And there were spring-faced cherubs that did sleep
Like water-lilies on that motionless deep,
How beautiful! with bright unruffled hair
On sleek unfretted brows, and eyes that were
Buried in marble tombs, a pale eclipse! 
And smile-bedimpled cheeks, and pleasant lips,
Meekly apart, as if the soul intense
Spake out in dreams of its own innocence: 
And so they lay in loveliness, and kept
The birth-night of their peace, that Life e’en wept
With very envy of their happy fronts;
For there were neighbor brows scarr’d by the brunts
Of strife and sorrowing—­where Care had set
His crooked autograph, and marr’d the jet
Of glassy locks, with hollow eyes forlorn,
And lips that curl’d in bitterness and scorn—­
Wretched,—­as they had breathed of this world’s pain,
And so bequeathed it to the world again,
Through the beholder’s heart in heavy sighs.

So lay they garmented in torpid light,
Under the pall of a transparent night,
Like solemn apparitions lull’d sublime
To everlasting rest,—­and with them Time
Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face
Of a dark dial in a sunless place.

TO AN ABSENTEE.

O’er hill, and dale, and distant sea,
Through all the miles that stretch between,
My thought must fly to rest on thee,
And would, though worlds should intervene.

Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks
The farther we are forced apart,
Affection’s firm elastic links
But bind the closer round the heart.

For now we sever each from each,
I learned what I have lost in thee;
Alas, that nothing else could teach
How great indeed my love should be!

Farewell!  I did not know thy worth;
But thou art gone, and now ’tis prized: 
So angels walk’d unknown on earth,
But when they flew were recognized!

LYCUS THE CENTAUR.

FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS.

THE ARGUMENT.

Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress.  Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur.

Who hath ever been lured and bound by a spell
To wander, fore-doomed, in that circle of hell
Where Witchery works with her will like a god,
Works more than the wonders of time at a nod,—­
At a word,—­at a touch,—­at a flash of the eye,
But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie,
Things born of a wish—­to endure for a thought,
Or last for long ages—­to vanish to nought,
Or put on new semblance?  O Jove, I had given
The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven,
And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether