The pains of an unquiet mind,

That ever seeks what it can never find,
That undiscover'd loveliness

Which is to youth a hope-a dark belief-
A somewhat dimly promising relief

To that which nothing natural can heal;

The unseen wound which makes us poets when we feel.

Then let me dream !—of love?—oh, yes !

Of love and thee! what can I less

What less than fondly brood

On such a radiant form as thine,

That surely hath subdued

Full

many a spirit less on fire than mine!

For Love and Beauty, long ago,

Their faiths have plighted;

That as in Heaven they have been still united,

So they below,

For weal and woe,

Will evermore unite,

And be on earth the parents of Delight.

And now in very truth I find,

With thy soft beauties love so intertwin'd,

That I will openly declare,

To see and not to love a thing so fair,

Were to break faith with joy,

And to be old, whilst I am yet a boy.

It was indeed a rich delight,

Delicate maid, to see thee move, With gentle bend before my sight,

Ideal of a poet's love—

So fair-so fancifully fair,

Almost, methought, thou wert a thing of air;

Some creature faery bright,

With beamy locks, and face of light,

And silver-woven drapery of haze,

One of the shapes which, in his gifted hour,

The poet, as he lies at gaze,
Love-sick at eve in myrtle-bower,
Sees in the sky,

Athwart the sun slow sweeping radiantly,
When he discovers all the things that live,
Their forms, and dying hues, and features fugitive!

Or art thou but a creature

Whose place is in the brain,
With gay and delicate feature,

The fairest in a train

Of many forms, that come from fairy land,
All dancing homeward to that lovely strand?

Or art thou a creation

That many know in part,

A sudden revelation

Of treasures in the heart?

A new joy found in a hidden nook,

The only place in which we did not look?

Or art thou a form that had fled,

Sought for in vain ?

Or art thou a life that was dead,

Wept for in pain,

Sought for in faintness and dread?

O comfortable vision!

O blessed recognition!

Love gave his dear one into Memory's keeping,
Memory let her fly;

Love sought his dear one, wandering and weeping,
He scarce knew why.

Love lost his dear one, yet He could not die!
Now he knows his own,

For whom he made moan;—

He knows her by a sign-a look-a lost expression,
And Memory hides her face, and makes a low confession!

Thou art not any thing to me,

In air, or earth, or sea;

Nor any thought of sea, or earth, or air,
Shall cast a shade on thee,

That art so clear and white-so visionary fair!
I will not seek thee with an earthly suing ;
I would not win thee with an earthly wooing,
Lest I should bring to nought,

Or utterly deface and ruin,

So delicate a thought!

For once I lost myself in dreams unholy,
As in a mad and ruthless melancholy,
I bade the Echo leave her rocky cell,
And faintly tell,

Catching my whispers gently as they fell,
A warmer love-tale in thy secret ear;
A tale of earthly passion,

As warm and true as any heart could fashion, But all unmeet for thee to hear,

That hast thy realm so far above

The region of an earthly love!

I bade her tell it thee in murmurs sweet,
And never more that eager tale repeat;

But she was mute;

She would not babble of an earthly suit:
And well it was; for had she spoken,

The spell of all thy beauties had been broken;
And thou hadst been no more

The glorious thing that thou hadst been before.

So did I in my hour of folly,
So did I in my desperate melancholy;
But in my spirit's purer revel,

I will not stoop thee to an earthly level!
I will not break the magic of thy brightness!
I will not taint the glory of thy whiteness!
To earthly laws I will not make thee bow,
Or strip the seraph garland from thy airy brow!
I will not seek thee with an earthly suing,

To thy undoing!

But I will woo thee as may best beseem,
The phantom of a dream!

Thou shalt visit, with me, on joyous wing,
The realms of mine imagining!

If thy pleasure lies

In the azure skies,

Thou shalt soar up on high,

Far into the sky,

Upon the wild fire,

With a spirit of joy that never can tire.

Now swift with a swoop like a hawk we will fly,

Now float on the warm air quietly.

We will mix with a host of spirits with fair and wond'rous faces, And laugh with them in their glee, and join in their rapturous races. And all the while, what thing soe'er betide,

A gentle maid, thou shalt in me confide,

Laughing with thee, bright form, loud laughing at thy side.

There's joy in the ocean,
And sweetest emotion;
The poet conceives it!

The lover believes it!

No pillow

So soft as the soft heaving billow,

No pleasure

So sweet as the song and the measure
That ocean will sing to us, love, by and bye,
His loud lullaby,

That ocean will sing to us, love, as we lie;

Tho' his voice be rough,

He'll sing us to sleep when we've laugh'd long enough.

Then haste thee, bright maiden, quick haste thee to me;

We'll away, love, away, to the great ocean sea.

Come in a robe of softest green,

And coral beads array'd;

Thy long hairs flowing loose without a braid,
As if for countless ages thou hadst been,

An ocean maid!

Away, love, away,

We'll live in a smooth, green, glassy cave,
Walled on each side by a beetling wave;
With a roof of spray,

And a watery floor

A house that needs not any door

Or window to let in the day;

But thro' the lucent wave a green light makes its way. We'll live in a soft-echoing cave,

Made by the avenued wave;

As an avenue long and green and gay,
With nothing at all at either end

Except a point where its long sides blend.
There we'll live, and never stray:
A double life shall be our's by day;
And thro' the night

A sweet half sleep,

A soothing slumber not too deep,
That puts not out our spirit's light,
Nor yet subdues the senses quite,
But ever is about it ;

We might, but oh! we would not be without it!
How blest soe'er we be,

It will be sweet to soothe our very glee;

Our hearts and eyes to close

In the soft rapture of a felt repose.

The moon shall glisten thro' the clear green wave

And we will slumber in our ocean cave.

Or if so wild a scheme

Shall haply seem

Less suited to thy gentler mood;

We'll live together in a distant wood,

That no one knows,

A pleasant spot where many a streamlet flows,
With pensive wail,

And many a wild flower grows.

Oh, not a wood-call it a woody vale!