To blessed realms, where stream and rock rejoice
When the glad human soul lifts a thanksgiving voice!
FOR thou a holy shepherdess and kind,
Through the pine forests, by the upland rills,
Didst roam to seek the children of the hills,
A wild neglected flock! to seek, and find,
And meekly win! there feeding each young mind
With balms of heavenly eloquence: not thine,
Daughter of Christ! but his, whose love divine
Its own clear spirit in thy breast had shrined,
A burning light! Oh! beautiful, in truth,
Upon the mountains are the feet of those
Who bear his tidings! From thy morn of youth,
For this were all thy journeyings, and the close
Of that long path, Heaven's own bright sabbath-rest,
Must wait thee, wanderer! on thy Saviour's breast.
"The Water-Lilies, that are serene in the calm clear water, buf no less serene among the black and scowling waves."
Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life
OH! beautiful thou art,
Thou sculpture-like and stately river-queen!
Crowning the depths, as with the light serene
Of a pure heart.
Bright lily of the wave!
Rising in fearless grace with every swell,
Thou seem'st as if a spirit meekly brave
Dwelt in thy cell:
Lifting alike thy head
Of placid beauty, feminine yet free,
Whether with foam or pictured azure spread
The waters be.
What is like thee, fair flower,
The gentle and the firm? thus bearing up
To the blue sky that alabaster cup,
As to the shower?
Oh! love is most like thee,
The love of woman! quivering to the blast
Through every nerve, yet rooted deep and fast
'Midst life's dark sea.
And faith-O, is not faith
Like thee, too, lily, springing into light,
Still buoyantly, above the billows' might,
Through the storm's breath?
RECORDS OF THE SPRING OF 1834.
Yes, link'd with such high thought
Flower, let thine image in my bosom lie!
Till something there of its own purity
And peace be wrought:
Something yet more divine
Than the clear, pearly, virgin lustre shed
Forth from thy breast upon the river's bed
As from a shrine.
RECORDS OF THE SPRING OF 1834.
These Sonnets, written in the months of April, May, and June, were intended, together with the Records of the Autumn of 1834, to form a continuation of the series entiled "Sonnets, Devotional and Memorial."]
O FESTAL Spring! 'midst thy victorious glow,
Far-spreading o'er the kindled woods and plains,
And streams, that bound to meet thee from their chains,
Well might there lurk the shadow of a woe
For human hearts, and in the exulting flow
Of thy rich song a melancholy tone,
Were we of mould all earthly; we alone,
Sever'd from thy great spell, and doom'd to go
Farther, still farther, from our sunny time,
Never to feel the breathings of our prime,
Never to flower again!-But we, O Spring!
Cheer'd by deep spirit-whispers not of earth,
Press to the regions of thy heavenly birth,
As here thy flowers and birds press on to bloom and sing.
FAR from the rustlings of the poplar bough,
Which o'er my opening life wild music made,
Far from the green hills with their heathery glow
And flashing streams whereby my childhood plav'd ;
In the dim city, 'midst the sounding flow
Of restless life, to thee in love I turn
O thou rich sky! and from thy splendors learn
How song-birds come and part, flowers wane and blow.
With thee all shapes of glory find their home,
And thou hast taught me well, majestic dome!
By stars, by sunsets, by soft clouds which rove
Thy blue expanse, or sleep in silvery rest,
That Nature's God hath left no spot unbless'd
With founts of beauty for the eye of love.
III.-ON RECORDS OF IMMATURE GENIUS.*
OH! judge in thoughtful tenderness of those,
Who, richly dower'd for life, are called to die,
Ere the soul's flame, through storms, hath won repose
In truth's divinest ether, still and high!
Let their mind's riches claim a trustful sigh!
Deem them but sad sweet fragments of a strain,
First notes of some yet struggling harmony,
By the strong rush, the crowding joy and pain
Of many inspirations met, and held
From its true sphere:-Oh! soon it might have swell'd
Majestically forth!-Nor doubt, that He,
Whose touch mysterious may on earth dissolve
Those links of music, elsewhere will evolve
Their grand consummate hymn, from passion-gusts made free!
IV-ON WATCHING THE FLIGHT OF A SKY-LARK.
UPWARD and upward still!-in pearly light
The clouds are steep'd; the vernal spirit sighs
With bliss in every wind, and crystal skies
Woo thee, O bird! to thy celestial height;
Bird piercing Heaven with music! thy free flight
Hath meaning for all bosoms; most of all
For those wherein the rapture and the might
Of poesy lie deep, and strive, and burn,
For their high place: O heirs of genius! learn
From the sky's bird your way!-No joy may fill
Your hearts, no gift of holy strength be won
To bless your songs, ye children of the sun!
Save by the unswerving flight-upward and upward still▾
V.-A THOUGHT OF THE SEA.
