The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

With his trident the mountains strook,

And opened a chasm

In the rocks; - with the spasm

All Erymanthus shook.

And the black south wind

It concealed behind

The urns of the silent snow,

And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder

The bars of the springs below.
The beard and the hair
Of the River-god were

Seen through the torrent's sweep,
As he followed the light
Of the fleet nymph's flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.

"Oh, save me! Oh, guide me!
And bid the deep hide me,

For he grasps me now by the hair!"
The loud Ocean heard,

To its blue depth stirred,

And divided at her prayer:
And under the water

The Earth's white daughter

Fled like a sunny beam;

Behind her descended

Her billows, unblended

With the brackish Dorian stream;
Like a gloomy stain
On the emerald main
Alpheus rushed behind,
As an eagle pursuing
A dove to its ruin

Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

Under the bowers

Where the Ocean Powers

Sit on their pearlèd thrones,
Through the coral woods
Of the weltering floods,
Over heaps of unvalued stones;
Through the dim beams.

Which amid the streams

Weave a network of colored light;
And under the caves,

Where the shadowy waves

Are as green as the forest's night;
Outspeeding the shark,

And the sword-fish dark,

Under the ocean foam,

And up through the rifts

Of the mountain clifts,

They past to their Dorian home.

And now from their fountains

In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted

Grown single-hearted,

They ply their watery tasks.

At sunrise they leap

From their cradles steep

SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,

Where all the long and lone daylight
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city and sea and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand-
Come, long sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn,

I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,

And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,

Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me ? And I replied,

No, not thee!

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon;

Sleep will come when thou art fled:

Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night -
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!

CHORUS OF FURIES.

(From "Prometheus Unbound. ")

FROM the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth,
Where the night has its grave and the morning its birth,
Come, come, come!

O ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth,
When cities sink howling in ruin; and ye
Who with wingless footsteps trample the sea,
And close upon Shipwreck and Famine's track,
Sit chattering with joy on the foodless wreck;
Come, come, come!

Leave the bed, low, cold, and red,
Strewed beneath a nation dead;

Leave the hatred, as in ashes

Fire is left for future burning:
It will burst in bloodier flashes
When ye stir it, soon returning:
Leave the self-contempt implanted
In young spirits, sense-enchanted,
Misery's yet unkindled fuel:
Leave Hell's secrets half unchanted
To the maniac dreamer; cruel
More than ye can be with hate
Is he with fear.

Come, come, come!

We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate,
And we burthen the blast of the atmosphere,
But vainly we toil till ye come here.

VOICE IN THE AIR.

LIFE of Life! thy lips enkindle

With their love the breath between them;

And thy smiles before they dwindle

Make the cold air fire: then screen them

In those looks, where whoso gazes

Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light! thy limbs are burning

Through the vest which seems to hide them : As the radiant lines of morning

Through the clouds ere they divide them;

VOL. XVII. - 25

And this atmosphere divinest

Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.

Fair are others: none beholds thee,
But thy voice sounds low and tender
Like the fairest, for it folds thee
From the sight, that liquid splendor;
And all feel, yet see thee never,
As I feel now, lost for ever!

Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,
And the souls of whom thou lovest
Walk upon the winds with lightness,
Till they fail, as I am failing,

Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

ASIA.

My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it;

Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!

Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music's most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,

Without a course, without a star,

But by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided:
Realms where the air we breathe is love,

Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,

Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.