Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.

The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.

Which would blight the plants.

Where you stand you cannot hear

From the groves within

The wild-bird's din.

In the heart of the garden the merry bird chaunts». It would fall to the ground if you came in.

In the middle leaps a fountain

Like sheet lightning,

Ever brightening

With a low melodious thunder;

All day and all night it is ever drawn

From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder:
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love;

And yet, though its voice be so clear and full,
You never would hear it — your ears are so dull;
So keep where you are: you are foul with sin;
It would shrink to the earth if you came in.

THE DYING SWAN.

THE plain was grassy, wild and bare, Wide, wild, and open to the air, Which had built up everywhere

An under-roof of doleful gray. With an inner voice the river ran, Adown it floated a dying swan,

Which loudly did lament.

It was the middle of the day.

Ever the weary wind went on, And took the reed-tops as it went.

Some blue peaks in the distance rose, And white against the cold-white sky Shone out their crowning snows.

One willow over the river wept,

And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;
Above in the wind was the swallow,

Chasing itself at its own wild will,

And far through the marish green and still
The tangled water-courses slept,

Shot over with purple, and green and yellow.

The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy

Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear

The warble was low, and full and clear;
And floating about the under-sky,
Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole
Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;
But anon her awful jubilant voice,
With a music strange and manifold,

Flowed forth on a carol free and bold:

As when a mighty people rejoice

With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold, And the tumult of their acclaim is rolled

Through the open gates of the city afar,

To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star.
And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds,
And the willow-branches hoar and dank,

And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,
And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,
And the silvery marish-flowers that throng
The desolate creeks and pools among,

Were flooded over with eddying song.

A DIRGE.

I.

Now is done thy long day's work;
Fold thy palms across thy breast,
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest.
Let them rave.

Shadows of the silver birk

Sweep the green that folds thy grave.

Let them rave.

II.

Thee nor carketh care nor slander;
Nothing but the small cold worm
Fretteth thine enshrouded form.

Let them rave.

Light and shadow ever wander

O'er the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.