Across a brow with parted tress In a crisp auburn waviness; And mellow fervency between As if great Nature's affluence Had opened it's rich heart, and there The Sun, down stepping, half withdraws Thus chaunted to me that fair blooming throng And said to me at last,-Go tell our song XXXV To such as hang their pale home-withered heads For winter-time, and do our kindness wrong: And say, that they might bear, The more they know us, the moist weight of air, Which stamps upon their fields so fine a green, So glad, so lasting, yet so little seen. Bethink thee oftener too. Yet add, for all The obstinate love and natural, Which thou hast borne us in despite Of all thy sunny dreams of southern places, That thou hast been the first that has had sight Of what is on the clouds, and the kind faces Basking on t'other side: and so we take Our journey up through heaven; and for the sake Of all thy patient looks into the skies, We circuit thee, and kiss thy feverish eyes. So saying, the white clouds a little stirred, Passed close to me; and every lady bowed And swept my lids with breathless lips serene, As Alan's mouth was stooped to by a queen. MISCELLANIES. FANCY'S PARTY. A FRAGMENT. Juvat ire per ipsum Aera, et immenso spatiantem vivere cœlo. MANILIUS. We take our pleasure through the very air, And breathing the great heav'n, expatiate there. In this poetic corner With books about and o'er us, With busts and flowers, And pictured bowers, And the sight of fields before us; And all their dull realities? |