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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
To all that's beautiful of earth,
And endless magic things beside
The earth hath never yet descried.
For here, by strange unfathomed cause
Nature had not her mundane laws,
For Iceland lichen made a bride
Of Egypt's lily, side by side,—

And ferns that wave 'mid northern snows,
With fingery leaves enclasped the rose,
And tropic palm trees laid their charms
Within the mountain oak's rough arms-
The banian, like Briareus stood

With hundred arms-itself a wood!—
While the great western poplar, proud,
Hid its tall head within a cloud!-
The thick green cedar caught the sun
As golden as on Lebanon!—
And while low dogwoods rained around
Their snow-like blossoms on the ground,
Aloft magnolia's hands held up

To angel lips its spotless cup!
While, red and white, the apple bloom
Sent forth its delicate perfume;

And polished leaves of green enfold
The hanging orange fruit of gold;
Entwined among the sloe's black berries
Scarlet glowed the pendent cherries,
And bending to the daisy's reach
With downy cheek the velvet peach,
And saffron through the whole savanna
The yellow, clustering banana.

Such were the groves beside that flood,
That silver river flowing calm,
Where winds all wafted from the wood,
A thousand odors, as one balm;
And the bright sands upon the shore
Were spotted with a million shells,
And hues as bright within them bore
As dyed the blossoms' painted bells;
And in the caverns deep and wide,
Where Echo answered every wave,
A thousand flowers petrified,

Lived like our hopes within the grave;
And every rock upon that shore

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
Another realm lay wide outspread,
Not farther than a spirit's ear

Can hear the faintest word that 's said,
Yet could the sight of man not pierce
The space empyrean 'twixt the twain;
For there from brazen clouds so fierce
Poured the broad torrent of a golden rain;
Light spread above-light lay below—

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,
Save one-whose sorrow dimmed her love,
Soft as the semi-shadowed moon.
She once was one whose rising made

The noontide dark-so bright she gleamed!
"Till haply toward the earth she strayed,
And of its love first dreamed.
This dimmed that purer feeling which,
Within empyrean circles, fills

The soul with that afflatus rich

Whose presence gives extatic thrills.
She was the living, moving FIRE,

So bright and matchless in each sense;
Her hands enchanted heaven's lyre,
Her look each blessed intelligence.
Now hid she in the one dark spot,

The sole dim space within that sphere,
And tried from Memory's page to blot
Her sorrow, with a tear.

Secluded, sad, where woe had made
Her sable bower, dark in leaf,
She sighed, in solitary shade,

Her irremediable grief.

Amid the saddened, twilight grove,

Now that her golden light was pale,
She drooped her head with hopeless love,
And mournful, melancholy wail.
Her form was substance; yet so fair,

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
Each unfrequented dell;

The thorny henbane's golden fruit,

The nightshade's fatal berries blue,
And mandrake, with its forked root,
All thick about her grew.

Her grief was dumb-it had no words
To speak her lost estate,

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,

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