Of one serene and unapproachèd star, As if it were a lamp of earthly light,— Unconscious, as some human lovers are,

Itself how low, how high beyond all height The heaven where it would perish), and every form

That worshipped in the temple of the night,

Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an interminable zone ;

Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a

storm

Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion

Out of their dreams.

In every soul but one.

Harmony became love

And so this man returned with axe and saw At evening close from killing the tall treen, The soul of whom, by Nature's gentle law,

Was each a Wood-nymph, and kept ever green

The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene

With jagged leaves, and from the forest tops Singing the winds to sleep, or weeping oft Fast showers of aërial water-drops

Into her mother's bosom sweet and soft,— Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness. Around the cradles of the birds aloft

They spread themselves into the loveliness

Of fan-like leaves; and over pallid flowers Hang like moist clouds; or, where high branches kiss,

Make a green space among the silent bowers (Like a vast fane in a metropolis,

Surrounded by the columns and the towers All overwrought with branch-like traceries); In which there is religion, and the mute Persuasion of unkindled melodies,

Odours, and gleams, and murmurs, which the lute

Of the blind Pilot-Spirit of the blast

Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute,—

Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has

passed,

To such brief unison as on the brain One tone which never can recur has cast,

One accent never to return again.

The world is full of Woodmen who expel Love's gentle Dryads from the haunts of life,

And vex the nightingales in every dell.

IX.

отно.

THOU wert not Cassius, and thou couldst not be, "Last of the Romans,"-though thy memory claim

From Brutus his own glory, and on thee

Rests the full splendour of his sacred fame; Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail Amid his cowering senate with thy name; Though thou and he were great, it will avail To thine own fame that Otho's should not fail,

'Twill wrong thee not: thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel,

Abjure such envious fame. Great Otho died Like thee: he sanctified his country's steel, At once the tyrant and tyrannicide,

In his own blood. A deed it was to wring Tears from all men-though full of gentle pride,

Such pride as from impetuous love may spring That will not be refused its offering.

Dark is the realm of grief: but human things Those may not know who cannot weep for them.

X.

GINEVRA.

WILD, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one
Who staggers forth into the air and sun
From the dark chamber of a mortal fever,-
Bewildered, and incapable, and ever

Fancying strange comments, in her dizzy brain,
Of usual shapes, till the familiar train

Of objects and of persons passed like things
Strange as a dreamer's mad imaginings,—
Ginevra from the nuptial altar went;

The vows to which her lips had sworn assent
Rung in her brain still with a jarring din,
Deafening the lost intelligence within.

And so she moved under the bridal veil, Which made the paleness of her cheek more pale,

And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth,
And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth
And of the gold and jewels glittering there
She scarce felt conscious, but the weary glare
Lay like a chaos of unwelcome light,
Vexing the sense with gorgeous undelight,
A moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud

Were less heavenly fair. Her face was bowed;
And, as she passed, the diamonds in her hair
Were mirrored in the polished marble stair

Which led from the cathedral to the street;
And ever as she went her light fair feet
Erased these images.

The bridemaidens who round her thronging

came :

Some with a sense of self-rebuke and shame,
Envying the unenviable; and others

Making the joy which should have been another's
Their own by gentle sympathy; and some
Sighing to think of an unhappy home;
Some few admiring what can ever lure
Maidens to leave the heaven serene and pure
Of parents' smiles for life's great cheat-a thing
Bitter to taste, sweet in imagining.

But they are all dispersed-and lo! she stands
Looking in idle grief on her white hands,
Alone within the garden now her own,
(And through the sunny air, with jangling tone,
The music of the merry marriage-bells,
Killing the azure silence, sinks and swells)—
Absorbed like one within a dream who dreams
That he is dreaming, until slumber seems
A mockery of itself—when suddenly
Antonio stood before her, pale as she.

With agony, with sorrow, and with pride,
He lifted his wan eyes upon the bride,