;

When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst;
Thou intimate stranger,
Thou latest and first!
Thy dangerous glances
Make women of men;
New-born we are melting
Into nature again.

Lavish, lavish promiser,
Nigh persuading gods to err,
Guest of million painted forms
Which in turn thy glory warms,
The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc,
The swinging spider's silver line,
The ruby of the drop of wine,
The shining pebble of the pond,
Thou inscribest with a bond,
In thy momentary play,

Would bankrupt Nature to repay.

Ah! what avails it

To hide or to shun

Whom the Infinite One
Hath granted his throne?
The heaven high over
Is the deep's lover;
The sun and sea,
Informed by thee,

Before me run,

And draw me on,

Yet fly me still,

As Fate refuses

To me the heart Fate for me chooses.

Is it that my opulent soul

Was mingled from the generous whole,
Sea-valleys and the deep of skies
Furnished several supplies,

And the sands whereof I'm made
Draw me to them self-betrayed?
I turn the proud portfolios
Which hold the grand designs
Of Salvator, of Guercino,
And Piranesi's lines.

I hear the lofty Paans
Of the masters of the shell,
Who heard the starry music,
And recount the numbers well:
Olympian bards who sung
Divine Ideas below,

Which always find us young,
And always keep us so.

Oft in streets or humblest places
I detect far-wandered Graces,
Which from Eden wide astray
In lowly homes have lost their way.

Thee gliding through the sea of form,
Like the lightning through the storm,
Somewhat not to be possessed,
Somewhat not to be caressed,
No feet so fleet could ever find,
No perfect form could ever bind.
Thou eternal fugitive

Hovering over all that live,
Quick and skilful to inspire
Sweet extravagant desire,
Starry space and lily-bell
Filling with thy roseate smell,
Wilt not give the lips to taste
Of the nectar which thou hast.

All that's good and great with thee Stands in deep conspiracy.

Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely

To report thy features only;
And the cold and purple morning,
Itself with thoughts of thee adorning,
The leafy dell, the city mart,
Equal trophies of thine art,
E'en the flowing azure air,

Thou hast touched for my despair;
And, if I languish into dreams,
Again I meet the ardent beams.
Queen of things! I dare not die
In Being's deeps past ear and eye,
Lest there I find the same deceiver,
And be the sport of Fate for ever.
Dread power, but dear! if God thou be,
Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me.

TO EVA.

O FAIR and stately maid, whose eye
Was kindled in the upper sky

At the same torch that lighted mine-
For so I must interpret still

Thy sweet dominion o'er my will,

A sympathy divine,—

Ah! let me blameless gaze upon

Features that seem in heart my own,

Nor fear those watchful sentinels

Which charm the more their glance forbids,
Chaste glowing underneath their lids
With fire that draws while it repels.

THINE eyes still shined for me, though far
I lonely roved the land or sea,

As I behold yon evening star,
Which yet beholds not me.

This morn I climbed the misty hill,
And roamed the pastures through;
How danced thy form before my path,
Amidst the deep-eyed dew!

When the red bird spread his sable wing,
And showed his side of flame,
When the rose-bud ripened to the rose,
In both I read thy name.

EROS.

THE sense of the world is short,
Long and various the report,-
To love and be beloved;

Men and gods have not outlearned it ;
And, how oft soe'er they've turned it,
'Tis not to be improved.

HERMIONE.

ON a mound an Arab lay,

And sung his sweet regrets,

And told his amulets.

The summer bird

His sorrow heard;

And, when he heaved a sigh profound,

The sympathetic swallows swept the ground.

"If it be as they said, she was not fair;
Beauty's not beautiful to me,

But sceptred Genius aye inorbed,
Culminating in her sphere.

This Hermione absorbed

The lustre of the land and ocean,
Hills and islands, vine and tree,

In her form and motion.

I ask no bauble miniature,

Nor ringlets dead

Shorn from her comely head,
Now that morning not disdains,-
Mountains and the misty plains—
Her colossal portraiture :

They her heralds be,
Steeped in her quality,
And singers of her fame,

Who is their muse and dame.

"Higher, dear swallows, mind not what I say. Ah! heedless how the weak are strong,

Say, was it just

In thee to frame, in me to trust,

Thou to the Syrian couldst belong?

"I am of a lineage

That each for each doth fast engage.
In old Bassora's schools I seemed
Hermit vowed to books and gloom,
Ill-bested for gay bridegroom:
I was by thy touch redeemed;
When thy meteor glances came,
We talked at large of worldly Fate,
And drew truly every trait.
Once I dwelt apart,

Now I live with all.

As shepherd's lamp on far hill-side
Seems, by the traveller espied,
A door into the mountain heart:
So didst thou quarry and unlock
Highways for me through the rock.

"Now deceived thou wanderest
In strange lands, unblest,

And my kindred come to soothe me.
South wind is my next of blood;
He is come through fragrant wood,
Drugged with spice from climates warm,
And in every twinkling glade

And twilight nook

Unveils thy form.

Out of the forest way

Forth paced it yesterday;

And, when I sat by the water-course,