Careless, and grand-fingers soft and round

Parting luxuriant curls;-and the swift bound

Of Bacchus from his chariot, when his

eye

Made Ariadne's cheek look blushingly. Thus I remember all the pleasant flow Of words at opening a portfolio.

Things such as these are ever harbingers To trains of peaceful images: the stirs Of a swan's neck unseen among the rushes:

A linnet starting all about the bushes: A butterfly, with golden wings broad parted

Nestling a rose, convuls'd as though it smarted

With over pleasure-many, many more,
Might I indulge at large in all my store
Of luxuries: yet I must not forget
Sleep, quiet, with his poppy coronet :
For what there may be worthy in these
rhymes

I partly owe to him: and thus, the chimes

Of friendly voices had just given place To as sweet a silence, when I gan retrace The pleasant day, upon a couch at ease. It was a poet's house who keeps the keys Of pleasure's temple. Round about were hung

The glorious features of the bards who sung

In other ages-cold and sacred busts Smiled at each other. Happy he who

trusts

To clear Futurity his darling fame! Then there were fauns and satyrs taking aim

At swelling apples with a frisky leap And reaching fingers, 'mid a luscious heap

Of vine leaves. Then there rose to view a fane

Of liny marble, and thereto a train Of nymphs approaching fairly o'er the sward:

Une, loveliest, holding her white hand toward

The dazzling sun-rise: two sisters sweet Bending their graceful figures till they meet

Over the trippings of a little child:
And some are hearing, eagerly, the wild

1 Leigh Hunt's. The following lines are a description of the room in which the poem was written, with its decorations.

And each imagin'd 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-conceivéd glories of the brain Bring round the heart an undescribable 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.

1817. March 9, 1817.

ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER COME hither all sweet maidens soberly, Down-looking aye, and with a chastened light

Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white. And meekly let your fair hands joined