Breathed warmth on the cold bosom of the air,
Which seemed to blush and tremble with delight;
The glossy darkness of her streaming hair

Fell o'er that snowy child, and wrapped from sight
The fond and long embrace which did their hearts unite.
24. Then the bright child, the plumèd seraph, came,
And fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine,
And said: "I was disturbed by tremulous shame
When once we met,-yet knew that I was thine,
From the same hour in which thy lips divine
Kindled a clinging dream within my brain,

Which ever waked when I might sleep, to twine Thine image with her memory dear. Again We meet; exempted now from mortal fear or pain. 25. "When the consuming flames had wrapped ye round, 'The hope which I had cherished went away;

I fell in agony on the senseless ground,

And hid mine eyes in dust; and far astray

My mind was gone, when, bright like dawning day, The Spectre of the Plague before me flew,

And breathed upon my lips, and seemed to say, 'They wait for thee, beloved!'-then I knew The death-mark on my breast, and became calm anew. 26. "It was the calm of love-for I was dying.

I saw the black and half-extinguished pyre In its own grey and shrunken ashes lying; The pitchy smoke of the departed fire Still hung in many a hollow dome and spire Above the towers, like night; beneath whose shade, Awed by the ending of their own desire, The armies stood; a vacancy was made In expectation's depth, and so they stood dismayed. 27. "The frightful silence of that altered mood The tortures of the dying clove alone,

Till one uprose among the multitude,

And said: The flood of time is rolling on;
We stand upon its brink, whilst they are gone
To glide in peace down death's mysterious stream.
Have ye done well? They moulder, flesh and bone,
Who might have made this life's envenomed dream
A sweeter draught than ye will ever taste, I deem.
28. "These perish as the good and great of yore
Have perished, and their murderers will repent.
Yes, vain and barren tears shall flow before

Yon smoke has faded from the firmament,-
Even for this cause, that ye, who must lament
The death of those that made this world so fair,
Cannot recall them now; but then is lent
To man the wisdom of a high despair

When such can die, and he live on and linger here.

29. "Ay, ye may fear-not now the pestilence,
From fabled hell as by a charm withdrawn,—
All power and faith must pass, since calmly hence
In pain and fire have unbelievers gone;
And ye must sadly turn away, and moan
In secret, to his home each one returning;

And to long ages shall this hour be known;
And slowly shall its memory, ever burning,
Fill this dark night of things with an eternal morning.
30. "For me the world is grown too void and cold,
Since Hope pursues immortal destiny

With steps thus slow-therefore shall ye behold
How atheists and republicans can die;
Tell to your children this!' Then suddenly
He sheathed a dagger in his heart, and fell;

My brain grew dark in death, and yet to me
There came a murmur from the crowd to tell
Of deep and mighty change which suddenly befell.
31. "Then suddenly I stood, a winged thought,
Before the immortal senate, and the seat
Of that star-shining Spirit, whence is wrought
The strength of its dominion,-good and great,
The Better Genius of this world's estate.
His realm around one mighty fane is spread,
Elysian islands bright and fortunate,

Calm dwellings of the free and happy dead,
Where I am sent to lead." These winged words she said,
32. And with the silence of her eloquent smile
Bade us embark in her divine canoe.

Then at the helm we took our seat, the while
Above her head those plumes of dazzling hue
Into the wind's invisible stream she threw,
Sitting beside the prow: like gossamer

On the swift breath of morn, the vessel flew
O'er the bright whirlpools of that fountain fair,
Whose shores receded fast while we seemed lingering there.
33. Till down that mighty stream, dark, calm, and fleet,
Between a chasm of cedarn mountains riven,

Chased by the thronging winds whose viewless feet,
As swift as twinkling beams, had under heaven
From woods and waves wild sounds and odours driven,
The boat flew visibly. Three nights and days,

Borne like a cloud through morn and noon and even,
We sailed along the winding watery ways
Of the vast stream, a long and labyrinthine maze.
34. A scene of joy and wonder to behold-

