And if with thee some hapless maid should stray,
  Disastrous love companion of her way,
  Oh, lead her timid steps to yonder glade,
  Whose arching cliffs depending alders shade;
  There, as meek evening wakes her temperate breeze,
  And moonbeams glimmer through the trembling trees,
  The rills that gurgle round shall soothe her ear,
  The weeping rocks shall number tear for tear;
  There as sad Philomel, alike forlorn,
  Sings to the night from her accustomed thorn;
  While at sweet intervals each falling note
  Sighs in the gale, and whispers round the grot;
  The sister-woe shall calm her aching breast,
  And softer slumbers steal her cares to rest.

  [THE SENSITIVE PLANT]

  Weak with nice sense, the chaste Mimosa stands,
  From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands;
  Oft as light clouds o’erpass the summer-glade,
  Alarmed she trembles at the moving shade;
  And feels, alive through all her tender form,
  The whispered murmurs of the gathering storm;
  Shuts her sweet eyelids to approaching night,
  And hails with freshened charms the rising light. 
  Veiled, with gay decency and modest pride,
  Slow to the mosque she moves, an eastern bride,
  There her soft vows unceasing love record,
  Queen of the bright seraglio of her lord.

  WILLIAM BLAKE

  TO WINTER

  ’O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors: 
  The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
  Deep-founded habitation.  Shake not thy roofs,
  Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.’

  He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep
  Rides heavy; his storms are unchained, sheathed
  In ribbed steel; I dare not lift mine eyes,
  For he hath reared his sceptre o’er the world.

  Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings
  To his strong bones, strides o’er the groaning rocks: 
  He withers all in silence, and in his hand
  Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

  He takes his seat upon the cliffs,—­the mariner
  Cries in vain.  Poor little wretch, that deal’st
  With storms!—­till heaven smiles, and the monster
  Is driven yelling to his caves beneath Mount Hecla.

  SONG

  Fresh from the dewy hill, the merry year
  Smiles on my head and mounts his flaming car;
  Round my young brows the laurel wreathes a shade,
  And rising glories beam around my head.

  My feet are winged, while o’er the dewy lawn,
  I meet my maiden risen like the morn: 
  O bless those holy feet, like angels’ feet;
  O bless those limbs, beaming with heavenly light.

  Like as an angel glittering in the sky
  In times of innocence and holy joy;
  The joyful shepherd stops his grateful song
  To hear the music of an angel’s tongue.

  So when she speaks, the voice of Heaven I hear;
  So when we walk, nothing impure comes near;
  Each field seems Eden, and each calm retreat;
  Each village seems the haunt of holy feet.