When Nature would her various works renew,
She loves to travail in some secret lair;
None but her favour'd votaries may view
How her quick hands Spring's ornaments prepare,
How she in concord sweet and order due,
Nurtures in secret haunts her children fair.
But when she would subvert and waste outright,
In storms and hurricanes she bursts to sight.

So also Love delights to exercise
Throughout the spirit-world his wondrous might;
He draws his viewless ring in magic wise
At golden evening, or in starlit night;
And by soft lays and plaintive melodies
Awakens kindred choirs of spirits bright.
He knows how souls in his perennial tie
Are knit by glances from the silent eye.
If in the billows of a boisterous tide
A youth should fling himself in venturous play,
Full soon will he, returning shoreward, ride
Upon that wave that swept him fast away.
But I—methought a glassy lake I spied,
Wherein heav'n's vault, earth's sheen reflected lay.
There sank I down, with softest raptures drunken,
There sank I down, and am for ever sunken.