O LOVE, Love, Love! oh, withering might!

O sun, that at thy noonday height
Shudderest, when I strain my sight,

Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light!

Lo! falling from my constant mind,
Lo! parched and withered, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

II.

Last night, when some one spoke his name,

From

my swift blood, that went and came,

A thousand little shafts of flame

Were shivered in my narrow frame.

O Love, O fire! once he drew

With one long kiss my whole soul thro'

My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

III.

Before he mounts the hill, I know

He cometh quickly from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.

In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Downdeepening from swoon to swoon,

Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

IV.

The wind sounds like a silver wire,

And from beyond the noon a fire
Is poured upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire ;

And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight,
Bursts into blossom in his sight.

E

V.

My whole soul waiting silently,

All naked in a sultry sky,

Droops blinded with his shining eye,
I will possess him or will die.

I will grow round him in his place,
Grow--live-die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasped in his embrace.

CENONE.

THERE is a dale in Ida, lovelier

Than any in old Ionia, beautiful

With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn

A path thro' steepdown granite walls below Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front The cedarshadowy valleys open wide.

Far-seen, high over all the Godbuilt wall

And many a snowycolumned range divine, Mounted with awful sculptures-men and Gods,

The work of Gods-bright on the darkblue sky The windy citadel of Ilion

Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came

Mournful Enone wandering forlorn

Of Paris, once her playmate. Round her neck,

Her neck all marblewhite and marblecold,

Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.

She, leaning on a vine-entwined stone,

Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shadow
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.

"O mother Ida, many fountained Ida, Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

The grasshopper is silent in the grass,

The lizard with his shadow on the stone

Sleeps like a shadow, and the scarletwinged*
Cicala in the noonday leapeth not

Along the water-rounded granite-rock

The purple flower droops: the golden bee
Is lilycradled: I alone awake.

My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,

My heart is breaking and my eyes are dim,
And I am all

aweary of my life.

In the Pyrenees, where part of this poem was written, I saw a very beautiful species of Cicala, which had scarlet wings spotted with black. Probably nothing of the kind exists in Mount Ida.