For the heart whose woes are legion 'Tis a peaceful, soothing region

For the spirit that walks in shadow 'Tis-oh, 'tis an Eldorado !

But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed

To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its king, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;

And thus the sad Soul that here passes

Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly

From this ultimate dim Thule.

SONNET: TO ZANTE.

FAIR isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,

Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take! How many memories of what radiant hours

At sight of thee and thine at once awake! How many scenes of what departed bliss!

How many thoughts of what entombed hopes ! How many visions of a maiden that is

No more-no more upon thy verdant slopes! No more alas, that magical sad sound Transforming all! Thy charm shall please no

more

Thy memory no more! Accursed ground!

Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,

O hyacinthine isle ! O purple Zante!

"Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

THE CITY IN THE SEA.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and

Have

the best,

gone to their eternal rest.

Their shrines and palaces and towers

(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down

On the long night-time of that town;

But light from out the lurid sea

Streams up the turrets silently

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free

Up domes-up spires-up kingly halls-
Up fanes-up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine

Whose wreathéd friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there

That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town

Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves;

But not the riches there that lie

In each idol's diamond eye

Not the gaily-jewelled dead

Tempt the waters from their bed;

For no ripples curl, alas!

Along that wilderness of glass

No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-

No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave-there is a movement there!

As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given

A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-

The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,

Down, down that town shall settle hence,

Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,

Shall do it reverence.