"The rustle of those ample skirts about
"These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers
"Lift up their heads, as still the whisper pass'd.
"Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before,
"And their eternal calm, and all that face,

"Or I have dream'd."-"Yes," said the supreme shape, "Thou hast dream'd of me; and awaking up "Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side,

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"Whose strings touch'd by thy fingers, all the vast "Unwearied ear of the whole universe

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"Listen'd in pain and pleasure at the birth

"Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't not strange

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"That thou shouldst weep, so gifted? Tell me, youth, "What sorrow thou canst feel; for I am sad "When thou dost shed a tear: explain thy griefs "To one who in this lonely isle hath been "The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life, "From the young day when first thy infant hand "Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm "Could bend that bow heroic to all times. "Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power "Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones "For prophecies of thee, and for the sake "Of loveliness new born."-Apollo then, With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat Throbb'd with the syllables.-"Mnemosyne ! "Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how; "Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest? "Why should I strive to show what irom thy lips "Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark, "And painiul vile oblivion seals my eyes: "I strive to search where ore I am so sad, "Until a melancholy numbs my limbs; "And then upon the grass I sit, and moan,

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"Like one who once had wings.-O why should I "Feel curs'd and thwarted, when the liegeless air "Yields to my step aspirant? why should I "Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet? "Goddess benign, point forth some unknown thing: 95 "Are there not other regions than this isle ? "What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun! "And the most patient brilliance of the moon! "And stars by thousands! Point me out the way "To any one particular beauteous star, "And I will flit into it with my lyre,

"And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss. "I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power? "Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity

"Makes this alarum in the elements,

"While I here idle listen on the shores

"In fearless yet in aching ignorance?

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"O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
"That waileth every morn and eventide,
"Tell me why thus I rave, about these groves!
"Mute thou remainest-Mute! yet I can read
"A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:
"Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.

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"Names, deeds, grey legends, dire events, rebellions, "Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,

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"Creations and destroyings, all at once

"Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
"And deify me, as if some blithe wine
"Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
"And so become immortal."-Thus the God,
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance.
Beneath his white soft temples, stedfast kept
Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.

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Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush
All the immortal fairness of his limbs;

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Most like the struggle at the gate of death;
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life so young Apollo anguish'd:
His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld

Her arms as one who prophesied.—At length
Apollo shriek'd;-and lo! from all his limbs
Celestial

HYPERION, A VISION:

ATTEMPTED RECONSTRUCTION OF THE POEM.

FANATICS have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at heaven; pity these have not
Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance,

But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,—

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With the fine spell of words alone can save
Imagination from the sable chain

ΤΟ

And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,

"Thou art no Poet-may'st not tell thy dreams?” Since every man whose soul is not a clod

Hath visions and would speak, if he had loved,

And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.

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Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse
Be poet's or fanatic's will be known
When this warm scribe, my hand, is in the grave.

Methought I stood where trees of every clime,
Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech,
With plantane and spice-blossoms, made a screen,
In neighbourhood of fountains (by the noise
Soft-showering in mine ears), and (by the touch
Of scent) not far from roses. Twining round
I saw an arbour with a drooping roof
Of trellis vines, and bells, and larger blooms,
Like floral censers, swinging light in air;
Before its wreathed doorway, on a mound
Of moss, was spread a feast of summer fruits,
Which, nearer seen, seem'd refuse of a meal
By angel tasted or our Mother Eve;

For empty shells were scatter'd on the grass,
And grapestalks but half-bare, and remnants more
Sweet-smelling, whose pure kinds I could not know.
Still was more plenty than the fabled horn

Thrice emptied could pour forth at banqueting,
For Proserpine return'd to her own fields,
Where the white heifers low. And appetite,

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More yearning than on earth I ever felt,
Growing within, I ate deliciously,—

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And, after not long, thirsted; for thereby
Stood a cool vessel of transparent juice

Sipp'd by the wander'd bee, the which I took,

And pledging all the mortals of the world,

And all the dead whose names are in our lips,

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Drank. That full draught is parent of my theme.

No Asian poppy nor elixir fine

Of the soon-fading, jealous, Caliphat,

No poison gender'd in close monkish cell,

To thin the scarlet conclave of old men,
Could so have rapt unwilling life away.
Among the fragrant husks and berries crush'd
Upon the grass, I struggled hard against
The domineering potion, but in vain.

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The cloudy swoon came on, and down I sank,
Like a Silenus on an antique vase.

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How long I slumber'd 'tis a chance to guess.
When sense of life return'd, I started up

As if with wings, but the fair trees were gone,
The mossy mound and arbour were no more:
I look'd around upon the curved sides
Of an old sanctuary, with roof august,
Builded so high, it seem'd that filmed clouds

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Might spread beneath as o'er the stars of heaven.
So old the place was, I remember'd none
The like upon the earth; what I had seen

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Of grey cathedrals, buttress'd walls, rent towers,
The superannuations of sunk realms,

Or Nature's rocks toil'd hard in waves and winds,

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Or in that place the moth could not corrupt,
So white the linen, so, in some, distinct
Ran imageries from a sombre loom.
All in a mingled heap confus'd there lay
Robes, golden tongs, censer and chafing-dish,
Girdles, and chains, and holy jewelries.

Turning from these with awe, once more I raised

My eyes to fathom the space every way:

The embossed roof, the silent massy range

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