III.

Has the dull Earth a being to compare With those that haunt that spirit-world--the brain? Can shapes material vie with forms of air, Nature with Phantasy?--O question vain! Lo, by the Dreamer, fresh from heavenly hands, Youth's dream-inspirer--Virgin Woman stands. She came, a stranger from the Southern skies, And careless o'er the cloister'd garden stray'd, Till, pausing, violets on the bank to cull, Over the Dreamer bent the Beautiful.

Silent, with lifted hand and lips apart, Silent she stood, and gazed away her heart. Like purple Maenad fruits, when down the glade Shoots the warm sunbeam,--into darksome glow Light kiss'd the ringlets wreathing brows of snow; And softer than the rosy hues that flush Her native heaven, when Tuscan morns arise, The sweet cheek brighten'd with the sweeter blush, As virgin love from out delighted eyes Dawn'd as Aurora dawns.--

Thus look'd the maid, And still the sleeper dream'd beneath the shade.

Image of Soul and Love! So Psyche crept To the still chamber where her Eros slept; While the light gladden'd round his face serene,[A] As light doth ever,--when Love first is seen.

Felt he the touch of her dark locks descending, Or with his breath her breathing fused and blending, That, like a bird we startle from the spray, Pass'd the light Sleep with sudden wings away? Sighing he woke, and waking he beheld; The sigh was silenced, as the look was spell'd; Look charming look, the love that ever lies In human hearts, like light'ning in the air, Flash'd in the moment from those meeting eyes, And open'd all the Heaven!

O Youth, beware! For either, light should but forewarn the gaze; Woe follows love, as darkness doth the blaze!