Have I merely

Dream'd a dream?

Am I nought,

In form or thought,

Save the monster I seem?

Have I dwelt for ever

In the wood with the rest,

Changing never,—

A monster, at best?

16.

'Tis a puzzle, to ponder

If yonder

Soft light, changing not,

Will always be shining

Thro' the intertwining

Boughs on this one spot?

The seasons change,

Leaves redden and fall

Some influence strange

Is at work, over all :

Can a thing such as I

Remain while the fair

Shapes of earth, water, air,

Come and die?

And will the time come

When the star there will see

No fellow stretch'd dumb

On the trunk of this tree,

While his thoughts come and flee

Drowsily?

And will she take flight,

When no more she can be

The bright

Especial delight

Of a monster like me?

17.

-Did she hear me, I wonder?—

She trembles upon

Her throne-and is gone!

The boughs darken under,

Then thrill, and are stirr'd

By the notes of a bird.

G

Of my fellows upspringing

From sleep and dreaming, To the birds' shrill singing, The day's soft beaming: While the whole wood moves

As the Sun-god dawns,

They are beating the lawns

With their noisy hooves;

And they madly go

To and fro,

Though o' nights they are dumb.

Hoho! hoho!

I come! I come!

Hark! to the cry

They reply:

"Ha, there, ha!"

"Hurrah!"-"hurrah!"

And starting afraid

At the cries,

In the depths of the glade

Echo replies

"Ho, there!"-"ho, there!"

By the stream below there

The answer dies.

V.

VENUS CYTHEREA.

1.

TELL me, thou many-finger'd Frost,

Coming and going like a ghost

In leafless woods forsaken

O Frost, that o'er him lying low

Drawest the garment of the snow

From silver cloud-wings shaken,

And round bare boughs with strange device

Twinest fantastic leaves of ice

When will Adon waken?

Lo, dawn by dawn I rise afar

Beside Apollo in his car,

And, far below us wreathing,