ADVERTISEMENT.

THE writer of the following lines died at Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope to have realised a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular; less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and feelings. The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates; and to a certain other class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that, gran vergogna sarebbe a colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o di colore rettorico: e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendimento.

The present poem appears to have been intended by the writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on the preceding page is almost a literal translation from Dante's famous

canzone

Voi ch' intendendo, il terzo ciel movete, &c.

The presumptuous application of the concluding lines to his own composition will raise a smile at the expense of my unfortunate friend be it a smile not of contempt, but pity.

S.

EPIPSYCHIDION.

SWEET Spirit! Sister of that orphan one, Whose empire is the name thou weepest on, In my heart's temple I suspend to thee These votive wreaths of withered memory.

Poor captive bird! who, from thy narrow cage,
Pourest such music, that it might assuage
The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee,
Were they not deaf to all sweet melody;
This song shall be thy rose: its petals pale
Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale !
But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom,
And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom.

High, spirit-winged Heart! who dost for ever
Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour,
Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed
It over-soared this low and worldly shade,

Lie shattered; and thy panting wounded breast
Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest!

I

weep vain tears blood would less bitter be, Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee.

Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human, Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman All that is insupportable in thee

Of light, and love, and immortality!

Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse!
Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe!

Thou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form
Among the Dead! thou Star above the Storm!
Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror!
Thou Harmony of Nature's art! Thou Mirror
In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun,
All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on!
Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now
Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow;

I

pray thee that thou blot from this sad song

All of its much mortality and wrong,

With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew
From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through,
Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstacy:

Then smile on it, so that it may not die.

I never thought before my death to see.
Youth's vision thus made perfect: Emily,

I love thee; though the world by no thin name
Will hide that love from its unvalued shame.

Would we two had been twins of the same mother!

Or, that the name my heart lent to another
Could be a sister's bond for her and thee,
Blending two beams of one eternity!

Yet were one lawful and the other true,

These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due,
How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me!

I am not thine: I am a part of thee,

Sweet Lamp! my moth-like Muse has burnt its wings, Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings,

Young Love should teach Time, in his own grey style, All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile,

A lovely soul formed to be blest and bless?

A well of sealed and secret happiness,

Whose waters like blithe light and music are,
Vanquishing dissonance and gloom? A Star
Which moves not in the moving Heavens, alone?
A smile amid dark frowns? a gentle tone
Amid rude voices? a beloved light?

A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight?

A lute, which those whom love has taught to play
Make music on, to soothe the roughest day
And lull fond grief asleep? a buried treasure?
A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure?
A violet-shrouded grave of Woe?—I measure
The world of fancies, seeking one like thee,
And find-alas! mine own infirmity.

She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way,
And lured me towards sweet Death; as Night by Day,
Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope,
Led into light, life, peace. An antelope,
In the suspended impulse of its lightness,
Were less ethereally light: the brightness
Of her divinest presence trembles through
Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew
Embodied in the windless heaven of June,
Amid the splendour-winged stars, the Moon
Burns inextinguishably beautiful:

And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full
Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops,
Killing the sense with passion: sweet as stops
Of planetary music heard in trance.
In her mild lights the starry spirits dance,
The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap
Under the lightnings of the soul-too deep
For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense.
The glory of her being, issuing thence,

Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade
Of unentangled intermixture, made

By Love, of light and motion; one intense
Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence,

Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing
Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing
With the unintermitted blood, which there
Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air
The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,)
Continuously prolonged, and ending never,
Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled
Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world;
Scarce visible from extreme loveliness.

Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress,
And her loose hair; and where some heavy tress
The air of her own speed has disentwined,
The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind;
And in the soul a wild odour is felt,

Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt
Into the bosom of a frozen bud.

See where she stands ! a mortal shape indued
With love and life and light and deity,
And motion which may change but cannot die;
An image of some bright Eternity;

A shadow of some golden dream; a Splendour
Leaving the third sphere pilotless; a tender
Reflection on the eternal Moon of Love,
Under whose motions life's dull billows move;
A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning;
A vision like incarnate April, warning,

With smiles and tears, Frost the Anatomy
Into his summer grave.

Ah! woe is me!

What have I dared? where am I lifted? how