As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is

overflowed.

VII.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

VIII.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

IX.

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her

bower:

X.

Like a glowworm golden

In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it

from the view.

XI.

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-

winged thieves.

XII.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth sur-

pass.

XIII.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine :
I have never heard

Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

XIV.
Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chaunt,
Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vauntA thing wherein we feel there is some hidden

want.

XV.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain ?
What fields, or waves, or mountains ?

What shapes of sky or plain ?
What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of

pain ?

XVI.

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee :
Thou 'ovest ; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

XVII.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal

stream ?

XVIII.

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not :
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught; [thought. Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest

VOL. III. 3

XIX.
Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

XX.
Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground !

XXI.

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening

now.

TO

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden,

Thou needest not fear mine ;
My spirit is too deeply laden

Ever to burthen thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,

Thou needest not fear mine;
Innocent is the heart's devotion

With which I worship thine.

ODE TO LIBERTY.

Yet freedom, yet, thy banner torn but flying,
Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind.

BYRON.

I.

A GLORIOUS people vibrated again

The lightning of the nations : Liberty, From heart to 'heart, from tower to tower, o'er

Spain,
Scattering contagious fire into the sky,
Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dis-

may,
And, in the rapid plumes of song,

Clothed itself sublime and strong;
As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among,
Hovering inverse o'er its accustomed prey;

Till from its station in the heaven of fame The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray

Of the remotest sphere of living flame Which paves the void, was from behind it flung,

As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there

came

A

out of the deep; I will record the same.