"OH, my loved mistress, whose enchantments still
Are with me, round me, wander where I will-
It is for thee, for thee alone I seek
The paths of glory-to light up thy cheek
With warm approval-in that gentle look,
To read my praise, as in an angel's book,
And think all toils rewarded, when from thee
I gain a smile worth immortality!
How shall I bear the moment, when restor❜d
To that young heart where I alone am Lord,
Though of such bliss unworthy,-since the best
Alone deserve to be the happiest :-
When from those lips, unbreathed upon for years,
I shall again kiss off the soul-felt tears,
And find those tears warm as when they last started,
Those sacred kisses pure as when we parted!
Oh my own life!—why should a single day,
A moment, keep me from those arms away?"
While thus he thinks, still nearer on the breeze
Come those delicious, dream-like harmonies,
Each note of which but adds new, downy links
To the soft chain in which his spirit sinks.
He turns him tow'rd the sound, and, far away
Through a long vista, sparkling with the play
Of countless lamps,-like the rich track which Day
Leaves on the waters, when he sinks from us,
So long the path, its light so tremulous;-
He sees a group of female forms advance,
Some chain'd together in the mazy dance
By fetters, forg'd in the green sunny bowers,
As they were captives to the King of Flowers;
And some disporting round, unlink'd and free,
Who seem'd to mock their sisters' slavery;
And round and round them still, in wheeling flight
Went, like gay moths about a lamp at night;
While others walk'd, as gracefully along
Their feet kept time, the very soul of song
From psaltry, pipes, and lutes of heavenly thrill,
Or their own youthful voices, heavenlier still!
And now they come, now pass before his eye,
Forms such as Nature moulds, when she would vie