breath, EVER let the fancy roam; And so live ever,- or else swoon to Pleasure never is at home; death. ODE ON THE POETS. BARDS of passion and of mirth ous And the parle of voices thunderous; At a touch sweet pleasure melteth Open wide the mind's cage-door,— Cloys with tasting. What do then? [her. send To banish Even from her sky. And thou shalt quaff it,-thou shalt hear Distant harvest-carols clear,- Sweet birds antheming the morn; Shaded hyacinth, alway Sapphire queen of the mid-May; When the bee-hive casts its swarm; Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, [fays; Clustered around by all her starry But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruittree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy. wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. WHERE IS THY FAVORED HAUNT? WHERE is thy favored haunt, eter- | No sounds of worldly toil ascending nal voice, The region of thy choice, there, Mar the full burst of prayer; Where undisturbed by sin and earth, Lone Nature feels that she may free ly breathe, And round us and beneath 'Tis on the mountain's summit dark Are heard her sacred tones: the fit the soul Owns thy entire control? and high, When storms are hurrying by: ful sweep Of winds across the steep, 'Tis 'mid the strong foundations of Through withered bents - romantic the earth, Where torrents have their birth. note and clear, Meet for a hermit's ear,-· |