XVII.

HAPPY is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;

To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its tall woods with high romances blent : Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment

For skies Italian, and an inward groan

To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,

And half forget what world or worldling meant. Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters; Enough their simple loveliness for me, Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging: Yet do I often warmly burn to see

Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,

And float with them about the summer waters.

XVIII.

THE HUMAN SEASONS.

FOUR Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
lack worth

On mists in idleness-to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

XIX.

ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER.

COME hither, all sweet maidens soberly,
Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light,
Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white,
And meekly let your fair hands joined be,
As if so gentle that ye could not see,

Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright,
Sinking away to his young spirit's night,
Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea:
'Tis young Leander toiling to his death;
Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips
For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile.
O horrid dream! see how his body dips
Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile:
He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!

XX.

TO AILSA ROCK.

HEARKEN, thou craggy ocean pyramid !

Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowl's screams!
When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams!
When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid ?
How long is't since the mighty power bid

Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams?
Sleep in the lap of thunder or sun-beams,
Or when grey clouds are thy cold cover-lid?
Thou answer'st not, for thou art dead asleep!
Thy life is but two dead eternities-

The last in air, the former in the deep;

First with the whales, last with the eagle-skiesDrown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep, Another cannot wake thy giant size.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

ODE TO APOLLO.

I.

IN thy western halls of gold

When thou sittest in thy state, Bards, that erst sublimely told

Heroic deeds, and sang of fate,

With fervour seize their adamantine lyres, Whose chords are solid rays, and twinkle radiant fires.

II.

Here Homer with his nervous arms
Strikes the twanging harp of war,
And even the western splendour warms,
While the trumpets sound afar:

But, what creates the most intense surprise,
His soul looks out through renovated eyes.

III.

Then, through thy Temple wide, melodious swells The sweet majestic tone of Maro's lyre: The soul delighted on each accent dwells,— Enraptured dwells,—not daring to respire, The while he tells of grief around a funeral pyre.