The lightning is his slave; heaven's utmost deep
Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep
They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on !
The tempest is his steed; he strides the air,

And the abyss shouts, from her depth laid bare, Heaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have

none.

The Moon. The shadow of white death has pass'd
From my path in heaven at last,

A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep;
And through my newly-woven bowers
Wander happy paramours,

Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep
Thy vales more deep.

The Earth. As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold

A halfinfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold,
And crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist,
And wanders up the vault of the blue day,
Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray
Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst.
The Moon. Thou art folded, thou art lying
In the light which is undying

Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine;
All suns and constellations shower
On thee a light, a life, a power,

Which doth array thy sphere; thou pourest thine
On mine, on mine!

The Earth. I spin beneath my pyramid of night,

Which points into the heavens dreaming delight, Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep;

As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing,
Under the sadow of his beauty lying,

Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth keep.

The Moon. As in the soft and sweet eclipse,

When soul meets soul on lovers' lips,

High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull,
So, when thy shadow falls on me,

Then am I mute and still, by thee

Covered; of thy luve, Orb most beautiful,
Full, oh, too full!

Thou art speeding round the sun
Brightest world of many a one;

Green and azure sphere which shinest
With a light which is divinest
Among all the lamps of Heaven
To whom life and light is given;
I, thy crystal paramour,
Borne beside thee by a power
Like the polar Paradise,
Magnet-like, of lovers' eyes;
I, a most enamour'd maiden,
Whose weak brain is overladen
With the pleasure of her love,
Maniac-like around thee move
Gazing, an insatiate bride,
On thy form from every side,
Like a Mænad, round the cup
Which Agave lifted up

In the wierd Cadmæan forest.
Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest
I must hurry, whirl and follow
Through the heavens wide and hollow,
Sheltered by the warm embrace
Of thy soul from hungry space,
Drinking from thy sense and sight
Beauty, majesty, and might,
As a lover or cameleon

Grows like what it looks upon,
As a violet's gentle eye
Gazes on the azure sky

Until its hue grows like what it beholds,
As a grey and watery mist

Glows like solid amethyst

Athwart the western mountain it enfolds,

When the sunset sleeps

Upon its snow.

The Earth. And the weak day weeps

That it should be so.

O gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight

Falls on me like thy clear and tender light
Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night
Through isles for ever calm;

O gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce
The caverns of my pride's deep universe,
Charming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce
Made wounds which need thy balm.

Pan. I rise as from a bath of sparkling water,
A bath of azure light, among dark rocks,
Out of the stream of sound.

Ione.

Ah me! sweet sister,

The stream of sound has ebbed away from us,
And you pretend to rise out of its wave,

Because your words fall like the clear soft dew

Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair. Pan. Peace! peace! A mighty Power which is as darkness,

Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky

Is showered like night, and from within the air
Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up
Into the pores of sunlight: the bright visions,
Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone,
Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night.
Ione. There is a sense of words upon mine ear.
Pan. An universal sound like words: Oh, list!
Dem. Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul!
Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies,
Beautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll

The love which paves thy path along the skies: The Earth. I hear: I am as a drop of dew that dies. Dem. Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth With wonder, as it gazes upon thee:

Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth
Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony:

The Moon. I hear: I am a loaf shaken by thee!
Dem. Ye kings of suns and stars! Dæmons and Gods,
Etheriai Domination! who possess
Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes
Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness:
A Voice from above.

Our great Republic hears; we are blest, and bless.

Dem. Ye happy dead! whose beams of brightest verse
Are clouds to hide, not colours to pourtray,
Whether your nature is that universe

Which once ye saw and suffered-
Or as they

A Voice from beneath.

Whom we have left, we change and pass away. Dem. Ye elemental Genii, who have homes

From man's high mind even to the central stone
Of sullen Lead; from Heaven's star-fretted domes
To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on:
A confused Voice.

We hear: thy words waken Oblivion.

Dem. Spirits! whose homes are flesh: ye beasts, and birds,

Ye worms and fish; ye living leaves and buds;

Lightning and wind; and ye untameable herds, Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes: A Voice. Thy voice to us is wind among still woods. Dem. Man, who wert once a despot and a slave; A dupe and a deceiver: a decay;

A traveller from the cradle to the grave

Through the dim night of this immortal day: All. Speak! thy strong words may never pass away. Dem. This is the day, which down the void abysmi At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep: Love, from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour

Of dead endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,

Mother of many acts and hours, should free

The serpent that would clasp her with his length,
These are the spells by which to re-assume
An empire o'er the disentangled aoom

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite:
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor flatter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan! is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory!

ROSALIND, HELEN, and her CHILD.

SCENE-The Shore of the Lake of Como.

Helen. Come hither, my sweet Rosalind,

'Tis long since thou and I have met;

And yet methinks it were unkind

Those moments to forget.

Come sit by me. I see thee stand

By this lone lake, in this far land,

Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,
Thy sweet voice to each tone of even
United, and thine eyes replying
To the hues of yon fair heaven.
Cone, gentle friend: wilt sit by me?
And be as thou wert wont to be
Ere we were disunited ?

None doth behold us now: the power