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To nothing, loved a nothing, nothing seen

That I may see thy beauty through the night; Or felt but a great dream! Oh, I have been To Flora, and a nightingale shall light Presumptuous against love, against the sky, Tame on thy finger; to the River-gods, Against all elements, against the tie

And they shall bring thee taper fishing-rods Of mortals each to each, against the blooms Of gold, and lines of Naiad's long bright tress. Of flowers, rush of rivers, and the tombs

Heaven shield thee for thine utter loveliness! Of heroes gone! Against his proper glory

Thy mossy footstool shall the altar be Has my own soul conspired : so my story

'Fore which I'll bend, bending, dear love, to thee. Will I to children utter, and repent.

Those lips shall be my Delphos, and shall speak There never lived a mortal man, who bent Laws to my footsteps, color to my cheek, His appetite beyond his natural sphere,

Trembling or stedfastness to chis same voice, But starved and died. My sweetest Indian, here, And of three sweetest pleasurings the choice : Here will I kneel, for thou redeemed hast

And that affectionate light, those diamond things, My life from too thin breathing: gone and past Those eyes, those passions, those supreme pearl Are cloudy phantasms. Caverns lone, farewell!

springs, And air of visions, and the monstrous swell Shall be my grief, or twinkle me to pleasure. Of visionary seas! No, never more,

Say, is not bliss within our perfect seizure?'
Shall airy voices cheat me to the shore

o that I could not doubt ?"
Of tangled wonder, breathless and aghast.
Adieu, my daintiest Dream! although so vast
My love is still for thee. The hour may come

The mountaineer
When we shall meet in pure elysium.
On earth I may not love thee; and therefore

Thus strove by fancies vain and crude to clear

His brier'd path to some tranquillity.
Doves will I offer up, and sweetest store
All through the teeming year: so thou wilt shine,

It gave bright gladness to his lady's eye,
On me, and on this damsel fair of mine,

And yet the tears she wept were tears of sorrow ; And bless our simple lives. My Indian bliss !

Answering thus, just as the golden morrow

Beam'd upward from the valleys of the east : My river-lily bud! one human kiss !

“O that the flutter of this heart had ceased, One sigh of real breath-one gentle squeeze, Warm as a dove's nest among summer trees,

Or the sweet name of love had pass'd away! And warm with dews that ooze from living blood !

Young feather'd tyranı! by a swift decay,

Wilt thou devote this body to the earth :
Whither didst melt? Ah, what of that?-all good
We'll talk about- no more of dreaming.–Now,

And I do think that at my very birth
Where shall our dwelling be? Under the brow

I lisp'd thy blooming titles inwardly;

For at the first, first dawn and thought of thue, Of some steep mossy hill, where ivy dun Would hide us up, although spring leaves were none; Art thou not cruel? Ever have I striveu

With uplift hands I blest the stars of heaven. And where dark yew-trees, as we rustle through,

To think thee kind, but ah, it will not do! Will drop their scarlet-berry cups of dew?

When yet a child, I heard that kisses drew
O thou wouldst joy to live in such a place!

Favor from thee, and so I kisses gave
Dusk for our loves, yet light enough to grace
Those gentle limbs on mossy bed reclined :

To the void air, bidding them find out love:

But when I came to feel how far above
For by one step the blue sky shouldst thou find,
And by another, in deep dell below,

All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood.
See, through the trees, a little river go

All earthly pleasure, all imagined good,

Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss,
All in its mid-day gold and glimmering.
Honey from out the gnarled hive I'll bring,

Even then, that moment, at the thought of this,

Fainting I fell into a bed of lowers,
And apples, wan with sweetness, gather thee,
Cresses that grow where no man may them see,

And languish'd there three days. Ye milder powers And sorrel untorn by the dew-claw'd stag:

Am I not cruelly wrong'u ? Believe, believe Pipes will I fashion of the syrinx flag,

Me, dear Endyinion, were I w weave That thou mayst always know whither I roam,

With my own fancies garlands of sweet liie, When it shall please thee in our quiet home

Thou shouldst be one of all. Ah, bitter strife! To listen and think of love. Still let me speak;

I may not be thy love: I am forbiddenStill let me dive into the joy I seek,

Indeed I amthwarted, affrighied, chidden For yet the past doth prison me. The rill,

By things I trembled al, and gorgon wraih.

