The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree

wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglan

tine;

Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy
wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on

summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful

Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a musëd

rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ectasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain

To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal

Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was

heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a

path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on

the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole

self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu; thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still

stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:-do I wake or sleep?

ARETHUSA.

BY PERCY B. SHELLEY.

ARETHUSA arose

From her couch of snows

In the Acroceraunian mountains,—

From cloud and from crag

Shepherding her bright fountains.

She leapt down the rocks

With her rainbow locks

Streaming among the streams;—

Her steps paved with green

The downward ravine

Which slopes to the western gleams:

And gliding and springing,
She went, ever singing,

In murmurs as soft as sleep;

The Earth seemed to love her, And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep.

Then Alpheus bold,

On his glacier cold,

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: