The very tones in which we Spake blad something strange I could lout markets Solenny W. Longfellow POEMS OF FANCY. Whose candid bosom the refining love MARK AKENSIDE. FANTASY. And spread thy purple wings, And various shapes of things ; To all the senses here, BEN JONSON. FANCY. Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home : At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth ; Then let winged Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her: Open wide the mind's cage-door, She 'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. DELIGHTS OF FANCY. FROM " THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION." As Memnon's marble harp renowned of old By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string Consenting, sounded through the warbling air Unbidden strains ; e'en so did Nature's hand To certain species of external things Attune the finer organs of the mind ; So the glad impulse of congenial powers, Or of sweet sound, or fair-proportioned form, The grace of motion, or the bloom of light, Thrills through imagination's tender frame, From nerve to nerve ; all naked and alive They catch the spreading rays; till now the soul At length discloses every tuneful spring, To that harmonious movement from without, Responsive. Then the inexpressive strain Diffuses its enchantment; Fancy dreams Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves, And vales of bliss ; the Intellectual Power Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear, And smiles ; the passions gently soothed away, Sink to divine repose, and love and joy Alone are waking ; love and joy serene As airs that fan the summer. O attend, Whoe'er thou art whom these delights can touch, () sweet Fancy ! let her loose ; Quickly break her prison-string, JOHN KEATS. All the heaped Autumn's wealth, HALLO, MY FANCY. (1650.) Out of myself, Just like a fairy elf ; Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go? Amidst the misty vapors, Fain would I know While we travel here below. thunder, And what these lightnings be that rend the clouds asunder, And what these comets are on which we gaze and wonder. Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go? Fain would I know the reason Why the little ant, To know no winter's want : salt water, Do never blind their eye; methinks it is a matter An inch above the reach of old Erra Pater ! Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go D sweet Fancy ! let her loose ; Fain would I be resolved How things are done ; That works to the man i' the moon ! so lightly ; And where fair ('ynthia makes her ambles nightly. 1 Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go ! In conceit like Phaeton, | If one spirit sits the outnost circle turning, I'll mount Phæbus' chair, Or one turns another, continuing in journeying, Having ne'er a hat on, If rapid circles' motion be that which they call All my hair a-burning burning! In my journeying, Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go? Fain also would I prove this, Whether it be a folly Or a melancholy, Or some heroi thing! Fain I'd have it proved, by one whom love hath That self-devouring creature, wounded, Prove so froward And fully upon one his desire hath founded, And untoward, Whom nothing else could please though the Her vitals for to strain ? world were roun.led. And why the subtle fox, while in death's wounds Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thon go ? is lying, Doth not lament his pangs by howling and by To know this world's centre, crying ; Height, depth, breadth, and length, And why the milk-white swan doth sing when Fain would I ailventure she's a-dying. To search the hid attractions Hallo, my faucy, whither wilt thou go? Of magnetic actions, And adamantine strength. Fain would I conclude this, Fain would I know, if in some lofty mountain, At least make essay, Where the moon sojourns, if there be trees or What similitude is; fountain ; Why fowls of a feather If there be beasts of prey, or yet be fields to Flock and fly together, hunt in. And lambs know beasts of prey : Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go? How Nature's alchymists, these small laborious creatures, Fain would I have it tried Acknowledge still a prince in ordering their By experiment, matters, By none can be denied ! And suffer none to live, who slothing lose their If in this bulk of nature, features. There be voids less or greater, Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go? Or all remains complete. |Fain would I know if beasts have any reason ; I'm rapt with admiration, If falcons killing eagles do commit a treason ; When I do ruminate, If fear of winter's waut make swallows fly the Men of an occupation, season. How each one calls him brother, Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go? Hallo, my fancy, hallo! Stay, stay at home with me, d'red, I can thee no longer follow, Than antipodes to us. Is it not to be wond'red ? For thou hast betrayed me, In myriads ye'll find, of one mind scarce a hun And bewrayed me ; dred? It is too much for thee. Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go? Stay, stay at home with me ; leave off thy lofty soaring; What multitude of notions Stay thou at honie with me, and on thy books Doth perturb my pate, be poring ; ('onsidering the motions, For he that yocs abroad lays little in storing: llow the heavens are preserved, Thou 'rt welcome home, my faney, welcome Aud this world served home to me. In moisture, light, and heat ! WILLIAM CLELAND, THE CLOUD. | And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, From the seas and the streams; . Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, I bear light shade for the leaves when laid Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, In their noonday dreams. Are each paved with the moon and these. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, ' And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ; As she dances about the sun. The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. And whiten the green plains under ; From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, And then again I dissolve it in rain, Over a torrent sea, And laugh as I pass in thunder. Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The inountains its columns be. I sift the snow on the mountains below, The triumphal arch through which I march And their great pines groan aghast ; With hurricane, fire, and snow, And all the night 't is my pillow white, When the powers of the air are chained to my While I sleep in the arms of the blast. chair, Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers Is the million-colored bow; Lightning, my pilot, sits : The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, In a cavern under is fettered the thunder ; While the moist earth was laughing below. It struggles and howls by fits. Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, I am the daughter of the earth and water ; This pilot is guiding me, And the nursling of the sky; Lured by the love of the genii that move I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; In the depths of the purple sea; I change, but I cannot die. Over the rills and the crays and the hills, For after the rain, when, with never a stain, Over the lakes and plains, The pavilion of heaven is bare, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex The spirit he loves remains ; gleams, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile. Build up the blue dome of air, — Whilst he is dissolving in rains. I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from And his burning plumes outspread, the tomb, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, I rise and upbuild it again. When the morning star shines dead. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. As, on the jag of a mountain crag Which an earthquake rocks and swings, FANCY IN NUBIBUS. Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, And the crimson pall of eve may fall Or let the easily persuaded eyes From the depth of heaven above, Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest, Of a friend's fancy ; or, with head bent low, As still as a brooding dove. And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold, "Twixt crimson banks; and then a traveller go That orbed maiden with white fire laden, From mount to mount, through Cloudland, gor Whom mortals call the moon, geous land ! Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor Or, listening to the tide with closed sight, By the midnight breezes strewn ; Be that blind Bard, who on the Chian strand, And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Which only the angels hear, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey, SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. |