Let me breathe upon their skies,
And anger their live tapestries;
Free from cold, and every care,

Of chilly rain, and shivering air.
Zep. Spirit of Fire! away! away!
Or your very roundelay

Will sear my plumage newly budded
From its quilled sheath, all studded
With the self-same dews that fell
On the May-grown Asphodel.
Spirit of Fire-away! away!
Bre. Spirit of Fire-away! away!
Zephyr, blue-eyed fairy, turn,
And see my cool sedge-buried urn,
Where it rests its mossy brim
'Mid water-mint and cresses dim;
And the flowers, in sweet troubles,

Lift their eyes above the bubbles,
Like our Queen, when she would please
To sleep, and Oberon will tease.

Love me, blue-eyed Fairy! true,
Soothly I am sick for you.

Zep. Gentle Breama! by the first
Violet young nature nurst,

I will bathe myself with thee,
So you sometimes follow me
To my home, far, far, in west,

Beyond the nimble-wheeled quest
Of the golden-browed sun:
Come with me, o'er tops of trees,
To my fragrant palaces,
Where they ever floating are

Beneath the cherish of a star
Call'd Vesper, who with silver veil
Ever hides his brilliance pale,
Ever gently-drows'd doth keep
Twilight for the Fayes to sleep.
Fear not that your watery hair
Will thirst in drouthy ringlets there;
Clouds of stored summer rains

Thou shalt taste, before the stains
Of the mountain soil they take,
And too unlucent for thee make.
I love thee, crystal Fairy, true!
Sooth I am as sick for you!

Sal. Out, ye aguish Fairies, out!
Chilly lovers, what a rout

VOL. II.

Keep ye with your frozen breath,
Colder than the mortal death.
Adder-eyed Dusketha, speak,
Shall we leave these, and go seek
In the earth's wide entrails old

Couches warm as their's are cold?

O for a fiery gloom and thee,

T

Dusketha, so enchantingly

Freckle-wing'd and lizard-sided!

Dus. By thee, Sprite, will I be guided!
I care not for cold or heat;

Frost and flame, or sparks, or sleet,
To my essence are the same;—
But I honour more the flame.

Sprite of Fire, I follow thee
Wheresoever it may be,

To the torrid spouts and fountains,
Underneath earth-quaked mountains;
Or, at thy supreme desire,

Touch the very pulse of fire

With my

bare unlidded eyes.

Sal. Sweet Dusketha! paradise!

Off, ye icy Spirits, fly!

Frosty creatures of the sky!

Dus. Breathe upon them, fiery sprite!

Zep.)

Bre

Away! away to our delight!

Sal. Go, feed on icicles, while we

Bedded in tongue-flames will be.

Dus. Lead me to those feverous glooms,
Sprite of Fire!

Bre.

Me to the blooms,

Blue-eyed Zephyr, of those flowers

Far in the west where the May-cloud lowers;

And the beams of still Vesper, when winds

are all wist,

Are shed thro' the rain and the milder mist, And twilight your floating bowers.

ODE ON INDOLENCE.

“They toil not, neither do they spin.”

1819.

I.

ONE morn before me were three figures seen,

With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced; And one behind the other stepp'd serene,

In placid sandals, and in white robes graced; They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn, When shifted round to see the other side; They came again; as when the urn once more

Is shifted round, the first seen shades return; And they were strange to me, as may betide With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

II.

How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?
How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?
Was it a silent deep-disguised plot

To steal away, and leave without a task

My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;

The blissful cloud of summer-indolence