A BETTER ENCHANTRESS IMPRISONED IN THE SHAPE OF A SERPENT. She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, SATURN DETHRONED. Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, Spreading a shade: the Naiad, 'mid her reeds, THE VOICE OF A MELANCHOLY GODDESS SPEAKING TO SATURN. As when upon a tranced summer-night Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, A FALLEN GOD. The bright Titan, frenzied with new woes, He stretch'd himself, in grief and radiance faint. OTHER TITANS FALLEN. Scarce images of life, one here, one there, ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.18 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains Of beeches green, and shadows numberless, O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit, and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs; Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies, Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards; Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 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 musèd 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, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Was it a vision, or a waking-dream! 18" Ode to a Nightingale."-This poem was written in a house at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the border of the fields looking towards Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal illness upon him, and knew it. Never was the voice of death sweeter. 19" Charm'd magic casements," &c.-This beats Claude's Enchanted Castle, and the story of King Beder in the Arabian Nights. You do not know what the house is, or where, nor who the bird. Perhaps a king himself. But you see the window, open on the perilous sea, and hear the voice from out the trees in which it is nested, sending its warble over the foam. The whole is at once vague and particular, full of mysterious life. You see nobody, though something is heard; and you know not what of beauty or wickedness is to come over that sea. Perhaps it was suggested by some fairy tale. I remember nothing of it in the dream-like wildness of things in Palmerin of England, a book which is full of color and home landscapes, ending with a noble and affecting scene of war; and of which Keats was very fond. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold He star'd at the Pacific20—and all his men 20" He stared at the Pacific," &c.-"Stared" has been thought by some too violent, but it is precisely the word required by the |