VIII. TO HOMER. STANDING aloof in giant ignorance, So thou wast blind! - but then the veil was rent, For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live, And Neptune made for thee a spermy tent, And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive; Aye, on the shores of darkness there is light, And precipices show untrodden green; There is a budding morrow in midnight; There is a triple sight in blindness keen: Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befell To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell. IX. ANSWER TO A SONNET ENDING THUS: "Dark eyes are dearer far Than those that made the hyacinthine bell." BLUE! 'Tis the life of heaven, - the domain Of Cynthia, the wide palace of the sun, The tent of Hesperus, and all his train, The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray, and dun. Blue! 'Tis the life of waters ocean And all its vassal streams: pools numberless May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness. Blue! Gentle cousin of the forest-green, Married to green in all the sweetest flowersForget-me-not, the blue bell, and, that qeeen Of secrecy, the violet: what Hast thou, as a mere shadow ! When in an Eye thou art alive strange powers But how great, with fate! Feb. 1818. X. TO J. H. REYNOLDS. O THAT a week could be an age, and we So time itself would be annihilate, To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate. O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind! To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant! In little time a host of joys to bind, And keep our souls in one eternal pant! This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught Me how to harbor such a happy thought. XI. ΤΟ TIME'S sea hath been five years at its slow ebb, Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand, Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web, And snared by the ungloving of thine hand. And yet I never look on midnight sky, But I behold thine eyes' well-memoried light; I cannot look upon the rose's dye, But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight; I cannot look on any budding flower, But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips, And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour eclipse Thou dost Every delight with sweet remembering, * A lady whom he saw for some moments at Vauxhall XII. TO SLEEP. O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight! O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close, Around my bed its lulling charities; Then save me, or the passed day will shine Save me from curious conscience, that still lords |