Twice hast thou ask'd whither I went: hencefi:rein Thou haply inayst delight in, will I fill

Ask me no more! I may not utter il,
With fairy fishes from the mountain tarn,
And thon shalt feed them from the squirrel's barn.

Nor may I be thy love. We might commit

Ourselves at once to vengeance; we might die, Its bottoin will I sirew with amber shells, And pebbles blue from deep enchanted wells.

We might embrace and die : voluptuous though Ils sides I'll plant with dew-sweet eglantine,

Enlarge not to my hunger, or I'm caught And honeysuckles full of clear bee-wine.

In trammels of perverse deliciousness.

No, no, that shall not be: thee will I bless,
I will entice this crystal rill to trace

And bid a long adieu."
Love's silver name upon the meadow's face.
I'll kneel to Vesta, for a flame of fire ;
And to god Phæbus, for a golden lyre,
To Empress Dian, for a hunting-spear;

The Carian
To Vesper, for a taper silver-clear,

No word return'd. both lovelorn, silent, wan,

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My future days to her fane consecrate."

Laughing at the clear stream and setting sun,

As though they jests had been : nor had he done As feels a dreamer what doth most create His laugh at Nature's holy countenance, His own particular fright, so these three felt: Until that grove appeard, as if perchance, Or like one, who, in after ages, knelt

And then his tongue with sober seemlihed To Lucifer or Baal, when he'd pine

Gave utterance as he enter'd : “ Ha!” I said, After a little sleep: or when in mine

“ King of the butterflies; but by this gloom, Far under-ground, a sleeper meets his friends And by old Rhadamanthus' tongue of doom, Who know him not. Each diligently bends This dusk religion, pomp of solitude, Tow'rds common thoughts and things for very fear; And the Promethean clay by thief endued, Striving their ghastly malady to cheer,

By old Saturnus' forelock, by his head By thinking it a thing of yes and no,

Shook with eternal palsy, I did wed That housewives falk of. But the spirit-blow Myself to things of light from infancy; Was struck, and all were dreamers. At the last And thus to be cast out, thus lorn to die, Endymion said : “ Are not our fates all cast? Is sure enough to make a mortal man Why stand we here ? Adieu, ye tender pair Grow impious." So he inwardly began Adieu!" Whereat those maidens, with wild stare, On things for which no wording can be found; Walk'd dizzily away. Pained and hot

Deeper and deeper sinking, until drown'd His eyes went after them, until they got

Beyond the reach of music: for the choir Near to a dypress grove, whose deadly maw, Of Cynthia he heard not, though rough brier In one swift moment, would what then he saw Nor muffling thicket interposed to dull Ingulf for ever. “Stay!" he cried, “ah, stay! The vesper hymn, far swollen, soft and full, Turn, damsels! hist! one word I have to say : Through the dark pillars of those sylvan aisles.' Sweeț Indian, I would see thee once again. He saw not the two maidens, nor their smiles, It is a thing I dote on: so I'd fain,

Wan as primroses gather'd at midnight Peona, ye should hand in hand repair,

By chilly-finger'd spring.“ Unhappy wight! Into those holy groves that silent are

Endymion!” said Peona, “ we are here! Behind great Dian's temple. I'll be yon,

What wouldst thou ere we all are laid on bier ?" At vesper's earliest twinkle—they are gone- Then he embraced her, and his lady's hand But once, once, once again—" At this he press'd Press’d, saying : “ Sister, I would have command, His hands against his face, and then did rest If it were heaven's will, on our sad fate." His head upon a mossy hillock green,

At which that dark-eyed stranger stood elate, And so remain'd as he a corpse had been

And said, in a new voice, but sweet as love, All the long day; save when he scantly lifted To Endymion's amaze : “ By Cupid's dove, His eyes abroad, to see how shadows shifted And so thou shalt! and by the lily truth With the slow move of time,-sluggish and weary of my own breast thou shalt, beloved youth!" Until the poplar tops, in journey dreary,

And as she spake, into her face there cam Had reach'd the river's brim. Then up he rose, Light, as reflected from a silver flame: And, slowly as that very river flows,

Her long black hair swell’d ampler, in display Walk'd tow'rds the temple-grove with this lament: Full golden; in her eyes a brighter day " Why such a golden eve? The breeze is sent Dawn'd blue and full of love. Ay, he beheld Careful and soft, that not a leaf may fall

Phæbe, his passion! joyous she upheld Before the serene father of them all

Her lucid bow, continuing thus: “ Drear, drear Bows down his summer head below the west. Has our delaying been; but foolish fear Now am I of breath, speech, and speed possest, Withheld me first; and then decrees of fate; But at the setting I must bid adien

And then 'twas fit that from this mortal state To her for the last time. Night will strew Thou shouldst, my love, by some unlook'd-for changa On the damp grass myriads of lingering leaves, Be spiritualized. Peona, we shall range And with them shall I die; nor much it grieves These forests, and to thee they safe shall be To die, when summer dies on the cold sward. As was thy cradle; hither shalt thou flee Why, I have been a butterfly, a lord

To meet us many a time.” Next Cynthia bright Of flowers, garlands, love-knots, silly posies, Peona kiss'd, and bless'd with fair good-night: Groves, meadows, melodies, and arbor-roses ; Her brother kiss'd her too, and knelt adown My kingdom's at its death, and just it is

Before his goddess, in a blissful swoon. That I should die with it: so in all this

She gave her fair hands to him, and behold, We miscall grief, bale, sorrow, heart-break, woe, Before three swiftest kisses he had told, What is there to plain of? By Titan's foe

They vanish'd far away -- Peona went I am but rightly served." So saying, he

Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment Tripp'd lightly on, in sort of deathful glee ;

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Lamia.

moan.

PART I.

Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar:
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!

She had a woman's mouth with all its pearls complete Upon a time, before the faery broods

And for her eyes—what could such eyes do there Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods, But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair ! Before King Oberon's bright diadem,

As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air. Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem, Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns

Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love's sake,
From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns, And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay,
The ever-smitten Hermes empty left

Like a stoop'd falcon ere he takes his prey :
His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft:
From high Olympus had he stolen light,

“ Fair Hermes. crown'd with feathers, fluttering On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight

light, Of his great summoner, and made retreat

I had a splendid dream of thee last night Into a forest on the shores of Crete.

I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold, For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt Among the Gods, upon Olympus old,, A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt; The only sad one ; for thou didst not hear At whose white feet the languid Tritons pour'd The soft, lute-finger'd Muses chanting clear, Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored. Nor even Apollo when he sang alone, Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, Deaf to his throbbing throat's long, long, melodious And in those meads where sometimes she might haunt, Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes, Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose. Break amorous through the clouds, as morning breaks, Ah, what a world of love was at her feet!

And, swiftly as a bright Phæbean dart, So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat

Strike for the Cretan isle ; and here thou art! Burnt from his winged heels to either ear, Too gentle Hermes, hast thou found the maid ?" That from a whiteness, as the lily clear,

Whereat the star of Lethe not delay'd Blush'd into roses 'mid his golden hair,

His rosy eloquence, and thus inquired : Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare. “ Thou smooth-lipp'd serpent, surely high inspired! From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew, Thou beauteous wreath with melancholy eyes, Breathing upon the powers his passion new, Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise And wound with many a river to its head, Telling me only where my nymph is fled.To find where this sweet nymph prepared her secret Where she doth breathe!” “ Bright planet, thou hast bed:

said," In vain ; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found, Return'd the snake, “ but seal with oaths, fair God!" And so he rested, on the lonely ground,

" I swear," said Hermes, “ by my serpent rod, Pensive, and full of painful jealousies

And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown!" Of the Wood-Gods, and even the very trees. Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoma There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice,

blown. Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys Then thus again the brilliance feminine : All pain but pity : thus the lone voice spake : “ Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine, “ When from this wreathed tomb shall I awake? Free as the air, invisibly, she strays When move in a sweet body fit for life,

About these thornless wilds; her pleasant days And love, and pleasure, and the ruddy strife She tastes unseen ; unseen her nimble feet Of hearts and lips? Ah, miserable me!"

Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet : The God, dove-footed, glided silently

From weary tendrils, and bow'd branches green, Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speed, She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen. The taller grasses and full-flowering weed, And by my power is her beauty veil'd Until he found a palpitating snake,

To keep it unaffronted, unassail'd Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake. By the love-glances of unlovely eyes,

Of Satyrs, Fauns, and bleard Silenus' sighs.

Pale grew her immortality, for woe
She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, Of all these lovers, and she grieved so
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue ; I took compassion on her, bade her steep
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,

Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson-barr'd ; Her loveliness invisible, yet free
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, To wander as she loves, in liberty.
Dissolved, or brighter shone, or interwreathed Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone,
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries-

If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon!" So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries,

Then, once again, the charmed God began She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf, An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self. Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian.

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Ravish'd she lifled her Circean head,

And of that other ridge whose barren back Blush'd a live damask, and swift-lisping said, Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack, "I was a woman, let me have once more

South-westward to Cleone. There she stood
A woman's shape, and charming as before. About a young bird's flutter from a wood,
I love a youth of Corinth-0 the bliss !

Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread,
Give me my woman's form, and place me where he is. By a clear pool, wherein she passioned
Stoop, Hermes, let me breath upon thy brow, To see herself escaped from so sore ills,
And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now." While her robes flaunted with the daffodils.
The God on half-shut feathers sank serene,
She breathed upon his eyes, and swift was seen Ah, happy Lycius !—for she was a maid
Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the green. More beautiful than ever twisted braid,
It was no dream; or say a dream it was,

Or sigh'd, or blush'd, or on spring-flower'd lea
Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy :
Their pleasures in a long immortal dream. A virgin purest lipp'd, yet in the lore
One warm, flush'd moment, hovering, it might seem Of love deep learn'd to the red heart's core :
Dash'd by the wood-nymph's beauty, so he burn'd; Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain
Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turn'd To unperplex bliss from its neighbor pain ;
To the swoon'd serpent, and with languid arm, Define their pettish limits, and estrange
Delicate, put to proof the lithe Caducean charm. Their points of contact, and swift counterchango
So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent

Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart Full of adoring tears and blandishment,

Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art;
And towards her stept : she, like a moon in wane, As though in Cupid's college she had spent
Faded before him, cower'd, nor could restrain Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent,
Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower

And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment
That faints into itself at evening hour:
But the God fostering her chilled hand,

Why this fair creature chose so fairily
She felt the warmth, her eyelids open'd bland By the wayside to linger, we shall see;
And, like new-flowers at morning song of bees, But first 't is fit to tell how she could muse
Bloom'd, and gave up her honey to the lees. And dream, when in the serpent prison-house,
Into the green-recessed woods they flew ;

Of all she list, strange or magnificent,
Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do.

How, ever, where she will'd, ber spirit went ;
Whether to faint Elysium, or where

Down through tress-lifting waves the Nereida fair
Left to herself, the serpent now began

Wind into Thetis' bower by many a pearly stair , To change; her elfin blood in madness ran, Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine, Her mouth foam'd, and the grass, therewith besprent, Stretch'd out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine ; Wither'd at dew so sweet and virulent;

Or where in Pluto's gardens palatine Her eyes in torture fix'd, and anguish drear, Mulciber's columns gleam in far piazzian line. Hot, glazed, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear, And sometimes into cities she would send Flash'd phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cool. Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend; ing tear.

And once, while among mortals dreaming thus, The colors all inflamed throughout her train, She saw the young Corinthian Lycius She writhed about, convulsed with scarlet pain : Charioting foremost in the envious race, A deep volcanian yellow took the place

Like a young Jove with calon uneager face, Of all her milder-mouned body's grace ;

And fell into a swooning love of him. And, as the lava ravishes the mead,

Now on the moth-time of that evening dim Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede : He would return that way, as well she knew, Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars, To Corinth from the shore ; for freshly blew Eclipsed her crescenis, and lick'd up her stars : The eastern soft wind, and his galley now So that, in moments few, she was undrest

Grated the quay-stones with her brazen prow of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst.

In port Cenchreas, from Egina isle And rubious-argent; of all these bereft,

Fresh anchord; whither he had been awhile Nothing but pain and ugliness were left.

To sacrifice to Jove, whose temple there Still shone her crown; that vanish'd, also she Waits with high marble doors for blood and incenso Melted and disappear'd as suddenly ; And in the air, her new voice luting soft,

Jove heard his vows, and better'd his desire ; Cried, “ Lycius! gentle Lycius !"-Borne aloft, For by some freakful chance he made retire With the bright mists about the mountains hoar, From his companions, and set forth to walk, These words dissolved : Crete's forests heard no more. Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk.

Over the solitary hills he fared,

Thoughtless at first, but ere eve's star appear'd Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright, His phantasy was lost, where reason fades, A full-born beauty new and exquisite ?

In the calm'd twilight of Platonic shades. She fed into that valley they pass o'er

Lámia beheld him coming, near, more nearWho go to Corinth from Chenchreas' shore; Close to her passing, in indifference drear, And rested at the foot of those wild hills,

His silent sandals swept the mossy green; The rugged founts of the Pervan rills,

So neighbor'd to him, and yet so unseeu

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