8.

But when Thou joinest with the Nine,
And all the powers of song combine,

We listen here on earth:

The dying tones that fill the air,

And charm the ear of evening fair,

From thee, great God of Bards, receive their heavenly

birth.

HYMN TO APOLLO.

I

GOD of the golden bow,

And of the golden lyre,
And of the golden hair,
And of the golden fire,
Charioteer

Of the patient year,

Where-where slept thine ire,

When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath,
Thy laurel, thy glory,

The light of thy story,

Or was I a worm-too low crawling, for death?
O Delphic Apollo !

2.

The Thunderer grasp'd and grasp'd,

The Thunderer frown'd and frown'd;

The eagle's feathery mane

For wrath became stiffen'd-the sound

Of breeding thunder

Went drowsily under,

Muttering to be unbound.

This also was first given in the Literary Remains, where it stood next to the preceding, though undated. As Lord Houghton retains it between the Ode to Apollo and the stanzas To Hope (dated February 1815) in the chronological Aldine edition, the date February 1815 may be presumed to be that of the Hymn as well as that of the Ode.

O why didst thou pity, and for a worm

Why touch thy soft lute

Till the thunder was mute,

Why was not I crush'd-such a pitiful germ

O Delphic Apollo !

3.

The Pleiades were up,

Watching the silent air;

The seeds and roots in the Earth
Were swelling for summer fare;
The Ocean, its neighbour,
Was at its old labour,

When, who-who did dare

To tie, like a madman, thy plant round his brow, And grin and look proudly,

And blaspheme so loudly,

And live for that honour, to stoop to thee now?

O Delphic Apollo !

SONNET.

As from the darkening gloom a silver dove
Upsoars, and darts into the eastern light,
On pinions that nought moves but pure delight,
So fled thy soul into the realms above,

Regions of peace and everlasting love;

Where happy spirits, crown'd with circlets bright Of starry beam, and gloriously bedight, Taste the high joy none but the blest can prove. There thou or joinest the immortal quire

In melodies that even heaven fair

Fill with superior bliss, or, at desire,

Of the omnipotent Father, cleav'st the air
On holy message sent-What pleasure's higher?
Wherefore does any grief our joy impair?

Lord Houghton gave this sonnet in the Aldine edition of 1876, with the date 1816. There is nothing to show to whose death the poet refers.

STANZAS TO MISS WYLIE.

I.

O COME Georgiana! the rose is full blown,
The riches of Flora are lavishly strown,
The air is all softness, and crystal the streams,
The West is resplendently clothed in beams.

2.

O come! let us haste to the freshening shades,
The quaintly carv'd seats, and the opening glades;
Where the faeries are chanting their evening hymns,
And in the last sun-beam the sylph lightly swims.

3.

And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed,
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head:
And there Georgiana I'll sit at thy feet,
While my story of love I enraptur'd repeat.

4.

So fondly I'll breathe, and so softly I'll sigh,
Thou wilt think that some amorous Zephyr is nigh:
Yet no-as I breathe I will press thy fair knee,
And then thou wilt know that the sigh comes from me.

These stanzas, which are from the series of transcripts made by George Keats, are addressed to the object of the Sonnet to G. A. W. published in Keats's volume of 1817—to wit the lady who was after