There was some necromancy in the place: The air was full of voices wondrous sweet; Crowned shadows of past ages came to greet Their living peers, who lately lent new grace To genius-haunted Rome; And when the lady of the grotto spoke, ’Twas like Miranda, when at first she woke To Love, lighting the wild sea with her smile Star of her beautiful and haunted isle; And the magician, who Such harmony and beauty round him drew,-- He was her Ariel and Ferdinand Blended in one, And heir to Prosper’s wonder-working wand. He charmed the sprites of power For one familiar hour, And Story-land and Dream-land deftly won To his home-nook the moonlit stream beside: Hushed and apart Though in the city’s heart, There dwell they long, the poet and his bride! TO J. G. WHITTIER. NORTON, Mass., September 8, 1861. Why is it that I always miss thy visits? Why of all things should I have lost sight of thee at the mountains? and when I was so near thee too! I cannot think why so pleasant a thing should be withheld from me, unless because I enjoy it too much. I have no other such friends as thee and Elizabeth, and when anything like this happens it is a great disappointment. But I said all the time that seeing the hills with you could only be a beautiful dream. I felt the beauty of those mountains around the Lake, as I floated among them, but I wished for thee all the while; because I have always associated thee with my first glimpse of them, and somehow it seems as if they belonged to thee or thee to them, or both. They would not speak to me much; I needed an interpreter: and when they grew so dim and spectral in the noon haze, they gave me a strange almost shuddering feeling of distance and loneliness. But I am glad thee saw the Notch Mountains, and those grand blue hills up the river that I used to watch through all their changes. I am glad Miss B---- saw thee, for she was as much disappointed as I when we gave up the hope of your coming. I felt almost certain you would both come; I wanted Lizzie to know the mountains. Is it right to dream and plan for another year? How I should like to go to Franconia with thee and Elizabeth to see those great gates of the Notch open gradually wider and wider, and then to pass through to a vision of the vast range beyond! It is but a vague memory to me; I long to take that journey again.