I wish I had not, as I must,

To quit this tempting lattice.

Sure aim takes Cupid, fluttering foe,
Across a street so narrow;

A thread of silk to string his bow,
A needle for his arrow !

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

W

SONG OF ARIEL.

[FROM THE TEMPEST."]

HERE the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie ;

There I couch when owls do cry;
On the bat's back I do fly

After summer, merrily.

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough!

SHAKESPEARE.

TO A COLD BEAUTY.

L

I.

ADY, wouldst thou heiress be

To Winter's cold and cruel part? When he sets the rivers free,

Thou dost still lock up thy heart;
Thou that shouldst outlast the snow
But in the whiteness of thy brow.

II.

Scorn and cold neglect are made
For winter gloom and winter wind,
But thou wilt wrong the summer air,
Breathing it to words unkind,—
Breath which only should belong
To love, to sunlight, and to song.

III.

When the little buds unclose,

Red, and white, and pied, and blue,
And that virgin flower, the rose,
Opes her heart to hold the dew,

Wilt thou lock thy bosom up,
With no jewel in its cup?

IV.

Let not cold December sit
Thus in Love's peculiar throne:
Brooklets are not prison'd now,
But crystal frosts are all agone;
And that which hangs upon the spray,
It is no snow, but flower of May.

HOOD.

I

CANNOT see the features right,

When on the gloom I strive to paint The face I know; the hues are faint And mix with hollow masks of night:

Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought,
A gulf that ever shuts and gapes,
A hand that points, and palled shapes
In shadowy thoroughfares of thought;

And crowds that stream from yawning doors,
And shoals of pucker'd faces drive;
Dark bulks that tumble half alive,
And lazy lengths on boundless shores :

Till all at once beyond the will

I hear a wizard music roll,

And through a lattice on the soul

Looks thy fair face and makes it still.

In Memoriam.

ULALUME.

HE skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispèd and sere-
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;

It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid-region of Weir-
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley titanic,
Of

cypress, I roam'd with my Soul-
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.

These were days when my heart was volcanic As the scoriac rivers that roll

As the lavas that restlessly roll

Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole-
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,

But our thoughts they were palsied and sere— Our memories were treacherous and sereFor we knew not the month was October, And we mark'd not the night of the year— (Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber(Though once we had journey'd down here)— Remember'd not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn—
As the star-dials hinted of morn-
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn—
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said " She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs—
She revels in a region of sighs:

She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,

And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies-
To the Lethean peace of the skies—
Come up, in despite of the Lion,

To shine on us with her bright eyes

Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said-" Sadly this star I mistrust—
Her pallor I strangely mistrust :-
Oh, hasten !-oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly!-let us fly!-for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Plumes till they trail'd in the dust—
Till they sorrowfully trail'd in the dust.

I replied " This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sibylic splendour is beaming

With Hope and in Beauty to-night :-
See!-it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright—
We safely may trust to a gleaming

That cannot but guide us aright,

As it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kiss'd her,
And tempted her out of her gloom—
And conquer'd her scruples and gloom;
And we pass'd from the shade, as I kiss'd her,
But were stopp'd by the door of a tomb—
By the door of a legended tomb;

And I said " What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied-" Ulalume-Ulalume-
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober

As the leaves that were crispèd and sere