Heavy with diamond richness bent, And with its breath the violet With sweets made Zephyr redolent; And pink crape-myrtles, dense in bloom, Were like the morning's fleecy mist That blushes in the fading gloom When by the rising sun 't is kissed. This was a planet that gave birth And ferns that wave 'mid northern snows, With hundred arms-itself a wood!— To angel lips its spotless cup! And polished leaves of green enfold Such were the groves beside that flood, Lived like our hopes within the grave; Was sprinkled thick with sparkling gems, And coral trees whose branches bore Diamonds, fit for diadems; And there the snow-white Swan of Peace Sat on the wave, and sang so rare, That with the magic song's increase The mermaid rose with dripping hair! And when that wizard strain was heard, As landward borne off by the breeze, There came a note back from each bird That haunted those celestial trees; The nightingale poured out her soul, The thrush gave his melodious call, Then piped the scarlet oriole, And mocking-birds repeated all— And every spray did find a tongue From minstrels of the bright hued wing, Until it seemed the air that sung! And every living leaf could sing! Not greatly distant from this sphere Can hear the faintest word that 's said, And yet no sun was stationed there, God's Fountain vast did overflow, And light was everywhere! And every form which there did move Glowed like a sun-smit wave at noon, The noontide dark-so bright she gleamed! The soul with that afflatus rich Whose presence gives extatic thrills. So bright and matchless in each sense; The sole dim space within that sphere, Secluded, sad, where woe had made Her irremediable grief. Amid the saddened, twilight grove, Now that her golden light was pale, So thin, so slight, so frail-the mist In incorporeal air Seems thus, when Morn hath kissed. "T was lonely LLAMA; every leaf About her, threw a sombre gloom, The flowers seemed bent with weight of grief, And heavy each perfume; The ivy twined above her head, Dark moss trailed at her feet, The weeping-willow's tears were shed, And poison bitter-sweet. 'Mid the brown shadows drooped each plant, As blasted by a deadly spell, From that strange spirit which doth haunt The thorny henbane's golden fruit, The nightshade's fatal berries blue, Her grief was dumb-it had no words It touched the very hearts of birds, She was so desolate. Voiceless she sate, and paled away Like roses in a sunless dell; Yet murmured sighs, which seemed to sayAlas! my loved, lost Ariel! Whilst thus she droop'd she heeded not The sun-bright spirits sweeping by, The disembodied souls forgot, |