And from a stone beside a poisonous eft Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise 'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror; For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare Kindled by that inextricable érror, Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air Become a [ ] and evershifting mirror Of all the beauty and the terror there A woman's countenance, with serpent locks, Gazing in death on heaven from those wet rocks. Florence, 1819. A LAMENT. SWIFTER far than summer's flight, Art thou come and gone: As the earth when leaves are dead, The swallow Summer comes again, To fly with thee, false as thou. My heart each day desires the morrow, Vainly would my winter borrow Sunny leaves from any bough. Lilies for a bridal bed, Roses for a matron's head Violets for a maiden dead, Pansies let my flowers be: On the living grave I bear, Scatter them without a tear, Waste one hope, one fear for me. THE PINE FOREST OF THE CASCINE, NEAR PISA, DEAREST, best and brightest, Come away, To the woods and to the fields ! Which like thee to those in sorrow, The eldest of the hours of spring, Into the winter wandering, And the banks all bare and rude Bending from heaven, in azure mirth, And bade the frozen streams be free; Radiant Sister of the Day, Where the Pine its garland weaves, Sapless, grey, and ivy dun Round stones that never kiss the sun, To the sandhills of the sea Where the earliest violets be. Now the last day of many days, For the Earth hath changed its face, We wandered to the Pine Forest The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play, And on the woods, and on the deep, It seemed as if the day were one We paused amid the Pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude, With stems like serpents interlaced. How calm it was-the silence there The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew, With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew. It seemed that from the remotest seat Of the white mountain's waste, To the bright flower beneath our feet, A magic circle traced; A spirit interfused around, To momentary peace it bound |