Now every leaf, though colorless, burns bright
With disembodied and celestial light,
And drops without a movement or a sound
A pillar of darkness to the shifting ground.

The lucent, thin, and alcoholic flame
Runs in the stubble with a nervous aim,
But, when the eye pursues, will point with fire
Each single stubble-tip and strain no higher.

O triple goddess! Contemplate my plight!
Opacity, my fate! Change, my delight!
The yellow tom-cat, sunk in shifting fur,
Changes and dreams, a phosphorescent blur.

WHOE'ER thou art, whose soul-enchanting song
Steals on the sullen ear of pensive woe;
To whom the sounds of melody belong,
Sounds, that can more than human bliss bestow;

Like the wak'd God of day, whose rays pervade
The spangled veil of night, and fling their fires
O'er the cold bosom of the em'rald glade,
While bath'd in tears, the virgin orb retires.

Thy glowing verse illumes my path of care,
And warms each torpid fibre of my heart,
And tho' my MUSE exults thy smiles to share,
She feels the force of thy superior art;

Let me not, ever, to the marriage in Cana
Of Galilee admit the slightest sentiment
Of doubt about the astonishing and sustaining manna
Of chance and choice to throw a shadow's element
Of disbelief in truth -- Love is not love
Nor is the love of love its truth in consciousness
If it can be made hesitant by any crow or dove or
seeming angel or demon from above or from below
Or made more than it is knows itself to be by the authority
of any ministry of love.

In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And redd'ning Phoebus lifts his golden fire:
The birds in vain their amorous descant join;
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire:
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,
A different object do these eyes require:
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire.
Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men:
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
To warm their little loves the birds complain:

When first I ended, then I first began,
The more I travell'd, further from my rest,
Where most I lost, there most of all I wan,
Pined with hunger rising from a feast.
Methinks I fly, yet want I legs to go,
Wise in conceit, in act a very sot,
Ravish'd with joy amid a hell of woe;
What most I seem, that surest am I not.
I build my hopes a world above the sky,
Yet with the mole I creep into the earth;
In plenty I am starv'd with penury,
And yet I surfeit in the greatest dearth.
I have, I want, despair and yet desire,

You best discern'd of my mind's inward eyes,
And yet your graces outwardly divine,
Whose dear remembrance in my bosom lies,
Too rich a relic for so poor a shrine;
You, in whom Nature chose herself to view
When she her own perfection would admire,
Bestowing all her excellence on you,
At whose pure eyes Love lights his hallow'd fire;
E'en as a man that in some trance hath seen
More than his won'ring utt'rance can unfold,
That, rapt in spirit, in better worlds hath been,
So must your praise distractedly be told,

Unhappy pen and ill-accepted papers,
That intimate in vain my chaste desires,
My chaste desires, the ever-burning tapers
Enkindled by her eyes' celestial fires.
Celestial fires and unrespecting powers,
That deign not view the glory of your might
In humble lines, the work of carefull hours,
The sacrifice I offer to her sight.
But sith she scorns her own, this rests for me;
I'll moan myself and hide the wrong I have,
And so content me that her frowns should be
To my'infant style the cradle and the grave.

These plaintive verses, the Posts of my desire,
Which haste for succour to her slow regard:
Bear not report of any slender fire,
Forging a grief to win a fame's reward.
Nor are my passions limn'd for outward hue,
For that no colors can depaint my sorrows;
Delia herself and all the world may view
Best in my face, how cares hath till'd deep forrows.
No Bays I seek to deck my mourning brow,
O clear-eyed Rector of the holy Hill;
My humble accents crave the Olive bough,
Of her mild pity and relenting will.

Not in this chamber only at my birth--
When the long hours of that mysterious night
Were over, and the morning was in sight--
I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
And never shall one room contain me quite
Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
So is no warmth for me at any fire
To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,

Favour'd by Heav'n are those, ordain'd to taste
The bliss supreme that kindles fancy's fire;
Whose magic fingers sweep the muses' lyre,
In varying cadence, eloquently chaste!
Well may the mind, with tuneful numbers grac'd,
To Fame's immortal attributes aspire,
Above the treach'rous spells of low desire,
That wound the sense, by vulgar joys debas'd.
For thou, blest POESY! with godlike pow'rs
To calm the miseries of man wert giv'n;
When passion rends, and hopeless love devours,
By mem'ry goaded, and by frenzy driv'n,