PORPHYROGENITUS. B I. ORN in the purple! born in the purple! Lord over millions and millions of vas Monarch of mighty renown! Where, do you ask, are my banner-proud castles Where my imperial town? II. Where are the ranks of my far-flashing lances, Galloping squadrons and rocking armadas, III. Vainly you ask, if you wear not the purple, Ruling, yourself, over prosperous regions, Subjects have nothing to give but allegiance: IV. But, if a king, you shall stand on my ramparts, Look on the lands that I sway, Number the domes of magnificent cities, Shining in valleys away, Number the mountains whose foreheads are golden, Lakes that are azure with day. V. Whence I inherited such a dominion? Theirs were the realms that a god might have governed, Ah, and how little is mine! VI. Hafiz in Orient shared with Petrarca VII. Keats has his vineyards, and Shelley his islands; Coleridge in Xanadu reigns; Wordsworth is eyried aloft on the mountains, Yet, though the world has been parcelled among them, A world to be parcelled remains. VIII. Blessing enough to be born in the purple, Though in the desert my palace is builded, Up with my standards! salute me with trumpets! METEMPSYCHOSIS OF THE PINE. when the haze of some wan moonlight makes Familiar fields a land of mystery, Where, chill and strange, a ghostly presence wakes In flower, and bush, and tree, – Another life the life of Day o'erwhelms ; The Past from present consciousness takes hue, And we remember vast and cloudy realms Our feet have wandered through: So, oft, some moonlight of the mind makes dumb The stir of outer thought: wide open seems The gate wherethrough strange sympathies have ⚫come, The secret of our dreams; The source of fine impressions, shooting deep We touch the lower life of beast and clod, All outward wisdom yields to that within, And thus I know, by memories unfurled Rooted upon a cape that overhung The entrance to a mountain gorge; whereon The wintry shadow of a peak was flung, Long after rise of sun. Behind, the silent snows; and wide below, The rounded hills made level, lessening down To where a river washed with sluggish flow A many-templed town. There did I clutch the granite with firm feet, There shake my boughs above the roaring gulf, When mountain whirlwinds through the passes beat, And howled the mountain wolf. There did I louder sing than all the floods Whirled in white foam adown the precipice, And the sharp sleet that stung the naked woods Answer with sullen hiss : But when the peaceful clouds rose white and high She, with warm fingers laced in mine, did melt And tingled through my rough old bark, and fast Pushed out the younger green, that smoothed my tones, When last year's needles to the wind I cast, I held the eagle till the mountain mist Poised o'er the blue abyss, the morning lark |