And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

4.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea-shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

s.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

ODE TO PSYCHE.

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,

And pardon that thy secrets should be sung,
Even into thine own soft-conched ear:

Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see

The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?

I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,

And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side

In deepest grass, beneath the whispering roof

Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran A brooklet, scarce espied: 'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers fragrant-eyed,

Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian, They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;

Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;

Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,
And ready still past kisses to outnumber

At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:
The winged boy I knew;

But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove \
His Psyche true!

O latest-born and loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!
Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,

Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,

Nor altar heap'd with flowers; Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan Upon the midnight hours;

No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet

From chain-swung censer teeming; No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat

Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,

When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
Holy the air, the water, and the fire;

Yet even in these days so far retired
From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
Fluttering among the faint Olympians,

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

Upon the midnight hours;

Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet

From swinged censer teeming:
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat

Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build B fane

In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain,

Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees

Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,

The moss-Iain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,

With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,

Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same: And there shall be for thee all soft delight

That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and the casement ope at night,

To let the warm Love in!

FANCY.

Ever let the Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home:

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;

Then let winged Fancy wander

Through the thought still spread beyond her:

Open wide the mind's cage door,

She 'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.

O sweet Fancy! let her loose;

Summer's joys are spoilt by use,

And the enjoying of the Spring

Fades as does its blossoming:

Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,

Blushing through the mist and dew,

Cloys with tasting: What do then?

Sit thee by the ingle, when

The sear faggot blazes bright,

Spirit of a winter's night;

When the soundless earth is muffled,

And the caked snow is shuffled

From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;

When the Night doth meet the Noon

In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.

Sit thee there, and send abroad,

With a mind self-overawed,

Fancy, high-commission'd:—send her!

She has vassals to attend her:

She will bring, in spite of frost,

Beauties that the earth hath lost;

She will bring thee, all together,

All delights of summer weather;

All the buds and bells of May,

From dewy sward or thorny spray;

All the heaped Autumn's wealth,

With a still, mysterious stealth:

She will mix these pleasures up

Like three fit wines in a cup,

And thou shalt quaff it:—thou shalt hear

Distant harvest-carols clear;

Rustle of the reaped corn ;

Sweet birds antheming the morn:

And, in the same moment—hark!

"Tis the early April lark,

Or the rooks, with busy caw,

Foraging for sticks and straw.

Thou shalt, at one glance, behold

The daisy and the marigold;

White-plumed lilies, and the first

Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;

Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;

And every leaf, and every flower

Pearl'd with the self-same shower.

Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep

Meagre from its celled sleep;

And the snake all winter-thin

Cast on sunny bank its skin;

Freckled nest eggs thou shalt see

Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,

When the hen-bird's wing doth rest

Quiet on her mossy nest;

Then the hurry and alarm

When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

Acorns ripe down-pattering

While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose; Every thing is spoilt by use: Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gazed at? Where's the maid