Some might lament that I was cold,

As I, when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan:They might lament,-for I am one

Whom men love not-and yet regret; Unlike this day, which, when the sun

Shall on its stainless glory set,

Will linger, though enjoy'd, like joy in memory yet.

TO NIGHT.

SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear,-
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day,
Kiss her until she be wearied out,

Then wander o'er city, and sea, and sand,
Touching all with thine opiate wand-

Come, long-sought!

When I arose and saw the Dawn,
I sigh'd for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,

And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turn'd to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sigh'd for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmur'd like a noon-tide bee,

Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me? And I replied,
No, not thee!

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-

Sleep will come when thou art fled:
Of neither would I ask the boon,
I ask of thee, beloved Night--
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon,-soon!

SPRING.

O SPRING! of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness,
White-wing'd emblem! brightest, best, and fairest!
Whence comest thou, when with dark Winter's sadness
The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?
Sister of joy! thou art the child who wearest
Thy mother's dying smile, tender and sweet;
Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest
Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet
Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
"Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,-

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been.
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth!

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim :

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret,

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan, Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow,

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

136

Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown: