What art thou? What new device,
Globe, chance-fashion'd in a trice,
Into brief existence bounding,
Perfectly thy circle rounding?
As when Cypris, her breast smiting--
Virgin still, all love inviting--
Cypris in young loveliness
Couch'd rosy where the white waves press
Her to bear and her to bless;
_So_ forth from thy native shell
Gleamest thou ineffable!
Springing up with graceful bound
And describing dainty round;
Thousand colours come and go
As thou dost thy fair curves show,
Swelling out--a whirling ball
Meet for Fairy-Festival;
Through whose sides of shifting hue,
Through whose smooth-turn'd globe, we view
Iris' gliding rainbow sitting,
In a hundred forms soft-flitting:
And semblance of a troop displaying,
All around dominion swaying:
And the Goddess volatile
With witching step and luring smile
Follows still with twinkling foot
In link'd mazes involute:
With many a sight-deceiving turn
And flight which makes pursuers burn,
And a graceful hesitation--
Only treacherous simulation:
JUST SO, and no less deceiving,
Our BUBBLE, all its colours weaving,
Follows ever-varying courses,
Or in air itself disperses:
Here now, there now, coming, going,
Wand'ring as if ebbing, flowing:
Sporting Passion's colours all
In ways that are bacchanal;
And the GLOBES undisciplin'd
As though driven by the wind,
Borne along the fleeting plains
Light as air; nor order reigns--
But the heaven-possess'd array
Moving each in its own way,
Hither now and thither flying,
Glancing, wavering, and dying,
Losing still their path and finding,
In a random inter-winding:
Rising, falling, on careering,
Vis'ble now, now disappearing;
Living wand'ring streams outgoing,
Ev'n Confusion beauteous showing:
Flowing not each in its course,
But each to other joining force;
Moving in pleasant pastime still
In a mutual good-will:
And a nearness that's so near
You the contact almost fear,
Yet so finely drawn to eye
In its delicate subtlety
That the procession, blossom-fair,
Nowhere has direction clear:
Nor with their own aspect glance,
But in the sweet luxuriance
Which skiey influences lend,
As in new windings on they trend:
Throwing off the stol'n sunlight
In a flood of blossoms bright,
Scatter'd on the fields of light;
Such a brilliancy of bloom
As all may share if all will come.
Now golden Spring advances lightly,
Spreading itself on all sides brightly,
Out of its rich and full supply
Open-handed, lavishly.
Since all colours you discern,
No one colour may you learn:
All tints melted into one
In a sweet confusion,
You cannot tell 'tis that or this,
So shifting is the loveliness:
Gleams as of the peacock's crest,
Or such as on dove's neck rest;
Opal, edg'd with amethyst,
Or the sunset's purpl'd mist,
Or the splendour that there lies
In a maiden's azure eyes,
Kindling in a sweet surprise:
Flower-tints, shell-tints, tender-dy'd,
Save to curious unespied:
Lo, one BUBBLE follows t'other,
Differing still from its frail brother,
Striking still from change to change
With a quick and vivid range.
There in the contiguous wave
Torches palely-glist'ning lave;
Here what delicate love-lights shine!
Through them near flames bick'ring shine.
Matching flushing of the rose,
As the ruddy channel flows:
Milky rivers in white tide
Lucent, hush, still onwards glide:
Purple rivers in high flood--
Red as is man's awful blood:
Corn-fields smiling goldenly
Meet the blue laugh of the sea:
Mist-clouds sailing on their way
Darken the changeful cheeks of Day:
And beneath vine-clusters red
Lilies are transfigured:
Here you mark as 'twere the snows
Folding o'er the neighb'ring rose;
Snow into blown roses flushing,
Roses wearied of their blushing,
As the shifting tints embrace,
And their course you scarce can trace;
Now retiring, now advancing,
Now in wanton mazes dancing;
Now a flow'ry red appears,
Now a purpl'd green careers.
All the signs in heaven that burn
Where the gliding wheel doth turn,
Here in radiant courses go,
As though 'twere a heaven below:
The sky's mazes involute
Circling onward with deft foot,
Sphere on heavenly sphere attending,
Coming, going, inter-blending:
And the gold-fleec'd flocks of air
Wand'ring inviolate and fair;
Flocks that drink in chaste delight
Dewy pastures of the Night,
Leaving no trace of foot or bite.
Whate'er of change above you note,
As these clouds o'er heaven float,
Lo, repeated here we see
In a sportive mimicry.
Here the tiny tender world
Within its own brightness furl'd
Wavers, as in fairy robe
'Twere a belted lined globe.
Lights as of the breaking Day
Tremble with iridescent play,
But now swiftly upward going,
Evanescent colours showing,
In some nook their beams concealing,
Nor their wantonness revealing.
O, what store of wonders here
In this short-liv'd slender SPHERE!
For all wonders I have told
Are within its GLOBE enroll'd:
Not such globe as skilled he
Fashion'd of old in Sicily:
Brighter e'en than crystals are,
And than crystal frailer far.
'I am Spirit of the Wind,
For a flitting breath design'd;
I am Blossom born of air;
I'm of Ocean, guiding Star;
I'm a golden sport of Nature,
Frolic stamp'd on ev'ry feature:
I'm a myth, an idle theme,
The brief substance of a dream:
Grace and grief of trifles, I
Charm--a well-skill'd vanity;
Begotten of the treacherous breeze,
Parent of absurdities:
Yet, a drop or mote, at best,
Favour'd more than are the rest.
I'm price of Hope that no more is,
One of the Hesperides:
Beauty's casket, doating eye
Of lovers blinded wilfully:
The light Spirit of Vanity.
I am Fortune's looking-glass,
The countersign which she doth pass
To her troop of warriors:
I'm the oath by which she swears,
And wherewith she doth induce
Men to trust a fragile truce.
Charming, provoking, still astray,
Fair and elegant and gay,
Trim and fresh and blossom-hu'd;
Interchangeably imbu'd
With rosy-red and the snow's whiteness,
Air and water and fire's brightness:
Painted, gemm'd, of golden dye,
NOTHING--after all--am I!'
If now, O gentle Reader, it appear
Irksome my BUBBLE'S chatterings to hear;
If on it frowning, 'Words, words, words!' thou say,
No more I'll chatter, but at once obey.
So, turn thine eye, my Friend, no more give heed;
My BUBBLE lives but if thou choose to read.
Cease thou to read, and I resign my breath;
Cease thou to read, and that will be my death. G.