4. I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers, With their etherial colours; the moon's globe, And the pure stars in their eternal bowers,
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe; Whatever lamps on earth or heaven may shine Are portions of one power, which is mine. 5. I stand at noon upon the peak of heaven; Then with unwilling steps I wander down Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;
For grief that I depart they weep and frown.
What look is more delightful than the smile
With which I soothe them from the western isle?
6. I am the eye with which the universe
Beholds itself, and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,
All prophecy, all medicine, are mine,
All light of art or nature;-to my song
Victory and praise in its own right belong.
HYMN OF PAN.
FROM the forests and highlands
We come, we come ;
From the river-girt islands,
Where loud waves are dumb
Listening to my sweet pipings.
The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.
Liquid Peneus was flowing,
And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,
Speeded by my sweet pipings.
The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns,
And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend and follow,
Were silent with love, -as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings.
I sang of the dancing stars,
I sang of the dædal earth,
And of heaven, and the Giant wars,
And love, and death, and birth.
And then I changed my pipings,-
Singing how down the vale of Mænalus
I pursued a maiden, and clasped a reed:
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus ;
It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed.
All wept-as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood-
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.
THE QUESTION.
I. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way.
Bare winter suddenly was changed to Spring;
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
2. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets;
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sed scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets-
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth—
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears
When the low wind its playmate's voice it hears.
3. And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured may
And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine
Was the bright dew yet drained not by the Day;
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray;
And flowers, azure, black, and streaked with gold,
Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.
4. And nearer to the river's trembling edge
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white, And starry river-buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
5. Methought that of these visionary flowers
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
Within my hand;—and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it-oh! to whom?
THE SENSITIVE PLANT.-PART I.
1. A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew;
And the young winds fed it with silver dew;
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.
2. And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
3. But none ever trembled and panted with bliss
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,
Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want,
As the companionless Sensitive Plant.
4. The snowdrop, and then the violet,
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet; And their breath was mixed with fresh odour sent From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 5. Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, And narcissi, the fairest among them all, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess Till they die of their own dear loveliness;
6. And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,
Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;
7. And the hyacinth, purple, and white, and blue, Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense;
8. And the rose, like a nymph to the bath addressed,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;
9. And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,
As a Mænad, its moonlight-coloured cup,
Till the fiery star which is its eye
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky;
10. And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose-
The sweetest flower for scent that blows-
And all rare blossoms from every clime,
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.
II. And on the stream whose inconstant bosom
Was pranked under boughs of embowering blossom,
With golden and green light slanting through
Their heaven of many a tangled hue,
12. Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmered by ;
And around them the soft stream did glide and dance
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.
13. And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss
Which led through the garden along and across,
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,
14. Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells
As fair as the fabulous asphodels,
And flowerets which, drooping as day drooped too,
Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,
To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.
15. And from this undefiled paradise
The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes
Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet
Can first lull and at last must awaken it),
16. When heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them
As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,
Shone smiling to heaven, and every one
Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;-
17. For each one was interpenetrated
With the light and the odour its neighbour shed,
Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear,
Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.
18. But the Sensitive Plant, which could give small fruit
Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root,
Received more than all; it loved more than ever,
Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver :-
19. For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower;
Radiance and odour are not its dower;
It loves even like Love, -its deep heart is full ;
It desires what it has not, the beautiful.
20. The light winds which from unsustaining wings
Shed the music of many murmurings;
The beams which dart from many a star
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar;
21. The plumèd insects swift and free,
Like golden boats on a sunny sea,
Laden with light and odour, which pass
Over the gleam of the living grass,
22. The unseen clouds of the dew which lie
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,
Then wander like spirits among the spheres,
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;
23. The quivering vapours of dim noontide,
Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide,
In which every sound and odour and beam
Move as reeds in a single stream ;-
24. Each and all like ministering angels were
For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear,
Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by,
Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky.
25. And, when evening descended from heaven above,
And the earth was all rest, and the air was all love,
And delight, though less bright, was far more deep,
And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep,-
26. And the beasts and the birds and the insects were drowned In an ocean of dreams without a sound,
Whose waves never mark though they ever impress
The light sand which paves it, consciousness ;-
27. (Only overhead the sweet nightingale
Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail,
And snatches of its elysian chant
Were mixed with the dream of the Sensitive Plant);
28. The Sensitive Plant was the earliest
Upgathered into the bosom of rest;
A sweet child weary of its delight,
The feeblest and yet the favourite,
Cradled within the embrace of Night.
I. THERE was a power in this sweet place,
An Eve in this Eden; a ruling Grace
Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream,
Was as God is to the starry scheme.
2. A Lady, the wonder of her kind,
Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind,
Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion
Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean,
3. Tended the garden from morn to even :
And the meteors of that sublunar heaven,
Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth,
Laughed round her footsteps up from the earth.
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