Fancy And The Poet.

POET.     Enchanting spirit! at thy votive shrine     I lowly bend one simple wreath to twine;     O come from thy ideal world and fling     Thy airy fingers o'er my rugged string;     Sweep the dark chords of thought and give to earth     The wild sweet song that tells thy heavenly birth--     FANCY.     Happiness, when from earth she fled,         I passed on her heaven-ward flight,--     "Take this wreath," the spirit said,         "And bathe it in floods of light;     To the sons of sorrow this token give,     And bid them follow my steps and live!"     I took the wreath from her radiant hand,         Each flower was a silver star;     I turned this dark earth to a fairy land,         When I hither drove my car;     But I wove the wreath round my tresses bright,     And man only saw its reflected light.     Many a lovely dream I've given,         And many a song divine,     But never--oh never!--that wreath from heaven         Shall mortal temples twine.     Hope and love in the chaplet glow:     'Tis all too bright for a world of woe!     POET.     Hist--Beautiful spirit! why silent so soon?     My soul drinks each word of thy magical tune;     My lyre owns thy touch, and its tremulous strings     Still vibrate beneath the soft play of thy wings!     Resume thy sweet lay, and reveal, ere we part,     Thy home, lovely spirit,--and say what thou art.     FANCY.     The gleam of a star which thou canst not see,         Or an eye 'neath its sleeping lid,     The tune of a far off melody,         The voice of a stream that's hid;     Such must I still remain to thee,     A wonder and a mystery.     I live in the poet's dream,         I flash on the painter's eye,     I dwell in the moon's pale beam,         In the depths of the star-lit sky;     I traverse the earth, the air, the main,     And bind young hearts in my golden chain.     I float on the crimson cloud,         My voice is in every breeze,     I speak in the tempest loud,         In the sigh of the wind-stirred trees;     To the sons of earth, in a magic tone,     I tell of a world more bright than their own!