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The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air And were caught in the branches naked and bare.

First there came down a thawing rain

And its dull drops froze on the boughs again,
Then there steamed up a freezing dew
Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew;

And a northern whirlwind, wandering about Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, Shook the boughs thus laden, and heavy and stiff,

And snapped them off with his rigid griff.

When winter had gone and spring came back The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck;

But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels,

Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels.

CONCLUSION

Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that

Which within its boughs like a spirit sat

Ere its outward form had known decay, Now felt this change, I cannot say.

Whether that lady's gentle mind,
No longer with the form combined
Which scattered love, as stars do light,
Found sadness, where it left delight,

I dare not guess; but in this life
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is, but all things seem,
And we the shadows of the dream,

It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant if one considers it,

To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.

That garden sweet, that lady fair,

And all sweet shapes and odours there,

In truth have never past away:

'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.

For love, and beauty, and delight,

There is no death nor change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.

[graphic]

Fiordispina

HE season was the childhood of

sweet June,

Whose sunny hours from morning

until noon

Went creeping through the day with silent feet,
Each with its load of pleasure, slow yet sweet;
Like the long years of blest Eternity
Never to be developed. Joy to thee,
Fiordispina and thy Cosimo,

For thou the wonders of the depth canst know
Of this unfathomable flood of hours,
Sparkling beneath the heaven which em-

bowers

They were two cousins, almost like to twins, Except that from the catalogue of sins

Nature had raised their love-which could

not be

But by dissevering their nativity.

And so they grew together like two flowers Upon one stem, which the same beams and

showers

Lull or awaken in their purple prime,

Which the same hand will gather

clime

the same

Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see All those who love-and who e'er loved like

thee,

Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,

Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow The ardours of a vision which obscure

The very idol of its portraiture.

He faints, dissolved into a sea of love;
But thou art as a planet sphered above;
But thou art Love itself- ruling the motion
Of his subjected spirit: such emotion
Must end in sin and sorrow, if sweet May

Had not brought forth this morn—your wed

ding-day.

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