But he who gains by base and armed wrong,
Or guilty fraud, or base compliances,
May be despoiled; even as a stolen dress
Is stript from a convicted thief, and he
Left in the nakedness of infamy.

XVI.

WAKE the serpent not-lest he
Should not know the way to go;
Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping
Through the deep grass of the meadow!
Not a bee shall hear him creeping,

Not a May-fly shall awaken,
From its cradling blue-bell shaken,

Not the starlight as he's sliding

Through the grass with silent gliding.

XVII.

ROME has fallen; ye see it lying

Heaped in undistinguished ruin:
Nature is alone undying.

XVIII.

THE fitful alternations of the rain,
When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there
Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere

XIX.

I WOULD not be a king-enough

Of woe it is to love;

The path to power is steep and rough,
And tempests reign above.

I would not climb the imperial throne;
'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun
Thaws in the height of noon.
Then farewell, king, yet were I one,
Care would not come so soon.
Would he and I were far away
Keeping flocks on Himelay!

XX.

O THOU immortal deity

Whose throne is in the depth of human thought, I do adjure thy power and thee

By all that man may be, by all that he is not, By all that he has been and yet must be!

XXI.

HE wanders, like a day-appearing dream, Through the dim wildernesses of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.

XXII.

ON KEATS,

WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED

"HERE lieth one whose name was writ on water!' But ere the breath that could erase it blew,

Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter,—

Death, the immortalizing winter, flew

Athwart the stream, and time's monthless torrent

grew

A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name

Of Adonais!

XXIII.

THE rude wind is singing

The dirge of the music dead;
The cold worms are clinging
Where kisses were lately fed.

XXIV.

"WHAT art thou, presumptuous, who profanest
The wreath to mighty poets only due,
Even whilst like a forgotten moon thou wanest?
Touch not those leaves which for the eternal few
Who wander o'er the paradise of fame,

In sacred dedication ever grew:

One of the crowd thou art without a name."
Ah, friend, 'tis the false laurel that I wear.
Bright though it seem, it is not the same
As that which bound Milton's immortal hair :
Its dew is poison; and the hopes that quicken
Under its chilling shade, though seeming fair,
Are flowers which die almost before they sicken.

XXV.

WHEN Soft winds and sunny skies
With the green earth harmonize,

And the young and dewy dawn.
Bold as an unhunted fawn,
Up the windless heaven is gone,-
Laugh; for ambushed in the day,
Clouds and whirlwinds watch their prey.

XXVI.

THE babe is at peace within the womb;
The corpse is at rest within the tomb:
We begin in what we end.

XXVII.

EPITAPH.

THESE are two friends whose lives were undivided, So let their memory be, now they have glided Under their grave; let not their bones be parted For their two hearts in life were single-hearted.

NOTE ON POEMS OF 1824

BY THE EDITOR.

THIS morn thy gallant bark
Sailed on a sunny sea;
'Tis noon, and tempests dark
Have wrecked it on the lee.
Ah woe, ah woe!

By spirits of the deep

Thou'rt cradled on the billow

To thy eternal sleep.

Thou sleepst upon the shore
Beside the knelling surge,

And sea-nymphs evermore
Shall sadly chant thy dirge.

They come, they come,

The spirits of the deep!
While near thy sea-weed pillow

My lonely watch I keep.

From far across the sea

I hear a loud lament,

By echo's voice for thee

From ocean's caverns sent.

O list, O list!

The spirits of the deep!

They raise a wail of sorrow,

While I for ever weep.