To the most hateful seeing of itself.
Golden his hair of short Numidian curl,
Regal his shape majestic, a vast shade

In midst of his own brightness, like the bulk
Of Memnon's image at the set of sun

To one who travels from the dusking East :
Sighs, too, as mournful as that Memnon's harp,
He uttered, while his hands, contemplative,
He pressed together, and in silence stood.
Despondence seized again the fallen Gods
At sight of the dejected King of Day,
And many hid their faces from the light:
But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyes
Among the brotherhood; and, at their glare,
Uprose Iäpetus, and Creüs too,

And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strode
To where he towered on his eminence.

There those four shouted forth old Saturn's name;
Hyperion from the peak loud answered, "Saturn!"
Saturn sat near the Mother of the Gods,

In whose face was no joy, though all the Gods
Gave from their hollow throats the name of

APOLLO.

CHIEF isle of the embowered Cyclades,
Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green,

Saturn!" From Hyperion.

And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech,
In which the zephyr breathes the loudest song,
And hazels thick, dark-stemmed beneath the shade:
Apollo is once more the golden theme!

Where was he, when the Giant of the Sun
Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers?
Together had he left his mother fair
And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower,
And in the morning twilight wandered forth
Beside the osiers of a rivulet,

Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale.

The nightingale had ceased, and a few stars
Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrush
Began calm-throated. Throughout all the isle
There was no covert, no retired cave

Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves,
Though scarcely heard in many a green recess.
He listened, and he wept, and his bright tears
Went trickling down the golden bow he held.
Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood,
While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard by
With solemn step an awful Goddess came,
And there was purport in her looks for him,
Which he with eager guess began to read
Perplexed, the while melodiously he said:

66

How camest thou over the unfooted sea?

Or hath that antique mien and robed form
Moved in these vales invisible till now?
Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o'er
The fallen leaves, when I have sat alone
In cool mid forest. Surely I have traced
The rustle of those ample skirts about
These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers
Lift up their heads, as still the whisper passed.
Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before,
And their eternal calm, and all that face,
Or I have dreamed.".

Yes," said the supreme shape.
From Hyperion.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY.

Ан, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever-dew;

And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a Lady in the meads,

Full beautiful, a fairy's child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long ;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A fairy's song.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone:
She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
"I love thee true.'

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she gazed and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes-
So kissed to sleep.

And there we slumbered on the moss,
And there I dreamed, ah, woe betide,
The latest I had ever dreamed

On the cold hill-side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all,
Who cried, "La belle dame sans mercy
Hath thee in thrall !"

I saw their starved lips in the gloom
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill-side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER.

MUCH have I travelled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen :
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne ;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold :
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific-and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

ON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS AT AN EARLY HOUR.

GIVE me a golden pen, and let me lean

On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far ;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,

Or hand of hymning angel, when 'tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween :
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half discovered wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres :
For what a height my spirit is contending!
"Tis not content to be so soon alone.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Born 1792. Died 1822.

THE POET.

THERE was a Poet whose untimely tomb
No human hand with pious reverence reared,
But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds
Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid
Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness.
A lovely youth, no mourning maiden decked
With weeping flowers or votive cypress-wreath
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep :
Gentle and brave and generous, no lorn bard
Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:
He lived, he died, he sang, in solitude.
Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes;
And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined
And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.
The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,
And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,
Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.

By solemn vision and bright silver dream
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight

And sound from the vast earth and ambient air
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.

The fountains of divine philosophy

Fled not his thirsting lips and all of great

Or good or lovely which the sacred past

In truth or fable consecrates he felt

And knew. When early youth had passed, he left
His cold fireside and alienated home,

To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.
Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness

Had lured his fearless steps; and he has brought
With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,
His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps
He like her shadow has pursued, where'er
The red volcano overcanopies

Its fields of snow, and pinnacles of ice
With burning smoke; or where bitumen-lakes

On black bare pointed islets ever beat

With sluggish surge; or where the secret caves
Rugged and dark, winding among the springs
Of fire and poison, inaccessible

To avarice or pride, their starry domes
Of diamond and of gold expand above
Numberless and immeasurable halls,

Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines

Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty

Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims
To love and wonder. He would linger long
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home;
Until the doves and squirrels would partake
From his innocuous hand his bloodless food,
Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,
And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er
The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form
More graceful than her own.

His wandering step,

Obedient to high thoughts, has visited

The awful ruins of the days of old

Athens and Tyre, and Balbec, and the wate
Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers

Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,

Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange,
Sculptured on alabaster obelisk,

Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphinx,
Dark Ethiopia on her desert hills

Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,
Stupendous columns, and wild images

Of more than man, where marble demons watch
The zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men

Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,
He lingered, poring on memorials

Of the world's youth; through the long burning day
Gazed on those speechless shapes; nor when the moon
Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades,
Suspended he that task, but ever gazed
And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind
Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw
The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.

From Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude.

ADONIAS; AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS.

I.

I WEEP for Adonais--he is dead!

Oh weep for Adonais! though our tears

Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!

And thou, sad Hour selected from all years

To mourn our loss, roused thy obscure compeers,

And teach them thine own sorrow! Say, "With me
Died Adonais! Till our future dares

Forget the past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity.