But say, is Melancholy by thy side,
    With tresses in a raven shower, that hide
    Her pale and weeping features?  Is she never
    Flowing before thee, like a gloomy river,
    The sister of thyself? but cold and chill,
    And winter-born, and sorrowfully still,
    And not like thee, that art in merry mood,
    And frolicksome amid thy solitude!

    Fair Lunacy!  I see thee, with a crown
    Of hawthorn and sweet daisies, bending down
    To mirror thy young image in a spring;
    And thou wilt kiss that shadow of a thing
    As soul-less as thyself.  ’Tis tender, too,
    The smile that meeteth thine! the holy hue
    Of health! the pearly radiance of the brow! 
    All, all as tender—­beautiful as thou!

    And wilt thou say, my sister, there is none
    Will answer thee?  Thou art—­thou art alone,
    A pure, pure being! but the God on high
    Is with thee ever, as thou goest by.

    Thou poetess! that harpest to the moon,
    And, in soft concert to the silver tune
    Of waters, play’d on by the magic wind,
    As he comes streaming, with his hair untwined,
    Dost sing light strains of melody and mirth,—­
    I hear thee, hymning on thy holy birth,
    How thou wert moulded of thy mother Love,
    That came, like seraph, from the stars above,
    And was so sadly wedded unto Sin,
    That thou wert born, and Sorrow was thy twin. 
    Sorrow and mirthful Lunacy! that be
    Together link’d for time, I deem of ye
    That ye are worshipp’d as none others are,—­
    One as a lonely shadow, one a star!

    Is Julio glad, that bendeth, even now,
    To his wild purpose, to his holy vow? 
    He seeth only in his ladye-bride
    The image of the laughing girl, that died
    A moon before—­The same, the very same—­
    The Agathe that lisp’d her lover’s name,
    To him and to her heart:  that azure eye,
    That shone through sunny tresses, waving by;
    The brow, the cheek, that blush’d of fire and snow,
    Both blending into one ethereal glow;
    And that same breathing radiancy, that swam
    Around her, like a pure and blessed calm
    Around some halcyon bird.  And, as he kiss’d
    Her wormy lips, he felt that he was blest! 
    He felt her holy being stealing through
    His own, like fountains of the azure dew,
    That summer mingles with his golden light;
    And he would clasp her, till the weary night
    Was worn away.

* * * * *

                    And morning rose in form
    Of heavy clouds, that knitted into storm
    The brow of Heaven, and through her lips the wind
    Came rolling westward, with a track behind
    Of gloomy billows, bursting on the sea,
    All rampant, like great lions terribly,
    And gnashing on each other: