From sun to shade, and from shade to sun,
Shaking the lilies to seed as it flows,

Under the willow-trees taking a dose,

And waking up in a flutter of fun!

Could you look at the leaves of yonder tree!

The wind is stirring them as the sun is stirring me!

The woolly clouds move quiet and slow,

In the pale blue calm of the tranquil skies,

And their shades that run on the

grass below

Leave purple dreams in the violet's eyes! The vine droops over my head with bright

Clusters of purple and green-the rose

Breaks her heart on the air—and the orange glows Like golden lamps in an emerald night.*

While I sit, with the stain of the wine on my lip,

Shall nature and I part fellowship?

No, by Bacchus ! This view from the threshold of

home

Is as glad to the core, and as sorrow-despising,

As Aphrodité when fresh from the foam
That still on her bosoms was falling and rising,

* "Golden lamps in a green night."-ANDREW MARVEL.

?

While the sunshine crept thro' her briny hair
And mingled itself with the shadows there,
And her deepening eyes drank their azure from air,
And she blushed a new beauty surpassingly fair!

14.

'Tis absurd to tell me to ruffle a feather,

Because there may soon be a change of weather.
When the Dog-Star foams, I will lie in the shade,
And watch the white sun thro' an emerald glade;
When winter murmurs with rain and storm,

I will watch my hearth smile to itself, and keep warm ;
And for Death, who having fulfilled his task

Leaves his deputy Silence in houses of mourning,—
Well, I hope he no troublesome questions will ask,

But knock me down, like an ox, without warning.
Like the world, I most solemnly promise devotion
To pleasure commingled of light, music, motion.
That kind of pleasure like sunny rain,

Which drowns the shoots of a transient pain,
But sets the seeds deeper in soil of the brain,
Till, stronger and fiercer, they blossom again,

Is as foul as that Fortune whose kisses divert you
While she opens a vein with a golden knife,

Or that rigid Morality, plague of my life,

Which thinks one a cushion and thumps one with

virtue.

But I like (as I said) to sit here in my mirth,
To be part of the joy of the sweet-smelling earth,
To feel the blood blush like a flower with its glee,
To sing like a bird, to be stirr'd like a tree,
Drowsily, drowsily, sit at mine ease,

While the odd rhymes buzz in my brain like bees,
And over my wine-cup to chirp and to nod,
Ay to sit till I fall

Like that peach from the wall—

Self-sufficient, serene, happy-eyed,—like a GOD!

15.

Ay, crop the corn with the crooked sickle,
Sow harvest early and reap too late,
Prove Fortune friendly or false or fickle,
Blunder and bother with aching pate,
Attempting to conquer chance or fate,

(Bibit.)

Struggle, speculate, dig, and bleed,
Reap the whirlwind of Venus' seed,

O senseless, impotent human breed!

What avails! what avails! Were ye less intent

On your raking and digging, perchance ye'd behold The fleecy vapours above you roll'd

Round the dozing Deities dead to strife,

With their mild great eyes on each other bent

Enchanging a wisdom indifferent

To the native honours of death and life.

Sober truths of a pleasure divine

Keep them supine !

The grand lazy fellows have nothing to do
With the hubble and trouble of me or of you,

The stars break around them in silver foam,

And they calmly amuse themselves, sometimes, by stealing

A peep at us pigmies, with much the same feeling

With which, from the candour and quiet of home,
I glance at the strife of political Rome.

Serene, happy-eyed, self-sufficient, they rest

On the hill where the blue sky is leaning her breast :

Jove seated supreme in the midst, at his side
Apollo the Sun and Selene the Moon,
Juno half dozing, her foot of pride

On the neck of Venus the drowsy-eyed,

And Pallas humming the spheric tune.

16.

Flash!

Lightning, I swear!-there's a tempest brewing!
Crash!

Thunder, too-swift-footed lightning pursuing!
The leaves are troubled, the winds drop dead,
The air grows ruminant overhead—
Splash!

That great round drop fell pat on my nose.
Flash crash! splash!-

I must run for it, I suppose.

O what a flashing and crashing and splashing,
The earth is rocking, the skies are riven-

Jove in a passion, in god-like fashion,

Is breaking the crystal urns of heaven.

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