If, in the warm and passionate hour
When Reason sleeps in Fancy's bower,
If thou hast ever, ever felt
A dream of delicate beauty melt
Into the heart's recess,
Seen by the soul, and seen by the mind,
But indistinct its loveliness,
Adored, and not defined;
A bright creation, a shadowy ray,
Fading and flitting in mist away,
Nothing to gaze on, and nothing to hear,
But something to cheat the eye and ear
With a fond conception and joy of both,
So that you might, that hour, be loth
To change for some one's sweetest kiss
The visions of unenduring bliss,
Or lose some one's sweetest tone,
The murmur thou drinkest all alone-
If such a vision hath ever been thine,
Thou hast a heart that may look on mine!
For, oh! the light of my saddened theme
Was like to naught but a poet's dream,
Or the forms that come on the twilight's wing,
Shaped by the soul's imagining.
Beautiful shade with her tranquil air,
And her thin white arm, and her flowing hair,
And the light of her eye so coldly obscure,
And the hue of her cheek so pale and pure !
Reason and thought she had never known,
Her heart was as cold as a heart of stone;
So you might guess from her eyes' dim rays,
And her idiot laugh, and her vacant gaze.
She wandered about all lone on the heather,
She and the wild heath-birds together;
For Lillian seldom spoke or smiled,
But she sang as sweet as a little child.
Into her song her dreams would throng,
Silly, and wild, and out of place;
And yet that wild and roving song
Entranced the soul in its desolate grace.
And hence the story had ever run,
That the fairest of dames was a headless one.
The pilgrim in his foreign weeds
Would falter in his prayer;
And the monk would pause in his half-told beads
To breathe a blessing there;
The knight would loose his vizor-clasp,
And drop the rein from his nerveless grasp,
pass his hand across his brow
With a sudden sigh, and a whispered vow,
And marvel Flattery's tale was told,
From a lip so young to an ear so cold.
She had seen her sixteenth winter out,
When she met with the beast I was singing about:
The dragon, I told you, had dined that day;
So he gazed upon her as he lay,
Earnestly looking, and looking long,
With his appetite weak and his wonder strong.
Silent he lay in his motionless coil;
And the song of the lady was sweet the while :
"Nonny Nonny! I hear it float,
Innocent bird, thy tremulous note:
It comes from thy home in the eglantine,
And I stay this idle song of mine,
Nonny Nonny! to listen to thine!
"Nonny Nonny! LILLIAN sings
The sweetest of all living things!'
So Sir Launcelot averred;
But surely Sir Launcelot never heard
Nonny Nonny! the natural bird!"
The dragon he lay in mute amaze,
Till something of kindness crept into his gaze;
He drew the flames of his nostrils in,
He veiled his claws with their speckled skin,
He curled his fangs in a hideous smile;
And the song of the lady was sweet the while :
"Nonny Nonny! who shall tell
Where the summer breezes dwell?,
Lightly and brightly they breathe and blow,
But whence they come and whither they go,
Nonny Nonny! who shall know?
"Nonny Nonny! I hear your tone,
But I feel ye cannot read mine own;
And I lift my neck to your fond embraces,
But who hath seen in your resting-places,
Nonny Nonny! your beautiful faces ?"
A moment! and the dragon came
Crouching down to the peerless dame,
With his fierce red eye so fondly shining,
And his terrible tail so meekly twining,
And the scales on his huge limbs gleaming o'er,
Gayer than ever they gleamed before.
She had won his heart, while she charmed his ear,
And Lillian smiled, and knew no fear.
And see, she mounts between his wings;
(Never a queen had a gaudier throne,)
And faery-like she sits and sings,
Guiding the steed with a touch and a tone,
Aloft, aloft in the clear blue ether,
The dame and the dragon they soared together; He bore her away on the breath of the galeThe two little dwarfs held fast by the tail.
Fanny! a pretty group for drawing;
My dragon like a war-horse pawing,
My dwarfs in a fright, and my girl in an attitude, Patting the beast in her soulless gratitude.
There; you may try it if you will,
While I drink my coffee and nib my quill.
The sun shone out on hill and grove;
It was a glorious day,
The lords and ladies were making love,
And the clowns were making hay;
But the town of Brentford marked with wonder
A lightning in the sky, and thunder,
And thinking ('t was a thinking town)
Some prodigy was coming down,
A mighty mob to Merlin went,
To learn the cause of this portent ;
And he, a wizard sage, but comical,
Looked through his glasses astronomical,
And puzzled every foolish sconce
By this oracular response:
"Now the slayer doth not slay,
Weakness flings her fear away,
Power bears the powerless,
Pity rides the pitiless;
Are ye lovers? are ye brave?
Hear ye this, and seek, and save!
He that would wed the loveliest maid,
Must don the stoutest mail,
For the rider shall never be sound in the head,
Till the ridden be maimed in the tail.
Hey diddle diddle! the cat and the fiddle!
None but the lover can read me my riddle!"
How kind art thou, and oh! how mighty,
Cupid! thou son of Aphrodite!
By thy sole aid in old romance,
Heroes and heroines sing and dance;
Of cane and rod there's little need;
They never learn to write or read;
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