Most bright and bare;
     In the tide of the sky
     His radiant hair
     From his temples fair
     Blown back on high;
     As forward he bends,
     And upward ascends,
     Timely and true,
     To the breast of the blue;
     His warm red lips
     Kissing the dew,
     Which sweetened drips
     On his flower cupholders;
     Every hue
     From his gleaming shoulders
     Shining anew
     With colour sky-born,
     As it washes and dips
     In the pride of the morn. 
     Robes of azure,
     Fringed with amber,
     Fold upon fold
     Of purple and gold,
     Vine-leaf bloom,
     And the grape’s ripe gloom,
     When season deep
     In noontide leisure,
     With clustering heap
     The tendrils clamber
     Full in the face
     Of his hot embrace,
     Fill’d with the gleams
     Of his firmest beams. 
     Autumn flushes,
     Roseate blushes,
     Vermeil tinges,
     Violet fringes,
     Every hue
     Of his flower cupholders,
     O’er the clear ether
     Mingled together,
     Shining anew
     From his gleaming shoulders! 
     Circling about
     In a coronal rout,
     And floating behind,
     The way of the wind,
     As forward he bends,
     And upward ascends,
     Timely and true,
     To the breast of the blue. 
     His bright neck curved,
     His clear limbs nerved,
     Diamond keen
     On his front serene,
     While each white arm strains
     To the racing reins,
     As plunging, eyes flashing,
     Dripping, and dashing,
     His steeds triple grown
     Rear up to his throne,
     Ruffling the rest
     Of the sea’s blue breast,
     From his flooding, flaming crimson crest!

     Pictures of the Rhine

     I

     The spirit of Romance dies not to those
     Who hold a kindred spirit in their souls: 
     Even as the odorous life within the rose
     Lives in the scattered leaflets and controls
     Mysterious adoration, so there glows
     Above dead things a thing that cannot die;
     Faint as the glimmer of a tearful eye,
     Ere the orb fills and all the sorrow flows. 
     Beauty renews itself in many ways;
     The flower is fading while the new bud blows;
     And this dear land as true a symbol shows,
     While o’er it like a mellow sunset strays
     The legendary splendour of old days,
     In visible, inviolate repose.

     II

     About a mile behind the viny banks,
     How sweet it was, upon a sloping green,
     Sunspread, and shaded with a branching screen,
     To lie in peace half-murmuring words of thanks! 
     To see the mountains on each other climb,
     With spaces for rich meadows flowery bright;