What art thou? What new device, Globe, chance-fashion'd in a trice, Into brief existence bounding, Perfectly thy circle rounding? As when Cypris, her breast smiting-- Virgin still, all love inviting-- Cypris in young loveliness Couch'd rosy where the white waves press Her to bear and her to bless; _So_ forth from thy native shell Gleamest thou ineffable! Springing up with graceful bound And describing dainty round; Thousand colours come and go As thou dost thy fair curves show, Swelling out--a whirling ball Meet for Fairy-Festival; Through whose sides of shifting hue, Through whose smooth-turn'd globe, we view Iris' gliding rainbow sitting, In a hundred forms soft-flitting: And semblance of a troop displaying, All around dominion swaying: And the Goddess volatile With witching step and luring smile Follows still with twinkling foot In link'd mazes involute: With many a sight-deceiving turn And flight which makes pursuers burn, And a graceful hesitation-- Only treacherous simulation: JUST SO, and no less deceiving, Our BUBBLE, all its colours weaving, Follows ever-varying courses, Or in air itself disperses: Here now, there now, coming, going, Wand'ring as if ebbing, flowing: Sporting Passion's colours all In ways that are bacchanal; And the GLOBES undisciplin'd As though driven by the wind, Borne along the fleeting plains Light as air; nor order reigns-- But the heaven-possess'd array Moving each in its own way, Hither now and thither flying, Glancing, wavering, and dying, Losing still their path and finding, In a random inter-winding: Rising, falling, on careering, Vis'ble now, now disappearing; Living wand'ring streams outgoing, Ev'n Confusion beauteous showing: Flowing not each in its course, But each to other joining force; Moving in pleasant pastime still In a mutual good-will: And a nearness that's so near You the contact almost fear, Yet so finely drawn to eye In its delicate subtlety That the procession, blossom-fair, Nowhere has direction clear: Nor with their own aspect glance, But in the sweet luxuriance Which skiey influences lend, As in new windings on they trend: Throwing off the stol'n sunlight In a flood of blossoms bright, Scatter'd on the fields of light; Such a brilliancy of bloom As all may share if all will come. Now golden Spring advances lightly, Spreading itself on all sides brightly, Out of its rich and full supply Open-handed, lavishly. Since all colours you discern, No one colour may you learn: All tints melted into one In a sweet confusion, You cannot tell 'tis that or this, So shifting is the loveliness: Gleams as of the peacock's crest, Or such as on dove's neck rest;