LINES WRITTEN FOR MISS SOPHIA STACEY.

1.

HOU art fair, and few are fairer

TH

Of the nymphs of earth or ocean.
They are robes that fit the wearer—

Those soft limbs of thine, whose motion
Ever falls, and shifts, and glances,

As the life within them dances.

2. Thy deep eyes, a double planet,

Gaze the wisest into madness

With soft clear fire. The winds that fan it
Are those thoughts of gentle gladness
Which, like zephyrs on the billow,
Make thy gentle soul their pillow.

3. If whatever face thou paintest

In those eyes grows pale with pleasure,
If the fainting soul is faintest

When it hears thy harp's wild measure,
Wonder not that, when thou speakest,
Of the weak my heart is weakest,

4. As dew beneath the wind of morning,
As the sea which whirlwinds waken,
As the birds at thunder's warning,
As aught mute but deeply shaken,
As one who feels an unseen spirit,
Is my heart when thine is near it.

Via Val Fonda, Florence.

Now imprisoned in the convent of St. Anne, Pisa.

"L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nell' infinito un mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro."-Her own words.

My song, I fear that thou wilt find but few
Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning,

Of such hard matter dost thou entertain;
Whence, if by misadventure chance should bring
Thee to base company (as chance may do),

Quite unaware of what thou dost contain,
I prithee comfort thy sweet self again,
My last delight: tell them that they are dull,
And bid them own that thou art beautiful.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE writer of the following lines died at Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building; and where it was his hope to have realised a scheme of life suited perhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this.

His life was singular; less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it than the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and feelings. The present poem, like the Vita Nova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates; and to a certain other class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from a defect of a common organ of preception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that 66 gran vergogna sarebbe a colui che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura o di colore rettorico, e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendimento."

The present poem appears to have been intended by the writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on the preceding page is almost a literal translation from Dante's famous canzone

"Voi che intendendo il terzo ciel movete," etc.

The presumptuous application of the concluding lines to his own composition will raise a smile at the expense of my unfortunate friend be it a smile not of contempt, but pity.

EPIPSYCHIDION.

WEET Spirit, sister of that orphan one
Whose empire is the name thou weepest on,
In my heart's temple I suspend to thee
These votive wreaths of withered memory.
Fair captive bird, who from thy narrow cage
Pourest such music that it might assuage
The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee,
Were they not deaf to all sweet melody-
This song shall be thy rose: its petals pale
Are dead, indeed, my adored nightingale !
But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom,
And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom.

High spirit-wingèd heart, who dost for ever
Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour,
Till those bright plumes of thought in which arrayed
It oversoared this low and worldly shade

Lie shattered, and thy panting wounded breast
Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest-
I weep vain tears: blood would less bitter be,
Yet poured forth gladlier could it profit thee.

Seraph of heaven, too gentle to be human,
Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman
All that is insupportable in thee

Of light, and love, and immortality!
Sweet benediction in the eternal curse !
Veiled glory of this lampless universe!

Thou moon beyond the clouds! thou living form
Among the dead! thou star above the storm!
Thou wonder, and thou beauty, and thou terror!
Thou harmony of Nature's art! thou mirror
In whom, as in the splendour of the sun,
All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on-
Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now
Flash lightning-like with unaccustomed glow!
I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song
All of its much mortality and wrong

With those clear drops which start like sacred dew
From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through,
Weeping till sorrow becomes ecstasy :
Then smile on it so that it may not die.

I never thought before my death to see
Youth's vision thus made perfect. Emily,
I love thee-though the world by no thin name
Will hide that love from its unvalued shame.

Would we two had been twins of the same mother!
Or that the name my heart lent to another
Could be a sister's bond for her and thee,
Blending two beams of one eternity!

Yet were one lawful and the other true,

These names, though dear, could paint not as is due
How beyond refuge I am thine.
Ah me!

I am not thine-I am a part of thee !

Sweep lamp! my moth-like muse has burnt its wings; Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings,

Young Love should teach Time, in his own grey style,
All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile-

A lovely soul formed to be blessed and bless-
A well of sealed and sacred happiness,

Whose waters like blithe light and music are,
Vanquishing dissonance and gloom-a star
Which moves not in the moving heavens, alone-
A smile amid dark frowns-a gentle tone
Amid rude voices-a beloved light-

A solitude, a refuge, a delight

A lute which those whom Love has taught to play
Make music on to soothe the roughest day,
And lull fond Grief asleep—a buried treasure-
A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure—
A violet-shrouded grave of woe?—I measure
The world of fancies seeking one like thee,
And find-alas! mine own infirmity.

She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way,

And lured me towards sweet death; as Night by Day,
Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope,
Led into light, life, peace. An antelope
In the suspended impulse of its lightness