the heat of the furnace beyond the colored phantoms, which it sets afloat over the horizon![139] Has anyone since Shakespeare and Spenser lighted on such tender and such grand ecstasies? Has anyone painted so magnificently the cloud which watches by night in the sky, enveloping in its net the swarm of golden bees, the stars: "The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead...[140] That orbed maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn."[141] Read again those verses on the garden, in which the sensitive plant dreams. Alas! they are the dreams of the poet; and the happy visions which floated in his virgin heart up to the moment when it opened out and withered. I will pause in time; I will not proceed, as he did, beyond the recollections of his springtime: "The snowdrop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, And their breath was mixed with fresh odor, sent From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. "Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, And narcissi, the fairest among them all, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, Till they die of their own dear loveliness. "And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, That the light of its tremulous bells is seen Through their pavilions of tender green; "And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, It was felt like an odor within the sense; "And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beauty and love lay bare; "And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, As a Mænad, its moonlight-colored cup, Till the fiery star, which is its eye, Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky... "And on the stream whose inconstant bosom Was prankt, under boughs of embowering blossom, With golden and green light, slanting through Their heaven of many a tangled hue, "Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, And starry river-buds glimmered by, And round them the soft stream did glide and dance With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. "And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, Which led through the garden along and across, Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees, "Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells, As fair as the fabulous asphodels, And flowerets which drooping as day drooped too, Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew."[142]