That river's shapes and shadows changing ever! Where the broad sunrise filled with deepening gold Its whirlpools where all hues did spread and quiver,

L

And where melodious falls did burst and shiver
Among rocks clad with flowers, the foam and spray
Sparkled like stars upon the sunny river;

Or, when the moonlight poured a holier day,
One vast and glittering lake around green islands lay.
35. Morn, noon, and even, that boat of pearl outran
The streams which bore it, like the arrowy cloud
Of tempest, or the speedier thought of man
Which flieth forth and cannot make abode.
Sometimes through forests, deep like night, we glode,
Between the walls of mighty mountains crowned

With cyclopean piles, whose turrets proud,

The homes of the departed, dimly frowned

O'er the bright waves which girt their dark foundations round. 36. Sometimes between the wide and flowering meadows Mile after mile we sailed, and 'twas delight

To see far off the sunbeams chase the shadows
Over the grass; sometimes beneath the night
Of wide and vaulted caves whose roofs were bright
With starry gems we fled, whilst from their deep

And dark-green chasms shades beautiful and white
Amid sweet sounds across our path would sweep,
Like swift and lovely dreams that walk the waves of sleep.
37. And ever as we sailed our minds were full

Of love and wisdom, which would overflow

In converse wild and sweet and wonderful,

And in quick smiles whose light would come and go
Like music o'er wide waves, and in the flow

Of sudden tears, and in the mute caress

For a deep shade was cleft, and we did know
That virtue, though obscured on earth, not less
Survives all mortal change in lasting loveliness.

38. Three days and nights we sailed, as thought and feeling
Number delightful hours-for through the sky
The sphered lamps of day and night, revealing
New changes and new glories, rolled on high,—
Sun, moor, and moonlike lamps, the progeny
Of a diviner heaven, serene and fair.

On the fourth day, wild as a wind-wrought sea
The stream became, and fast and faster bare
The spirit-winged boat, steadily speeding there.

39. Steady and swift, where the waves rolled like mountains
Within the vast ravine whose rifts did pour
Tumultuous floods from their ten thousand fountains,
The thunder of whose earth-uplifting roar

Made the air sweep in whirlwinds from the shore,—

Calm as a shade, the boat of that fair child

Securely fled that rapid stress before,

Amid the topmost spray, and sunbows wild

Wreathed in the silver mist. In joy and pride we smiled.

40. The torrent of that wide and raging river

Is passed, and our aerial speed suspended.
We look behind; a golden mist did quiver

Where its wild surges with the lake were blended,— (Our bark hung there-as on a line, suspended Between two heavens)-that windless waveless lake Which four great cataracts from four vales, attended By mists, aye feed: from rocks and clouds they break, And of that azure sea a silent refuge make.

41. Motionless resting on the lake awhile,

I saw its marge of snow-bright mountains rear
Their peaks aloft; I saw each radiant isle;
And in the midst, afar, even like a sphere
Hung in one hollow sky, did there appear
The Temple of the Spirit. On the sound

Which issued thence drawn nearer and more near,
Like the swift moon this glorious earth around,

The charmed boat approached, and there its haven found.

THE story of Rosalind and Helen is undoubtedly not an attempt in the highest style of poetry. It is in no degree calculated to excite profound meditation; and, if, by interesting the affections and amusing the imagination, it awaken a certain ideal melancholy favourable to the reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the reader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned myself, as I wrote, to the impulse of the feelings which moulded the conception of the story; and this impulse determined the pauses of a measure which only pretends to be regular inasmuch as it corresponds with and expresses the irregularity of the imaginations which inspire it.

I do not know which of the few scattered poems I left in England will be selected by my bookseller to add to this collection. One, which I sent from Italy, was written after a day's excursion among those lovely mountains which surround what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, of Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion of the introductory lines, which image forth the sudden relief of a state of deep despondency by the radiant visions disclosed by the sudden burst of an Italian sunrise in autumn, on the highest peak of those delightful mountains, I can only offer as my excuse that they were not erased at the request of a dear friend with whom added years of intercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and who would have had more right than any one to complain that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness.