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634. On first looking into Chapman's Homer
MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold :
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes

He stared at the Pacific-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

635. When I have Fears that I may cease to be

W

HEN I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charact❜ry,

Hold like full garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;-then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

636.

O

To Sleep

SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!

Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;

Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

637.

Last Sonnet

BRIGHT Star, would I were steadfast as thou art

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-
No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever-or else swoon to death.

JEREMIAH JOSEPH CALLANAN

638. The Outlaw of Loch Lene

FROM THE IRISH

1795-1839

MANY a day have I made good ale in the glen,
That came not of stream or malt, like the brewing of

men :

My bed was the ground; my roof, the green-wood above; And the wealth that I sought, one far kind glance from my Love.

Alas! on that night when the horses I drove from the field,
That I was not near from terror my angel to shield !
She stretch'd forth her arms; her mantle she flung to
the wind,

And swam o'er Loch Lene, her outlaw'd lover to find.

O would that a freezing sleet-wing'd tempest did sweep,
And I and my love were alone, far off on the deep;
I'd ask not a ship, or a bark, or a pinnace, to save—
With her hand round my waist, I'd fear not the wind or
the wave.

'Tis down by the lake where the wild tree fringes its sides, The maid of my heart, my fair one of Heaven resides: I think, as at eve she wanders its mazes among,

The birds go to sleep by the sweet wild twist of her song.

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639.

WILLIAM SIDNEY WALKER

Too

1795-1846

'00 solemn for day, too sweet for night,
Come not in darkness, come not in light;

But come in some twilight interim,

When the gloom is soft, and the light is dim.

GEORGE DARLEY

1795-1846

640.

SWEET

Song

WEET in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers, Lull'd by the faint breezes sighing through her hair; Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers

Breathed to my sad lute 'mid the lonely air.

Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming

To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above : O that in tears, from my rocky prison streaming,

I too could glide to the bower of my love!

Ah! where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her,
Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay,
Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her,
To her lost mate's call in the forests far away.

Come then, my bird! For the peace thou ever bearest, Still Heaven's messenger of comfort to me―

Come-this fond bosom, O faithfullest and fairest,

Bleeds with its death-wound, its wound of love for thee!

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On a Gift-ring carelessly lost

I SENT a ring-a little band

Of emerald and ruby stone,
And bade it, sparkling on thy hand,
Tell thee sweet tales of one
Whose constant memory

Was full of loveliness, and thee.

A shell was graven on its gold,—
'Twas Cupid fix'd without his wings-
To Helene once it would have told
More than was ever told by rings:
But now all's past and gone,

Her love is buried with that stone.

Thou shalt not see the tears that start

From eyes by thoughts like these beguiled;
Thou shalt not know the beating heart,
Ever a victim and a child:

Yet Helene, love, believe

The heart that never could deceive.

I'll hear thy voice of melody

In the sweet whispers of the air
I'll see the brightness of thine eye
In the blue evening's dewy star;

In crystal streams thy purity;

And look on Heaven to look on thee.

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