-

With some pity, and love in that pity perchance,-
To a thing not all lovely; for once at a glance
Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder
That flowed like a long silver rivulet under
The long fenny grass, with so lovely a breast,
Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest?

So I roamed in that circle of Horrors, and Fear
Walked with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near
Clustered trees for their gloom not to shelter from heat-
But lest a brute shadow should grow at my feet;
And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place
Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face,
In the horrible likeness of demons, (that none
Could see, like invisible flames in the sun;)

But grew to one monster that seized on the light,
Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night;
Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the South;
Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth
Engenders of slime in the land of the pest,
Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West,
Bringing Night on their wings; and the bodies wherein
Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin,
Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight
Like a Titan, and threatfully warred with the light;
I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close,
When they rushed on that shadowy Python of foes,
That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws,
With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws,
And whirls of long tails:- I have seen the quick flutter
Of fragments dissevered,
Long screamings of pain,
And wrestling of arms

and necks stretched to utter the swift motion of blows, to the flight at the close,

When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings, And flew on the whirlwind that followed their wings.

Thus they fled-not forgotten-but often to grow Like fears in my eyes, when I walked to and fro In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean I knew not, nor whether the love I had won Was of heaven or hell- till one day in the sun, In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky, Half-seen, and half-dreamed in the soul of his eye. And when in my musings I gazed on the stream, In motionless trances of thought, there would seem A face like that face, looking upward through mine; With its eyes full of love, and the dim-drowned shine Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that blue Serene : - there I stood for long hours but to view Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted Towards me, and winked as the water-weed drifted Between; but the fish knew that presence, and plied Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside.

There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things That once had been wonders the fishes with wings, And the glimmer of magnified eyes that looked up From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup, And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam,

Slow winding along like a tide in the stream.
Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, methought
Held me dear in the pearl of her eye- and I brought
My wish to that fancy; and often I dashed

My limbs in the water, and suddenly splashed

-

The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink,
Chilled by watery fears, how that Beauty might sink
With my
life in her arms to her garden, and bind me
With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me
In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear,
Like a spider-caught bee, and in aid of that fear
Came the tardy remembrance - O, falsest of men!
Why was not that beauty remembered till then?
My love, my safe love, whose glad life would have run
Into mine like a drop that our fate might be one,
That now, even now,- may-be,-clasped in a dream,
That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream,
And gazed with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother
On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another!

Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of my mind, Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt To the bank, and shook off the cursed waters, and wept With my brow in the reeds; and the reeds to my ear Bowed, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear, Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one That loved me, but O to fly from her, and shun Her love like a pest — though her love was as true To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue; For why should I love her with love that would bring All misfortune, like Hate, on so joyous a thing? Because of her rival,- even Her whose witch-face I had slighted, and therefore was doomed in that place To roam, and had roamed, where all horrors grew rank Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank; Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail To our love like a blight; and they told me the tale

Of Scylla, and Picus, imprisoned to speak

His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's beak.

Then they ceased-I had heard as the voice of my star
That told me the truth of my fortunes - thus far
I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush
Of deep meditation,- when, lo! a light crush

Of the reeds, and I turned and looked round in the night
Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipped of the light
Narrow-winking, the realized nymph of the stream,
Rising up from the wave with the bend and the gleam
Of a fountain, and o'er her white arms she kept throwing
Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and flowing
In falls to her feet, and the blue waters rolled
Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold,
Sun-spangled, gold-broidered, and fled far behind,
Like an infinite train. So she came and reclined
In the reeds, and I hungered to see her unseal
The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal
The blue that was in them; and they oped and she raised
Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed

With her eyes on my eyes; but their color and shine

Was of that which they looked on, and mostly of mine
For she loved me,- except when she blushed, and they sank,
Shame-humbled, to number the stones on the bank,
Or her play-idle fingers, while lisping she told me
How she put on her veil, and in love to behold me
Would wing through the sun till she fainted away
Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay
In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eyes
In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies.
But now they were healed,- O my heart, it still dances
When I think of the charm of her changeable glances,

And my image how small when it sank in the deep
Of her eyes where her soul was,- Alas! now they weep,
And none knoweth where. In what stream do her eyes
Shed invisible tears? Who beholds where her sighs
Flow in eddies, or see the ascents of the leaf

She has plucked with her tresses? Who listens her grief
Like a far fall of waters, or hears where her feet
Grow emphatic among the loose pebbles, and beat
Them together? Ah! surely her flowers float adown
To the sea unaccepted, and little ones drown
For need of her mercy,- even he whose twin-brother

Will miss him forever; and the sorrowful mother
Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss

And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is,

Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain!

We loved, how we loved! - for I thought not again Of the woes that were whispered like fears in that place If I gave me to beauty. Her face was the face

Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that were drowned
For my absence, her arms were the arms that sought round
And clasped me to naught; for I gazed and became
Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name

For two loves, and called ever on Egle, sweet maid

Of the sky-loving waters,

and was not afraid

Of the sight of her skin;

for it never could be

Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me!

Thus our bliss had endured for a time-shortened space, Like a day made of three, and the smile of her face Had been with me for joy,- when she told me indeed Her love was self-tasked with a work that would need Some short hours, for in truth 't was the veriest pity Our love should not last, and then sang me a ditty