What is heaven? a globe of dew, Filling in the morning new Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken On an unimagined world: Constellated suns unshaken, Orbits measureless are furled In that frail and fading sphere, With ten millions gathered there, To tremble, gleam, and disappear. LIFE OF LIFE LIFE of Life! thy lips enkindle With their love the breath between them; And thy smiles before they dwindle Make the cold air fire; then screen them In those looks, where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes. Child of Light! thy limbs are burning Thro’ the vest which seeks to hide them; As the radiant lines of morning Thro’ the clouds ere they divide them; And this atmosphere divinest Shrouds thee wheresoe’er thou shinest. Fair are others; none beholds thee, But thy voice sounds low and tender Like the fairest, for it folds thee From the sight, that liquid splendour, And all feel, yet see thee never, As I feel now, lost for ever! Lamp of Earth! where’er thou movest Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, And the souls of whom thou lovest Walk upon the winds with lightness, Till they fail, as I am failing, Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing! AUTUMN _A Dirge_ THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the year On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead cold year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling For the year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone To his dwelling; Come, months, come away; Put on white, black, and grey; Let your light sisters play— Ye, follow the bier Of the dead cold year, And make her grave green with tear on tear. STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES THE sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon’s transparent might: The breath of the moist earth is light Around its unexpanded buds; Like many a voice of one delight— The winds’, the birds’, the ocean-floods’— The city’s voice itself is soft like Solitude’s.