Oh, I defy thee, Hell, to show
On beds of fire that burn below,
An humbler heart-a deeper woe.

Father, I firmly do believe

I know-for Death who comes for me From regions of the blest afar, Where there is nothing to deceive, Hath left his iron gate ajar, And rays of truth you cannot see Are flashing thro' EternityI do believe that Eblis hath A snare in every human pathElse how, when in the holy grove I wandered of the idol, Love,Who daily scents his snowy wings With incense of burnt-offerings From the most unpolluted things, Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven Above with trellised rays from Heaven. No mote may shun-no tiniest fly— The light'ning of his eagle eye— How was it that Ambition crept, Unseen, amid the revels there,

Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt In the tangles of Love's very hair?

TO HELEN.

HELEN, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam.
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
To the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window niche,
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

THE VALLEY OF UNREST.

Once 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 sun-light 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
Unceasingly, 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.

ISRAFEL.*

IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute;"
None sing so wildly well

As the angel Israfel,

And the giddy Stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above

In her highest noon,

The enamoured Moon
Blushes with love,

While, to listen, the red levin

(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven),

Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
The Israfeli's fire

Is owing to that lyre

By which he sits and sings-
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.

* And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has

the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.-Koran.

But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty-
Where Love's a grown-up God-
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty

Which we worship in a star.

Therefore, thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,

Best bard, because the wisest !

Merrily live and long!

The ecstasies above

With thy burning measures suitThy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervour of thy luteWell may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely-flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell

Where Israfel

Hath dwelt, and he where I,

He might not sing so wildly well

A mortal melody,

While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.