F XVIII. THE HUMAN SEASONS. OUR Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man : He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature. XIX. ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER. (OME hither, all sweet maidens soberly, Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light, Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be, As if so gentle that ye could not see, Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright, Sinking away to his young spirit's night, Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea: 'Tis young Leander toiling to his death; Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile. O horrid dream! see how his body dips Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile: He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath! XX. H TO AILSA ROCK. EARKEN, thou craggy ocean pyramid ! screams! When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams! When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid ? How long is't since the mighty power bid Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams? Sleep in the lap of thunder or sun-beams, Or when gray clouds are thy cold cover-lid? Thou answer'st not, for thou art dead asleep! Thy life is but two dead eternities The last in air, the former in the deep; First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies Drown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep, Another cannot wake thy giant size. XXI. M ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES. Y spirit is too weak; mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep, That I have not the cloudy winds to keep Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye. Such dim-conceived glories of the brain, Bring round the heart an indescribable feud; So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old Time -- with a billowy main A sun, a shadow of a magnitude. XXII. H TO HAYDON. (WITH THE PRECEDING SONNET.) AYDON! forgive me that I cannot speak Forgive me, that I have not eagle's wings, For, when men stared at what was most divine Of their star in the east, and gone to worship them! |