Or when little airs arise,

How the merry bluebell rings

To the mosses underneath?

Hast thou look'd upon the breath Of the lilies at sunrise?

Wherefore that faint smile of thine,

Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

Some honey-converse feeds thy mind,
Some spirit of a crimson rose

In love with thee forgets to close

His curtains, wasting odorous sighs

All night long on darkness blind.

What aileth thee? whom waitest thou

With thy soften'd, shadow'd brow,

And those dew-lit eyes of thine,

Thou faint smiler, Adeline?

Lovest thou the doleful wind

When thou gazest at the skies?

Doth the low-tongued Orient

Wander from the side o' the morn,

Dripping with Sabæan spice

On thy pillow, lowly bent

With melodious airs lovelorn,

Breathing Light against thy face, While his locks a-dropping twined

Round thy neck in subtle ring

Make a carcanet of rays,

And ye talk together still,

In the language wherewith Spring
Letters cowslips on the hill?

Hence that look and smile of thine,

Spiritual Adeline.

A CHARACTER.

I.

WITH a half-glance upon the sky

At night he said, "The wanderings
Of this most intricate Universe

Teach me the nothingness of things."
Yet could not all creation pierce

Beyond the bottom of his eye.

II.

He spake of beauty: that the dull

Saw no divinity in grass,

Life in dead stones, or spirit in air ;

Then looking as 'twere in a glass,

He smooth'd his chin and sleek'd his hair,

And said the earth was beautiful.

III.

He spake of virtue: not the gods

More purely, when they wish to charm Pallas and Juno sitting by:

And with a sweeping of the arm,

And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye,

Devolved his rounded periods.

IV.

Most delicately hour by hour

He canvass'd human mysteries,
And trod on silk, as if the winds
Blew his own praises in his eyes,
And stood aloof from other minds

In impotence of fancied power.

V.

With lips depress'd as he were meek,

Himself unto himself he sold :

Upon himself himself did feed :

Quiet, dispassionate, and cold,

And other than his form of creed,

With chisell'd features clear and sleek.

THE POET.

THE poet in a golden clime was born,

With golden stars above;

Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,

The love of love.

He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,

He saw thro' his own soul.

The marvel of the everlasting will,

An open scroll,

Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded

The secret'st walks of fame :

The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed And wing'd with flame,