VIII.

TO HOMER.

1818.

STANDING aloof in giant ignorance,

Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,
As one who sits ashore and longs perchance
To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.

So thou wast blind!-but then the veil was rent,
For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live,
And Neptune made for thee a spermy tent,

And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive; Aye, on the shores of darkness there is light, And precipices show untrodden green; There is a budding morrow in midnight;

There is a triple sight in blindness keen; Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befel,

To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.

IX.

ANSWER TO A SONNET ENDING THUS :

"Dark eyes are dearer far

Than those that made the hyacinthine bell;"

By J. H. REYNOLDS.

Feb. 1818.

BLUE! 'Tis the life of heaven,the domain
Of Cynthia, the wide palace of the sun,-
The tent of Hesperus, and all his train,—

The bosomer of clouds, gold, grey and dun.
Blue! "Tis the life of waters-ocean

And all its vassal streams: pools numberless
May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can
Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness.
Blue! Gentle cousin of the forest-green,

Married to green in all the sweetest flowersForget-me-not, the blue bell,—and, that queen

Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great, When in an Eye thou art alive with fate!

X.

TO J. H. REYNOLDS.

O THAT a week could be an age, and we
Felt parting and warm meeting every week,
Then one poor year a thousand years would be,
The flush of welcome ever on the cheek:
So could we live long life in little space,

So time itself would be annihilate,

So a day's journey in oblivious haze

To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate. O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind!

To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant! In little time a host of joys to bind,

And keep our souls in one eternal pant! This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught Me how to harbour such a happy thought.

TIME's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb;
Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand;
Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web,

And snared by the ungloving of thine hand.
And yet I never look on midnight sky,

But I behold thine eyes' well memoried light; I cannot look upon the rose's dye,

But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight; I cannot look on any budding flower,

But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips,

And harkening for a love-sound, doth devour

Its sweets in the wrong sense : - Thou dost

eclipse

Every delight with sweet remembering,

And grief unto my darling joys dost bring.

* A lady whom he saw for some few moments at Vauxhall,

XII.

TO SLEEP.

1819.

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!

Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws

Around my bed its lulling charities;

Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole;

Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,

And seal the hushed casket of my soul.