Of Science dims the mirror of our joy
To them 'twere the Simoon, and would destroyFor what (to them) availeth it to know
That Truth is Falsehood-or that Bliss is Woe?
Sweet was their death-with them to die was rife With the last ecstasy of satiate life
Beyond that death no immortality—
But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be"-
And there-oh! may my weary spirit dwell-
Apart from Heaven's Eternity-and yet how far
from Hell! 26
What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?
But two they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts
To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover-
O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
Was Love the blind, near sober Duty known?
Unguided Love hath fallen-'mid
tears of per-
He was a goodly spirit-he who fell :
A wanderer by mossy-mantled well-
A gazer on the lights that shine above-
A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:
What wonder? for each star is eye-like there,
And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair-
And they and ev'ry mossy spring were holy
To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.
The night had found (to him a night of woe)
Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo—
Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,
And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
Here sat he with his love-his dark eye bent
With eagle gaze along the firmament :
Now turned upon her—but ever then
It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.
"Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!
How lovely 'tis to look so far away!
She seemed not thus upon that autumn eve
I left her gorgeous halls-nor mourned to leave.
That eve-that eve-
e-I should remember well.
The sun-ray dropped, in Lemnos, with a spell
On th' arabesque carving of a gilded hall
Wherein I sat, and on the draperied wall-
And on my eye-lids-O the heavy light!
How drowsily it weighed them into night!
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan !
But O that light!—I slumber'd-Death, the while
Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle,
So softly that no single silken hair
Awoke that slept-or knew that he was there.
"The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon
Was a proud temple called the Parthenon.28
More beauty clung around her column'd wall
Than e'en thy glowing bosom beats withal;
And when old Time my wing did disenthral,
Thence sprang I—as the eagle from his tower,
And years I left behind me in an hour.
What time upon her airy bounds I hung
One half the garden of her globe was flung,
Unrolling as a chart unto my view-
Tenantless cities of the desert too!
Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
And half I wished to be again of men."
My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee-
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And woman's loveliness-and passionate love."
But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft Failed, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft,30 Perhaps my brain grew dizzy-but the world I left so late was into chaos hurled
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
And rolled, a flame, the fiery heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar,
And fell-not swiftly as I rose before,
But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'
Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
Nor long the measure of my falling hours,
For nearest of all stars was thine to ours-
Dread stars! that came, amid a night of mirth,
A red Dædalion on the timid Earth.
"We came and to thy Earth—but not to us
Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:
We came, my love: around, above, below,
Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,
Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod
She grants to us, as granted by her God-
But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurled
Never his fairy wing o'er fairer world!
Dim was its little disc, and angel eyes
Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea—
But when its glory swelled upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,
We paused before the heritage of men,
And thy star trembled—as doth Beauty then!"
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
The night that waned and waned and brought no day.
They fell for Heaven to them no hope imparts
Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.
SONNET-TO SCIENCE.
CIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes, Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
AIR river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty-the unhidden heart-
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;
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