Hollow smile and frozen sneer

Come not here.

Holy water will I pour
Into every spicy flower

Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around. The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.

In your eye there is death,
There is frost in your breath
Which would blight the plants.
Where you stand you cannot hear
From the groves within

The wild-bird's din.

In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants.

It would fall to the ground if you came in.
In the middle leaps a fountain
Like sheet lightning,
Ever brightening

With a low melodious thunder;
All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder.
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from heaven
above,

And it sings a song of undying love;

And yet, tho' its voice be so clear and full, You never would hear it, your ears are so dull;

So keep where you are; you are foul with sin;

It would shrink to the earth if you came in.

THE SEA-FAIRIES

First printed in 1830, but suppressed until 1853, when it appeared, with many changes, in the 8th edition of the Poems.'

SLOW Sail'd the weary mariners and saw, Betwixt the green brink and the running foam,

Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest

To little harps of gold; and while they mused,

Whispering to each other half in fear, Shrill music reach'd them on the middle

sea.

Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly no more. Whither away from the high green field, and the happy blossoming shore?

Day and night to the billow the fountain

calls;

Down shower the gambolling waterfalls 10 From wandering over the lea;

Out of the live-green heart of the dells They freshen the silvery-crimson shells, And thick with white bells the clover-bill swells

High over the full-toned sea.

O, hither, come hither and furl your sails,
Come hither to me and to me;

Hither, come hither and frolic and play;
Here it is only the mew that wails;
We will sing to you all the day.
Mariner, mariner, furl your sails,

20

For here are the blissful downs and dales,
And merrily, merrily carol the gales,
And the spangle dances in bight and bay,
And the rainbow forms and flies on the

And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
Laughingly, laughingly;

And then we would wander away, away,
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and
high,

Chasing each other merrily.

III

There would be neither moon nor star; But the wave would make music above us afar

Low thunder and light in the magic night -
Neither moon nor star.

We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,
Call to each other and whoop and cry
All night, merrily, merrily.

They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells,

Laughing and clapping their hands between,

All night, merrily, merrily,

But I would throw to them back in mine
Turkis and agate and almondine;
Then leaping out upon them unseen

I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me

Laughingly, laughingly.

0, what a happy life were mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green!
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;
We would live merrily, merrily.

From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,

And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone

With a shrill inner sound,

Over the throne

In the midst of the hall;

Till that great sea-snake under the sea From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps Would slowly trail himself sevenfold Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate

With his large calm eyes for the love of

me.

And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality

Die in their hearts for the love of me.

III

But at night I would wander away, away, I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,

And lightly vault from the throne and play With the mermen in and out of the

rocks;

We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,

On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson

shells,

Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea. But if any came near I would call, and

shriek,

And adown the steep like a wave I would leap

From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;

For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list

Of the bold merry mermen under the sea. They would sue me, and woo me, and flat

ter me,

In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea.
Then all the dry pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and

soft

Would lean out from the hollow sphere of

the sea,

All looking down for the love of me.