HYMN OF PAN.

FROM the forests and highlands
We come, we come ;
From the river-girt islands,

Where loud waves are dumb

Listening to my sweet pipings.

The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,

And all dark Tempe lay

In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,

Speeded with my sweet pipings.

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend and follow,
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings.

*This and the former poem were written at the request of a friend, to be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas. Apollo and Pan contended before Tmolus for the prize in music.

I sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the dædal Earth,
And of Heaven-and the giant wars,

And Love, and Death, and Birth,—

And then I changed my pipings,—
Singing how down the vale of Menalus
I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed:
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!

It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed:
All wept, as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood,
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

THE QUESTION.

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,

The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender blue bells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,

When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured May,
And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day;
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold,
Fairer than
any wakened eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white, And starry river buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it!-Oh! to whom?

THE TWO SPIRITS.

AN ALLEGORY.

FIRST SPIRIT.

O THOU, who plumed with strong desire
Wouldst float above the earth, beware!
A shadow tracks thy flight of fire—
Night is coming!

Bright are the regions of the air,
And among the winds and beams
It were delight to wander there—
Night is coming!

SECOND SPIRIT.

The deathless stars are bright above:
If I would cross the shade at night,
Within my heart is the lamp of love,
And that is day!

And the moon will smile with gentle light
On my golden plumes where'er they move;
The meteors will linger round my flight,
And make night day.

FIRST SPIRIT.

But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken
Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain;
See the bounds of the air are shaken-
Night is coming!

The red swift clouds of the hurricane

Yon declining sun have overtaken, The clash of the hail sweeps over the plainNight is coming!

SECOND SPIRIT.

I see the light, and I hear the sound;
I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark,
With the calm within and the light around
Which makes night day:

And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark,
Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound,
My moonlight flight thou then may'st mark
On high, far away.

Some say there is a precipice

Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin
O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice
'Mid Alpine mountains;

And that the languid storm, pursuing
That winged shape, for ever flies
Round those hoar branches, aye renewing
Its aëry fountains.

Some say when nights are dry and clear,
And the death-dews sleep on the morass,
Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller,
Which make night day :

And a silver shape like his early love doth pass
Upborne by her wild and glittering hair,
And when he awakes on the fragrant grass,
He finds night day.