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THE VALLEY OF UNREST

NCE it smiled a silent dell

Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless,
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas

Around the misty Hebrides!

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,

Over the violets there that lie

In myriad types of the human eye,
Over the lilies there that wave

And weep above a nameless grave!

They wave:- from out their fragrant tops Eternal dews come down in drops.

They weep:- from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems.

THE CITY IN THE SEA

LO! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the

best

Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not)

Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently,
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free:
Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls,
Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls,
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers,
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye, Not the gayly-jewelled dead, Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl, alas, Along that wilderness of glass; No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea;

No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene!

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave

there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tide; As if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven! The waves have now a redder glow, The hours are breathing faint and low; And when, amid no earthly moans,

Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence.

FAI

TO ZANTE

AIR isle, that from the fairest of all flowers
Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take,
How many memories of what radiant hours
At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
How many scenes of what departed bliss,
How many thoughts of what entombed hopes,
How many visions of a maiden that is

No more

no more upon thy verdant slopes! No more! alas, that magical sad sound

Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no

more,

Thy memory no more. Accursed ground!

Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,

O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante! "Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

HERE are

TH

things,

SILENCE

some qualities, some incorporate

That have a double life, which thus is made A type of that twin entity which springs

From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade. There is a twofold Silence sea and shore,

Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,

Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,

Some human memories and tearful lore,

Render him terrorless: his name 's "No More."
He is the corporate Silence: dread him not:

No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man), commend thyself to God!

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