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ce of God is passing by, And the red winds are withering in the sky! ** “What tho’ in worlds which sightless cycles run, Link’d to a little system, and one sun— Where all my love is folly and the crowd Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud, The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath— (Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?) What tho’ in worlds which own a single sun The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run, * Seltsamen Tochter Jovis Seinem Schosskinde Der Phantasie.—_Göethe_. ** Sightless—too small to be seen—_Legge_. Yet thine is my resplendency, so given To bear my secrets thro’ the upper Heaven. Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly, With all thy train, athwart the moony sky— *Apart—like fire-flies in Sicilian night, And wing to other worlds another light! Divulge the secrets of thy embassy To the proud orbs that twinkle—and so be To ev’ry heart a barrier and a ban Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!” Up rose the maiden in the yellow night, The single-moonèd eve!—on Earth we plight Our faith to one love—and one moon adore— The birth-place of young Beauty had no more. As sprang that yellow star from downy hours Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers, And bent o’er sheeny mountain and dim plain **Her way—but left not yet her Therasæan reign. * I have often noticed a peculiar movement of the fire-flies; —they will collect in a body and fly off, from a common centre, into innumerable radii. ** Therasæa, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca, which, in a moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of astonished mariners. Part II. HIGH on a mountain of enamell’d head— Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed Of giant pasturage lying at his ease, Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees With many a mutter’d “hope to be forgiven” What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven— Of rosy head, that towering far away Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray Of sunken suns at eve—at noon of night, While the moon danc’d with the fair stranger light— Uprear’d upon such height arose a pile Of gorgeous columns on th’ unburthen’d air, Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile Far down upon the wave that sparkled there, And nursled the young mountain in its lair. *Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall Thro’ the ebon air, besilvering the pall Of their own dissolution, while they die— Adorning then the dwellings of the sky. A dome, by linkèd light from Heaven let down, Sat gently on these columns as a crown— A window of one circular diamond, there, Look’d out above into the purple air, * Some star which, from the ruin’d roof Of shak’d Olympus, by mischance, did fall.—_Milton._ And rays from God shot down that meteor chain And hallow’d all the beauty twice again, Save when, between th’ Empyrean and that ring, Some eager spirit flapp’d his dusky wing. But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen The dimness of this world: that greyish green That Nature loves the best for Beauty’s grave Lurk’d in each cornice, round each architrave— And every sculptur’d cherub thereabout That from his marble dwelling peerèd out, Seem’d earthly in the shadow of his niche— Achaian statues in a world so rich? *Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis— From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss **Of beautiful Gomorrah! O, the wave Is now upon thee—but too late to save! Sound loves to revel in a summer night: Witness the murmur of the grey twilight * Voltaire, in speaking of Persepolis, says, “Je connois bien l’admiration qu’inspirent ces ruines—mais un palais érigé au pied d’une chaine des rochers sterils—peut il être un chef d’œuvre des arts!” [_Voila les arguments de M. Voltaire_.] ** “Oh! the wave”—Ula Degusi is the Turkish appellation; but, on its own shores, it is called Bahar Loth, or Almotanah. There were undoubtedly more than two cities engulfed in the “dead sea.” In the valley of Siddim were five—Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah. Stephen of Byzantium mentions eight, and Strabo thirteeen, (engulphed) —but the last is out of all reason. It is said, (Tacitus, Strabo, Josephus, Daniel of St. Saba, Nau, Maundrell, Troilo, D’Arvieux) that after an excessive drought, the vestiges of columns, walls, &c. are seen above the surface. At _any_ season, such remains may be discovered by looking down into the transparent lake, and at such distances as would argue the existence of many settlements in the space now usurped by the ‘Asphaltites.’ *That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco, Of many a wild star-gazer long ago— That stealeth ever on the ear of him Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim. And sees the darkness coming as a cloud— ***Is not its form—its voice—most palpable and loud? But what is this?—it cometh—and it brings A music with it—’tis the rush of wings— A pause—and then a sweeping, falling strain And Nesace is in her halls again. From the wild energy of wanton haste Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart; And zone that clung around her gentle waist Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart. Within the centre of that hall to breathe She paus’d and panted, Zanthe! all beneath, The fairy light that kiss’d her golden hair And long’d to rest, yet could but sparkle there! ***Young flowers were whispering in melody To happy flowers that night—and tree to tree; Fountains were gushing music as they fell In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell; Yet silence came upon material things— Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings— And sound alone that from the spirit sprang Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang: * Eyraco—Chaldea. ** I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of the darkness as it stole over the horizon. *** Fairies use flowers for their charactery.—_Merry Wives of Windsor_. [William Shakespeare] “’Neath blue-bell or streamer— Or tufted wild spray That keeps, from the dreamer,