Weigh'd down with honey-dew, serenely bless'd,
Like theirs who first in Eden's grove took rest
Under some balmy tree.
Love, Love! thou passionate in joy and woe!
And canst thou hope for cloudless peace below-
Here, where bright things must die?
O thou! that wildly worshipping, dost shed
On the frail altar of a mortal head
Thou must be still a trembler, fearful Love!
Danger seems gathering from beneath, above,
Still round thy precious things;
Thy stately pine-tree, or thy gracious rose,
In their sweet shade can yield thee no repose,
Here, where the blight hath wings.
And as a flower, with some fine sense imbued,
To shrink before the wind's vicissitude,
So in thy prescient breast
Are lyre-strings quivering with prophetic thrill
To the low footstep of each coming ill;
-Oh! canst thou dream of rest?
Bear up thy dream! thou mighty and thou weak!
Heart, strong as death, yet as a reed to break-
As a flame, tempest-sway'd!
He that sits calm on high is yet the source
Whence thy soul's current hath its troubled course,
He that great deep hath made!
Will he not pity?-He whose searching eye
Reads all the secrets of thine agony?—
Oh! pray to be forgiven
Thy fond idolatry, thy blind excess,
And seek with Him that bower of blessedness-
Love! thy sole home is heaven!
"La vue d'une fleur caresse mon imagination, et flatte mes sens à un point inexprinable. Sous le tranquille abri du toit paternal j'etais nourrie des l'enfance avec des fleurs et des livres ;-dans l'étroite enciente d'une prison, au milieu des fers imposies par la tyrannie, j'oublie l'injustice des hommes, leurs sottises et mes maux avec des livres et des fluers."--Madame Roland.
COME, let me make a sunny realm around thee,
Of thought and beauty! Here are books and flowers,
With speils to loose the fetter which hath bound thee-
The ravell'd coil of this world's feverish hours.
The soul of song is in these deathless pages,
Even as the odor in the flower enshrined;
Here the crown'd spirits of departed ages
Have left the silent melodies of mind.
Their thoughts, that strove with time, and change, and anguish
For some high place where faith her wing might rest,
Are burning here-a flame that may not languish-
Still pointing upward to that bright hill's crest!
Their grief, the veil'd infinity exploring
For treasures lost, is here;-their boundless love
Its mighty streams of gentleness outpouring
On all things round, and clasping all above.
And the bright beings, their own heart's creations,
Bright, yet all human, here are breathing still;
Conflicts, and agonies, and exultations
Are here, and victories of prevailing will!
Listen, oh, listen! let their high words cheer thee!
Their swan-like music ringing through all woes;
Let my voice bring their holy influence near thee-
The Elysian air of their divine repose!
Or would'st thou turn to earth? Not earth all furrow'd
By the old traces of man's toil and care,
But the green peaceful world that never sorrow'd,
The world of leaves, and dews, and summer air!
Look on these flowers! As o'er an altar shedding,
O'er Milton's page, soft light from color'd urns!
They are the links, man's heart to nature wedding,
When to her breast the prodigal returns.
They are from lone wild places, forest dingles,
Fresh banks of many a low-voiced hidden stream,
Where the sweet star of eve looks down and mingles
Faint lustre with the water-lily's gleam.
They are from where the soft winds play in gladness,
Covering the turf with flowery blossom-showers;
-Too richly dower'd, O friend! are we for sadness-
Look on an empire-mind and nature-ours!
FOR A PICTURE OF ST. CECILIA ATTENDED BY ANGELS
"How rich that forehead's calm expanse:
How bright that heaven-directed glance?
-Waft her to glory, winged powers,
Ere sorrow be renew'd,
And intercourse with mortal hours
Bring back a humbler mood!"-Wordsworth
How can that eye, with inspiration beaming,
Wear yet so deep a calm?-Oh, child of song'
Is not the music-land a world of dreaming,
Where forms of sad, bewildering beauty throng?
THE BRIGAND LEADER AND HIS WIFE
Hath it not sounds from voices long departed?
Echoes of tones that rung in childhood's ear?
Low haunting whispers, which the weary-hearted,
Stealing 'midst crowds away, have wept to hear?
No, not to thee!--thy spirit, meek, yet queenly,
On its own starry height, beyond all this,
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:
And not the exile's-when, 'midst lonely billows,
He wakes the alpine notes his mother sung,
Or blends them with the sigh of alien willows,
Where, murmuring to the wind, his harp is hung:
And not the pilgrim's-though his thoughts be holy,
And sweet his ave song, when day grows dim;
Yet, as he journeys, pensively and slowly,
Something of sadness floats through that low hymn. But thou!-the spirit which at eve is filling
All the hush'd air and reverential sky,
Founts, leaves, and flowers, with solemn rapture thrilling,
This is the soul of thy rich harmony.
This bears up high those breathings of devotion
Wherein the currents of thy heart gush free;
Therefore no world of sad and vain emotion
Is the dream-haunted music-land for thee.
THE BRIGAND LEADER AND HIS WIFE.
SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF EASTLAKE'S.
DARK chieftain of the heath and height!
Wild feaster on the hills by night!
See'st thou the stormy sunset's glow
Flung back by glancing spears below?
Now for one strife of stern despair!
The foe hath track'd thee to thy lair.
Thou, against whom the voice of blood
Hath risen from rock and lonely wood
And in whose dreams a moan should be,
Not of the water, nor the tree;
Haply thine own last hour is nigh,-
Yet shait thou not forsaken die.
There's one that pale oeside thee stands,
More true than all thy mountain bands!
She will not shrink in doubt and dread,
When the balls whistle round thy head:
Nor leave thee, though thy closing eve
No longer may to her's reply.
Oh! many a soft and quiet grace
Hath faded from her form and face;
And many a thought, the fitting guest
Of woman's meek religious breast,
Hath perish'd in her wanderings wide,
Through the deep forests by thy side.
Yet, mournfully surviving all,
A flower upon a ruin's wall,
A friendless thing, whose lot is cast
Of lovely ones to be the last;
Sad, but unchanged through good and ill,
Thine is her lone devotion still.
And oh! not wholly lost the heart
Where that undying love hath part;
Not worthless all, though far and long
From home estranged, and guided wrong;
Yet may its depths by Heaven be stirr'd,
Its prayer for thee be pour'd and heard !
THE CHILD'S RETURN FROM THE WOODLANDS. SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE'S..
"All good and guiltless as thou art,
Some transient griefs will touch thy heart
Griefs that along thy alter'd face
Will breathe a more subduing grace,
Than even those looks of joy that lie
On the soft cheek of infancy."-- Wilson
HAST thou been in the woods with the honey-bee?
Hast thou been with the lamb in the pastures free?
With the hare through the copses and dingles wild?
With the butterfly over the heath, fair child?
Yes: the light fall of thy bounding feet
Hath not startled the wren from her mossy seat:
Yet hast thou ranged the green forest-dells
And brought back a treasure of buds and bells.
Thou know'st not the sweetness, by antique song
Breathed o'er the names of that flowery throng;
The woodbine, the primrose, the violet dim;
The lily that gleams by the fountain's brim:
These are old words that have made each
grove
A dreaming haunt for romance and love-
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