The dense smoke issuing from its narrow vent
Is to the air in curly volumes sent,
Which, coiling and uncoiling in the wind,
Trails like a writhing serpent far behind.
Beneath, as each merged wheel its motion plies,
On either side the white-churned waters rise,
And, newly parted from the noisy fray,
Track with light ridgy foam thy recent way,
Then, far diverged, in many a welted line
Of lustre on the distant surface shine.
Thou hold'st thy course in independent pride;
No leave ask'st thou of either wind or tide.
To whate'er point the breeze, inconstant, veer,
Still doth thy careless helmsmen onward steer;
As if the stroke of some magician's wand
Had lent thee power the ocean to command.
THE INDIAN SERPENT-CHARMER.
(Suggested by a picture by Stewardson.)
THE bower is of the Indian drapery
That weaves its living woof of flowers and fruits;
Red with the kisses of the amorous sun;
The roof is canopied crimson of the rose
The floor is violet-bedded, here and there
Tinged with some bud fresh weeping from the roof,
Or inlaid with rich flowers that force their way,
Veining the blue, like gold in lazuli.
A form is in that bower, that might be thought
Placed there for man to worship, or of those
That sit on thrones o' the cloud, and wreath their wings
With pearls still wet from streams of Paradise.
Yet she is human, and the silvery shawl,
That, like a holy circle o'er a saint,
Crowns her pale beauty, binds a weary brow,
Besieged with memories that make it pale.
She sits upon the ground, and one hand lifts
A flute that presses from her soft lip sounds,
Like the wind's wooing of the rose; and one
Holds a bright serpent in a silken band.
Her eye is on him and his eye on her,
As if she found in him one thing to love;
As if he felt her beauty, not her chain,
And lived upon her melancholy smile.
Her song has stirred him; it has stirred herself ;
For on her eyelash hangs a glistening tear,
The heart's quick tribute to times past and gone;
And such wild sporting as he can he tries
Before her powerful eye, and suits his dance,
Swifter or slower, to her wandering song.
He shoots along the violet floor, and lies
Straight as a prostrate column, and as still
As its pale marble; then sweeps up his coil,
Surge upon surge, and lays his gorgeous head
With its fixed sleepless eye i' the centre ring,
The watcher of his living citadel;
Then rolls away as loose as the sea wave.
Anon, he stoops like the wild swan, and shows
A neck as arched and silvery; then the vine
Must be outdone, and he's as lithe and curled,
And glistens through the leaves as proud a green.
But now the song grows loftier, and his pomp
Must all be worn, to please his Indian queen.
He rises from his train, that on the ground
Floats in gold circles, and his burnished head
Towers in the sunset like a rising flame;
And he has put on colours that make dim
The stones o' the Indian mine; his length is sheathed
In mail, that has for plates the mother pearl,
And for its studs the diamond: there's no ray
That strikes his arched neck from the stooping sun
But rings it with a collar of rich gems,
Or sheets it in one emerald, or the flame
Of rubies, or the orient sapphires blue.
His head is crested topaz, that enspheres
An eye as glittering as a summer star,
Yet fixed in all its shootings on one form,
That thanks its duty with a faint fond smile.
So stands and shines he till the charm is done,
And that sweet sound and sweeter smile have sunk
In silence and in shade.
I LOVE thee, Twilight; as thy shadows roll,
The calm of evening steals upon my soul,
Sublimely tender, solemnly serene,
Still as the hour, enchanting as the scene.
I love thee, Twilight! for thy gleams impart
Their dear, their dying influence to my heart,
When o'er the harp of thought thy passing wind
Awakens all the music of the mind,
And Joy and Sorrow, as the spirit burns,
And Hope and Memory sweep the chords by turns,
While Contemplation, on seraphic wings,
Mounts with the flame of sacrifice, and sings.
Twilight! I love thee; let thy glooms increase,
Till every feeling, every pulse is peace;
Slow from the sky the light of day declines,
Clearer within the dawn of glory shines,
Revealing, in the hour of Nature's rest,
A world of wonders in the Poet's breast:
Deeper, O Twilight! then thy shadows roll,
An awful vision opens on my soul.
listen, ladies gay !
No haughty feat of arms I tell ; Soft is the note, and sad the lay,
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.
"Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew! And, gentle ladye, deign to stay! Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
Nor tempt the stormy frith to-day.
"The blackening wave is edged with white; To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;
The fishes have heard the water-sprite
Whose screams forbode that wreck is nigh.
"Last night the gifted seer did view
A wet shroud swathe a ladye gay;
Then stay thee, fair, in Ravensheuch :
Why cross the gloomy frith to-day?"
""Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
To-night at Roslin leads the ball;
But that my ladye-mother there
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.
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