Which makes the trouble of their breast,

And bears them onward with no rest

To ampler skies and some grey plain
Sad with the tumbling of the main.

But see, a sidelong eddy slips
Back into the soft eclipse

Of day, while careless fate allows,
Darkling beneath still olive-boughs;

Then with chuckle liquid-sweet
Coils within its shy retreat;

This is mine, no wave of might,

But pure

and live with glimmering light;

I dare not follow that broad flood

Of Poesy, whose lustihood

Nourishes mighty lands, and makes
Resounding music for their sakes;
I lie beside the well-head clear
With musing joy, with tender fear,
And choose for half a day to lean
Thus on my elbow where the green
Margin-grass and silver-white

Starry buds, the wind's delight,

Thirsting steer, nor goat-hoof rude
Of the branch-sundering Satyr brood
Has ever pashed; now, now, I stoop,
And in hand-hollow dare to scoop

This scantling from the delicate stream;
It lies as quiet as a dream,

And lustrous in my curvèd hand.

Were it a crime if this were drain'd

By lips which met the noonday blue

Fiery and emptied of its dew?

Crown me with small white marish-flowers!

To the good Dæmon, and the Powers

Of this fair haunt I offer up

In unprofanèd lily-cup

Libations; still remains for me

A bird's drink of clear Poesy;
Yet not as light bird comes and dips

A pert bill, but with reverent lips

I drain this slender trembling tide;

O sweet the coolness at my side,

And, lying back, to slowly pry

For spaces of the upper sky

Radiant 'twixt woven olive-leaves;

And, last, while some fair show deceives

The closing eyes, to find a sleep

As full of healing and as deep

As on toil-worn Odysseus lay
Surge-swept to his Ionian bay.

IN THE GALLERIES.

I. THE APOLLO BELVEDERE.

Radiance invincible! Is that the brow

Which gleamed on Python while thy arrow sped ? Are those the lips for Hyacinthus dead

That grieved? Wherefore a God indeed art thou :
For all we toil with ill, and the hours bow

And break us, and at best when we have bled,
And are much marred, perchance propitiated

A little doubtful victory they allow :

We sorrow, and thenceforth the lip retains

A shade, and the eyes shine and wonder less.
O joyous Slayer of evil things! O great

And splendid Victor! God, whom no soil stains
Of passion or doubt, of grief or languidness,
-Even to worship thee I come too late.

II. THE VENUS OF MELOS.

Goddess, or woman nobler than the God,
No eyes a-gaze upon Ægean seas

Shifting and circling past their Cyclades

Saw thee. The Earth, the gracious Earth, was trod First by thy feet, while round thee lay her broad Calm harvests, and great kine, and shadowing trees, And flowers like queens, and a full year's increase, Clusters, ripe berry, and the bursting pod.

So thy victorious fairness, unallied

To bitter things or barren, doth bestow
And not exact; so thou art calm and wise;
Thy large allurement saves; a man may grow
Like Plutarch's men by standing at thy side,
And walk thenceforward with clear-visioned eyes!