Nor needs the god his dazzling arms, to show
His glorious birth, such beauty round him shone
As sure could spring from Beauty's self alone;
The gloom which glow'd o'er all of soft desire,
Could well proclaim him Beauty's cherish'd son;
And Beauty's self will oft these charms admire,
And steal his witching smile, his glance's living fire.

Speechless with awe, in transport strangely lost, Long Psyche stood with fix'd adoring eye; Her limbs immovable, her senses tost Between amazement, fear, and ecstasy, She hangs enamour'd o'er the deityTill from her trembling hand extinguish'd falls The fatal lamp.-He starts-and suddenly Tremendous thunders echo through the halls, While ruin's hideous crash bursts o'er the affrighted walls.

Dread Horror seizes on her sinking heart,

A mortal chillness shudders at her breast;
Her soul shrinks fainting from Death's icy dart,
The groan scarce utter'd dies but half-exprest,
And down she sinks in deadly swoon opprest;
But when, at length, awakening from her trance
The terrors of her fate stand all confest,

In vain she casts around her timid glance,

The rudely frowning scenes her former joys enhance.

No traces of those joys, alas! remain;

A desert solitude alone appears.

No verdant shade relieves the sandy plain,

The wide-spread waste no gentle fountain cheers,
One barren face the dreary prospect wears;
Nought through the vast horizon meets her eye
To calm the dismal tumult of her fears,
No trace of human habitation nigh,

A sandy wild beneath, above a threatening sky.

SPIRIT of love and sorrow,-hail!

Thy solemn voice from far I hear, Mingling with Evening's dying gale,

Hail, with this sadly-pleasing tear!

Oh, at this still, this lonely hour,
Thine own sweet hour of closing day,
Awake thy lute, whose charmful power
Shall call up Fancy to obey;

To paint the wild romantic dream,
That meets the poet's musing eye,
As on the bank of shadowy stream
He breathes to her the fervid sigh.

O lonely spirit! let thy song

Lead me through all thy sacred haunt; The minster's moonlight aisles along, Where spectres raise the midnight chaunt.

I hear their dirges faintly swell!
Then sink at once in silence drear,
While, from the pillar'd cloister's cell,
Dimly their gliding forms appear!

Lead where the pine-woods wave on high,
Whose pathless sod is darkly seen,
As the cold moon, with trembling eye,
Darts her long beams the leaves between.

Lead to the mountain's dusky head,

Where, far below, in shades profound, Wide forests, plains, and hamlets spread, And sad the chimes of vesper sound.

Or guide me where the dashing oar

Just breaks the stillness of the vale: As slow it tracks the winding shore, To meet the ocean's distant sail:

To pebbly banks that Neptune laves,

With measur'd surges, loud and deep; Where the dark cliff bends o'er the waves, And wild the winds of Autumn sweep.

There pause at midnight's spectred hour,
And list the long-resounding gale;
And catch the fleeting moonlight's power
O'er foaming seas and distant sail.

SONG OF A SPIRIT.

IN the sightless air I dwell,
On the sloping sunbeams play;
Delve the cavern's inmost cell,
Where never yet did daylight stray.

I dive beneath the green sea waves,
And gambol in the briny deeps;
Skim every shore that Neptune laves,
From Lapland's plains to India's steeps.

Oft I mount with rapid force,

Above the wide earth's shadowy zone, Follow the day-star's flaming course,

Through realms of space to thought unknown;

And listen to celestial sounds

That swell in air, unheard of men,

As I watch my nightly rounds

O'er woody steep and silent glen.

Under the shade of waving trees,

On the green bank of fountain clear, At pensive eve I sit at ease,

While dying music murmurs near.

And oft, on point of airy clift

That hangs upon the western main, I watch the gay tints passing swift, And twilight veil the liquid plain.

Then, when the breeze has sunk away,
And Ocean scarce is heard to lave,
For me the sea-nymphs softly play

Their dulcet shells beneath the wave.

Their dulcet shells!-I hear them now;
Slow swells the strain upon mine ear;
Now faintly falls-now warbles low,
Till rapture melts into a tear.

The ray that silvers o'er the dew,

And trembles through the leafy shade, And tints the scene with softer hue, Calls me to rove the lonely glade;

Or hie me to some ruin'd tower,

Faintly shown by moonlight gleam, Where the lone wanderer owns my power, In shadows dire that substance seem;

In thrilling sounds that murmur woe,

And pausing silence make more dread; In music breathing from below

Sad, solemn strains, that wake the dead.

Unseen I move-unknown am fear'd:-
Fancy's wildest dreams I weave;
And oft by bards my voice is heard
To die along the gales of eve.