim in the intense Inane, *

Id. 111. 4.

THE SONG OF TRIUMPH.F

The Earth.
The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness !
The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness,
The vapourous exultation not to be confined !

Ha! ha! the animation of delight

Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light, And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.

The Moon.

Brother mine, calm wanderer,

Happy globe of land and air,
Some Spirit is darted like a beam from thee,

Which penetrates my frozen frame,

And passes with the warmth of flame,
With love, and odour, and deep melody

Through me, through me!

The Earth.

Ha! ha! the caverns of my hollow mountains,
My cloven fire-crags, sound-exulting fountains,

* Whatever may be thought of the expediency or Utopianism, there car be but one opinion, it may be presumed, as to the melody and sweetness of the language, and the lofty faith of this dream of an Astræa Redux, and a Golden Age to be.

+ The Hallelujah Chorus,' as it may be termed, celebrating in jubilant and ecstatic song the completed Redemption.

Laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter :

The oceans, and the deserts, and the abysses,

And the deep air's unmeasured wildernesses, Answer from all their clouds and billows, echoing

after.

The Moon.

The shadow of white death has past

From my path in heaven at last,
A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep,

And through my newly-woven bowers,

Wander happy paramours,
Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep

Thy vales more deep.

The Earth.

As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold

A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold, And crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist,

And wanders up the vault of the blue day,

Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst.

The Moon.

Thou art folded, thou art lying

In the light which is undying
Of thine. own joy, and heaven's smile divine :

All suns and constellations shower

On thee a light, a life, a power Which doth array thy sphere ; thou pourest thine

On mine, on mine!

The Earth.

I spin beneath my pyramid of night,

Which points into the heavens dreaming delight, Murmuring victorious joy in muy enchanted sleep;

As a youth lull'd in love-dreams faintly sighing,

Under the shadow of his beauty lying, Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth

doth keep

The Moon.

As in the soft and sweet eclipse,

When soul meets soul on lovers' lips, High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull ;

So, when thy shadow falls on me,

Then am I mute and still, by thee
Cover’d: of thy love, orb most beautiful,

Full, oh, too full !
Thou art speeding round the sun,
Brightest world of many a one;
Green and azure sphere which shinest
With a light which is divinest
Among all the lamps of heaven
To whom life and light is given :
I, thy crystal paramour,
Borne beside thee by a power
Like the polar paradise,
Magnet-like, of lovers' eyes;
I, a most enamour'd maiden,
Whose weak brain is overladen
With the pleasure of her love,
Maniac-like, around thee move
Gazing, an insatiate bride,
On thy form from every side,

Like a Mænad, round the cup
Which Agave lifted up
In the weird Cadmæan forest.
Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest
I must hurry, whirl and follow
Through the heavens wide and hollow,
Shelter'd by the warm embrace
Of thy soul from hungry space,
Drinking from thy sense and sight
Beauty, majesty, and might,
As a lover, or cameleon
Grows like what it looks upon;
As a violet's gentle eye

Gazes on the azure sky
Until its hue grows like what it beholds

As a grey and watery mist

Glows like solid amethyst
Athwart the western mountain it enfolds

When the sunset sleeps

Upon its snow.

а

Id. iv.

THE ELEGY OF ELEGIES.

а

I WEEP for ADONAIS— he is dead!
Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head !
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: with me
Died Adonais. Till the Future dares

Forget the Past, his fame and fate shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness? Where was lorn Urania
When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,
’Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise
She sate, while one, with soft enamour'd breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies

With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, He had adorn’d and hid the coming bulk of death.

Oh, weep for Adonais-he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep !
Yet, wherefore ? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep,
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone where all things wise and fair
Descend--oh, dream not that the amorous Deep

Will yet restore him to the vital air!
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair,

Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania 1-He died,
Who was the sire of an immortal strain,
Blind, old and lonely, when his country's pride!
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide
Trampled and mock'd with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood : he went, unterrified,

Into the gulf of death ; but his clear sprite
Yet reigns o'er earth, the third among the sons of Light.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew ?
Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time
In which suns perish'd; others, more sublime,

FF