Floating triumphantly and yet serenely,
Breathes no faint under-tone through songs of bliss.
Say by what strain, through cloudless ether swelling,
Thou hast drawn down those wanderers from the skies?
Bright guests! even such as left of yore their dwelling
For the deep cedar-shades of Paradise!
What strain? Oh! not the nightingale’s, when, showering
Her own heart’s life-drops on the burning lay,
She stirs the young woods in the days of flowering,
And pours her strength, but not her grief, away: