man to the sun’s God: yet unsecure,‘For as upon the earth dire prodigies
‘Fright and perplex, so also shudders he:
‘Nor at dog’s howl or gloom bird’s Even screech,
‘Or the familiar visitings of one
‘Upon the first toll of his passing bell:
‘But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,
‘Make great Hyperion ache. His palace bright,
‘Bastion’d with pyramids of glowing gold,
‘And touch’d with shade of bronzed obelisks,
‘Glares a blood red through all the thousand courts,
‘Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries:
‘And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
‘Flush angerly; when he would taste the wreaths
‘Of incense breath’d aloft from sacred hills,
‘Instead of sweets his ample palate takes
‘Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick.
‘Wherefore when harbour’d in the sleepy West,
‘After the full completion of fair day,
‘For rest divine upon exalted couch
‘And slumber in the arms of melody,
‘He paces through the pleasant hours of ease
‘With strides colossal, on from hall to hall;
‘While far within each aisle and deep recess
‘His winged minions in close clusters stand
‘Amaz’d, and full of fear; like anxious men,
‘Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops,
‘When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.
‘Even now, while Saturn, roused from icy trance,
‘Goes step for step with Thea from yon woods,
‘Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,
‘Is sloping to the threshold of the West.
‘Thither we tend.’ Now in clear light I stood,
Reliev’d from the dusk vale. Mnemosyne
Was sitting on a square edg’d polish’d stone,
That in its lucid depth reflected pure
Her priestess garments. My quick eyes ran on
From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,
Through bow’rs of fragrant and enwreathed light
And diamond paved lustrous long arcades.
Anon rush’d by the bright Hyperion;
His flaming robes stream’d out beyond his heels,
And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,
That scared away the meek ethereal hours
And made their dove wings tremble. On he flared.
To Some Ladies
What though while the wonders of nature exploring,
I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend;
Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring,
Bless Cynthia’s face, the enthusiast’s friend:
Yet over the steep, whence the mountain stream rushes,
With you, kindest friends, in idea I rove;
Mark the clear tumbling crystal, its passionate gushes,
Its spray that the wild flower kindly bedews.
Why linger you so, the wild labyrinth strolling?
Why breathless, unable your bliss to declare?
Ah! you list to the nightingale’s tender condoling,
Responsive to sylphs, in the moon beamy air.
’Tis morn, and the flowers with dew are yet drooping,
I see you are treading the verge of the sea:
And now! ah, I see it – you just now are stooping
To pick up the keep-sake intended for me.
If a cherub, on pinions of silver descending,
Had brought me a gem from the fretwork of heaven;
And smiles, with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending,
The blessings of Tighe had melodiously given;
It had not created a warmer emotion
Than the present, fair nymphs, I was blest with from you,
Than the shell, from the bright golden sands of the ocean
Which the emerald waves at your feet gladly threw.
For, indeed, ’tis a sweet and peculiar pleasure,
(And blissful is he who such happiness finds,)
To possess but a span of the hour of leisure,
In elegant, pure, and aerial minds.
Calidore
Young Calidore is paddling o’er the lake;
His healthful spirit eager and awake
To feel the beauty of a silent eve,
Which seem’d full loath this happy world to leave;
The light dwelt o’er the scene so lingeringly.
He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky,
And smiles at the far clearness all around,
Until his heart is well nigh over wound,
And turns for calmness to the pleasant green
Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean
So elegantly o’er the waters’ brim
And show their blossoms trim.
Scarce can his clear and nimble eyesight follow
The freaks, and dartings of the black-wing’d swallow,
Delighting much, to see it half at rest,
Dip so refreshingly its wings, and breast
‘Gainst the smooth surface, and to mark anon,
The widening circles into nothing gone.
And now the sharp keel of his little boat
Comes up with ripple, and with easy float,
And glides into a bed of water lillies:
Broad leav’d are they and their white canopies
Are upward turn’d to catch the heavens’ dew.
Near to a little island’s point they grew;
Whence Calidore might have the goodliest view
Of this sweet spot of earth. The bowery shore
Went off in gentle windings to the hoar
And light blue mountains: but no breathing man
With a warm heart, and eye prepared to scan
Nature’s clear beauty, could pass lightly by
Objects that look’d out so invitingly
On either side. These, gentle Calidore
Greeted, as he had known them long before.
The sidelong view of swelling leafiness,
Which
