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IV.

THERE sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, If that hypothesis of theirs be sound'

Said Ida; let us down and rest' and we
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices,
By every coppice-feather'd chasm and cleft,
Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where below
No bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on me,
Descending; once or twice she lent her hand,

And blissful palpitations in the blood,

Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell.

But when we planted level feet, and dipt

Beneath the satin dome and enter'd in,

There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank

Our elbows on a tripod in the midst

F

A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd

Fruit, viand, blossom, and amber wine and gold.

Then she 'Let some one sing to us: lightlier move and a maid,

The minutes fledged with music :
Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang.

66

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more.

66

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge ;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

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Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns

The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

"Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; O Death in Life, the days that are no more."

She ended with such passion that the tear, She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl Lost in her bosom: but with some disdain Answer'd the Princess If indeed there haunt

About the moulder'd lodges of the Past

So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men,

Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool

And so pace by : but thine are fancies hatch'd

In silken-folded idleness; nor is it

Wiser to weep a true occasion gone,

But trim our sails, and let the old proverb serve
While down the streams that buoy each separate craft

To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice,

Throne after throne, and molten on the waste
Becomes a cloud: for all things serve their time
Toward that great year of equal mights and rights,
Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end
Found golden: let the past be past; let be

Their cancell❜d Babels: tho' the rough kex break

The starr'd mosaic, and the wild goat hang

Upon the pillar, and the wild figtree split

Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear

A trumpet in the distance pealing news

Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns

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Of promise; not a death's-head at the wine.'

Then I remember'd one myself had made

What time I watch'd the swallow winging south

From mine own land, part made long since, and part

Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far

As I could ape their treble, did I sing.

O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee.

O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,

That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And dark and true and tender is the North.

'O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light

Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,

And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.

'O were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.

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