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"The spell is done. How feel you now?" "Better-Quite well," replied

The sleeper."What would do

THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER You good when suffering and awake?

PATIENT

I

"SLEEP, sleep on! forget thy pain;

My hand is on thy brow,

My spirit on thy brain;

My pity on thy heart, poor friend;

And from my fingers flow
The powers of life, and like a sign,

Seal thee from thine hour of woe; And brood on thee, but may not blend With thine.

II

"Sleep, sleep on! I love thee not;
But when I think that he
Who made and makes my lot
As full of flowers as thine of weeds,

Might have been lost like thee;
And that a hand which was not mine,
Might then have charmed his agony
As I another's- my heart bleeds
For thine.

What cure your head and side ?—" "What would cure, that would kill me,

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The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute:-

No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.

III

When hearts have once mingled
Love first leaves the well-built nest,

The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possest.
O Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs-
To the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonises heart to heart.

I leave this notice on my door
For each accustomed visitor:-

"I am gone into the fields

To take what this sweet hour yields;—

For your cradle, your home, and your Reflection, you may come to-morrow,

bier?

IV

Its passions will rock thee

As the storms rock the ravens on high:

Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky.

From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home

Leave thee naked to laughter,

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

TO JANE: THE INVITATION

BEST and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born;
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mount-
ains,

And like a prophetess of May

Strewed flowers upon the barren way,

Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.—
You with the unpaid bill, Despair,——
You tiresome verse-reciter, Care,
I will pay you in the grave,-

Death will listen to your stave.
Expectation too, be off!
To-day is for itself enough;
Hope in pity mock not Woe

With smiles, nor follow where I go;
Long having lived on thy sweet food,
At length I find one moment's good
After long pain-with all your love,
This you never told me of."

Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
And the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures be,
And the sandhills of the sea;-
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets,
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous

Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.

That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound

The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew

With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew.

TO JANE: THE RECOLLECTION There seemed from the remotest seat

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Of the white mountain waste, To the soft flower beneath our feet, A magic circle traced,——

A spirit interfused around,
A thrilling silent life,
To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal nature's strife;-
And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there, Was one fair form that filled with love The lifeless atmosphere.

V

We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,

Each seemed as 'twere a little sky
Gulphed in a world below;

A firmament of purple light,

Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day—

In which the lovely forests grew
As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.

There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,

And through the dark green wood The white sun twinkling like the dawn Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green.

And all was interfused beneath
With an elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.

Like one beloved the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast,

Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth exprest;

Until an envious wind crept by,

Like an unwelcome thought, Which from the mind's too faithful eye

Blots one dear image out. Though thou art ever fair and kind,

The forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind,
Than calm in waters seen.

CANCELLED PASSAGE

WERE not the crocuses that grew Under that ilex-tree

As beautiful in scent and hue

As ever fed the bee?

WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE ARIEL to Miranda.-Take This slave of Music, for the sake Of him who is the slave of thee, And teach it all the harmony In which thou canst, and only thou, Make the delighted spirit glow, Till joy denies itself again, And, too intense, is turned to pain; For by permission and command Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, Poor Ariel sends this silent token Of more than ever can be spoken; Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who, From life to life, must still pursue Your happiness;-for thus alone Can Ariel ever find his own. From Prospero's enchanted cell, As the mighty verses tell, To the throne of Naples, he Lit you o'er the trackless sea, Flitting on, your prow before, Like a living meteor. When you die, the silent Moon, In her interlunar swoon, Is not sadder in her cell Than deserted Ariel. When you live again on earth, Like an unseen star of birth, Ariel guides you o'er the sea Of life from your nativity. Many changes have been run, Since Ferdinand and you begun

Your course of love, and Ariel still
Has tracked your steps, and served
your will;

Now, in humbler, happier lot,
This is all remembered not;
And now, alas! the poor sprite is
Imprisoned, for some fault of his,
In a body like a grave;—
From you he only dares to crave,
For his service and his sorrow,
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.

The artist who this idol wrought,
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree, while on the steep
The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of Autumn past,
And some of Spring approaching fast,
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love; and so this tree,-
O that such our death may be !
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again:
From which, beneath Heaven's fairest
star,

The artist wrought this loved Guitar,
And taught it justly to reply,
To all who question skilfully,
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamoured tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells;
For it had learnt all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voiced fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills,
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew,
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound,
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way-

All this it knows, but will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before,
By those who tempt it to betray
These secrets of an elder day:
But sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,
It keeps its highest, holiest tone
For our beloved Jane alone.

TO JANE: "THE KEEN STARS
WERE TWINKLING"

I

THE keen stars were twinkling, And the fair moon was rising among them, Dear Jane!

The guitar was tinkling,

A DIRGE

ROUGH wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;
Sad storm, whose tears are vain,
Bare woods, whose branches stain,
Deep caves and dreary main,
Wail, for the world's wrong!

LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY
OF LERICI

SHE left me at the silent time
When the moon had ceased to climb
The azure path of Heaven's steep,
And like an albatross asleep,
Balanced on her wings of light,
Hovered in the purple night,
Ere she sought her ocean nest

But the notes were not sweet till you In the chambers of the West.

sung them

Again.

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As the moon's soft splendour

O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven

Is thrown,

So your voice most tender

She left me, and I stayed alone
Thinking over every tone
Which, though silent to the car,
The enchanted heart could hear,

Like notes which die when born, but still
Haunt the echoes of the hill;
And feeling ever-oh, too much!-

To the strings without soul had then The soft vibration of her touch,

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As if her gentle hand, even now,

Lightly trembled on my brow;

And thus, although she absent were,
Memory gave me all of her

That even Fancy dares to claim:

Though the moon sleep a full hour later, Her presence had made weak and tame

To-night;

No leaf will be shaken

Whilst the dews of your melody scatter

Delight.

IV

Though the sound overpowers, Sing again, with your dear voice revealing A tone

Of some world far from ours, Where music and moonlight and feeling

Are one.

All passions, and I lived alone
In the time which is our own;
The past and future were forgot,
As they had been, and would be, not.
But soon, the guardian angel gone,
The dæmon reassumed his throne

In my faint heart. I dare not speak
My thoughts, but thus disturbed and
weak

I sat and saw the vessels glide
Over the ocean bright and wide,
Like spirit-winged chariots sent

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