My earliest memories to thy shores are bound,
'Thy solemn shores, thou ever-chanting main!
The first rich sunsets, kindling thought profound
In my lone being, made thy restless plain
As the vast shining floor of some dread fane,
All paved with glass and fire. Yet, O blue deep!
'Thou that no trace of human hearts dost keep,
Never to thee did love with silvery chain
Draw my soul's dream, which through all nature sought
What waves deny; some power of steadfast bliss,
A home to twine with fancy, feeling, thought,
As with sweet flowers:-But chasten'd hope for this
Now turns from earth's green valleys, as from thee, [sea."
To that sole changeless world, where "there is no more
* Written after reading the Memorials of the late Mrs. Tighe
RECORDS OF THE SPRING OF 1834.
VI.-DISTANT SOUND OF THE SEA AT EVENING.
YET, rolling far up some green mountain dale,
Oft let me hear, as ofttimes I have heard,
Thy swell, thou deep! when evening calls the bird
And bee to rest; when summer tints grow pale,
Seen through the gathering of a dewy veil,"
And peasant steps are hastening to repose,
And gleaming flocks lie down, and flower-cups close
To the last whisper of the falling gale,
Then, 'midst the dying of all other sound,
When the soul hears thy distant voice profound,
Lone-worshipping, and knows that through the night
"Twill worship still, then most its anthem tone
Speaks to our being of the Eternal One,
Who girds tired nature with unslumbering might.
VI. THE RIVER CLWYD IN NORTH WALES.
O CAMBRIAN river, with slow music gliding
By pastoral hills, old woods and ruin'd towers;
Now 'midst thy reeds and golden willows hiding,
Now gleaming forth by some rich bank of flowers;
Long flow'd the current of my life's clear hours
Onward with thine, whose voice yet haunts my dream,
Though time and change, and other mightier powers,
Far from thy side have borne me. Thou, smooth stream
Art winding still thy sunny meads along,
Murm'ring to cottage and grey hall thy song,
Low, sweet, unchanged. My being's tide hath pass'd
Through rocks and storms; yet will I not complain,
If thus wrought free and pure from earthly stain,
Brightly its waves may reach their parent-deep at last.
VIII.-ORCHARD BLOSSOMS.
DOTH thy heart stir within thee at the sight
Of orchard blooms upon the mossy bough?
Doth their sweet household smile waft back the glow
Of childhood's morn?-the wondering fresh delight
In earth's new coloring, then all strangely bright,
A joy of fairyland ?-Doth some old nook,
Haunted by visions of thy first-loved book,
Rise on thy soul, with faint-streak'd blossoms white,
Shower'd o'er the turf, and the lone primrose knot,
And robin's nest, still faithful to the spot,
And the bee's dreamy chime ?-O gentle friend!
The world's cold breath, not Time's, this life bereaves
Of vernal gifts-Time hallows what he leaves,
And will for us endear spring memories to the end.
VOL. II.-44
IX.-TO A DISTANT SCENE.
STILL are the cowslips from thy bosom springing
O far-off grassy dell?-and dost thou see,
When southern winds first wake the vernal singing,
The star-gleam of the wood anemone ?
Doth the shy ring-dove haunt thee yet-the bee
Hang on thy flowers as when I breathed farewell
To their wild blooms? and round my beechen tree
Still, in green softness, doth the moss-bank swell?
-Oh! strange illusion by the fond heart wrought,
Whose own warm life suffuses nature's face!
-My being's tide of many-colored thought
Hath pass'd from thee, and now, rich, leafy place!
I paint thee oft, scarce consciously, a scene,
Silent, forsaken, dim, shadow'd by what hath been.
X.-A REMEMBRANCE OF GRASMERE.
O VALE and lake, with your mountain-urn
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return,
Coloring the tender shadows of my sleep
With light Elysian; for the hues that steep
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit-lands remote,
Isles of the blest; and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies: fair scene,
Most loved by evening and her dewy star!
Oh! ne'er may man, with touch unhallow'd, jar
The perfect music of thy charm serene!
Still, still unchanged, may one sweet region wear
Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer
XI.-THOUGHTS CONNECTED WITH TREES.
TREES, gracious trees! how rich a gift ye are,
Crown of the earth! to human hearts and eyes!
How doth the thought of home, in lands afar,
Link'd with your forms and kindly whisperings rise!
How the whole picture of a childhood lies
Oft 'midst your boughs forgotten, buried deep!
Till gazing through them up the summer skies
As hush'd we stand, a breeze perchance may creep
And old sweet leaf-sounds reach the inner world
Where memory coils-and lo! at once unfurl'd
The past, a glowing scroll, before our sight,
Spreads clear! while gushing from their long-seal'd urn
Young thoughts, pure dreams, undoubting prayers return,
And a lost mother's eye gives back its holy light.
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