Vii

What warm protection dost thou bend Round curtained talk of friend with friend, While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, To softest outline rounds the roof, Or the rude North with baffled strain Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane! Now the kind nymph to Bacchus born By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems Gifted opon her natal morn By him with fire, by her with dreams, Nicotia, dearer to the Muse Than all the grape's bewildering juice, We worship, unforbid of thee; And, as her incense floats and curls In airy spires and wayward whirls, Or poises on its tremulous stalk A flower of frailest revery, So winds and loiters, idly free, The current of unguided talk, Now laughter-rippled, and now caught In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought. Meanwhile thou mellowest every word, A sweetly unobtrusive third; For thou hast magic beyond wine, To unlock natures each to each; The unspoken thought thou canst divine; Thou fill'st the pauses of the speech With whispers that to dream-land reach And frozen fancy-springs unchain In Arctic outskirts of the brain: Sun of all inmost confidences, To thy rays doth the heart unclose Its formal calyx of pretences, That close against rude day's offences, And open its shy midnight rose!