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From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,

Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof;

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow;

The Sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,

While the moist Earth was laughing below.

VI.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

And the nursling of the Sky:

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when with never a stain

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise, and unbuild it again.

TO A SKYLARK.

I.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit

Bird thou never wert-
That from heaven or near it

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

II.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

(1820.)

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

III.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are bright'ning,

Thou dost float and run,

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

IV.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight—

V.

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere
Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there.

VI.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,

As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

VII.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow-clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see

:

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody :

VIII.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,

Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

IX.

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love which overflows her bower:

X.

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:

XI.

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

XII.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,-

All that ever was,

Joyous and clear and fresh,-thy music doth surpass.

XIII.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine:

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

XIV.

Chorus hymeneal

Or triumphal chaunt,

Matched with thine, would be all

But an empty vaunt

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

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XV.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

XVI.

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be :

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee:

Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

XVII.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

XVIII.

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

XIX.

Yet, if we could scorn

Hate and pride and fear,

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

XX.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

XXI.

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow

The world should listen then as I am listening now.

(1820.)

FROM 'EPIPSYCHIDION: VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFORTUNATE LADY EMILIA VIVIANI, NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF ST. ANNE, PISA.'

Spouse! sister! angel! pilot of the fate

Whose course has been so starless! O too late
Beloved, O too soon adored, by me!

For in the fields of immortality

My spirit should at first have worshipped thine,
A divine presence in a place divine;

Or should have moved beside it on this earth,
A shadow of that substance, from its birth:
But not as now. I love thee; yes, I feel
That on the fountain of my heart a seal
Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright
For thee, since in those tears thou hast delight.
We are we not formed, as notes of music are,
For one another, though dissimilar?

Such difference without discord as can make
Those sweetest sounds in which all spirits shake,

As trembling leaves in a continuous air.

Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare
Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wrecked.
I never was attached to that great sect
Whose doctrine is that each one should select

Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend,

And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend

To cold oblivion; though it is in the code

Of modern morals, and the beaten road

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