INTUITIONS OF SPRING.

"In Nature's infinite book of secrecy

A little I can read."-Shakespeare.

I.

I'have watched, all eye and ear, and in the ocean Of the deep-blue and lumineferous air,

Or, on the face of the eternal earth,

There is no sound, nor breath, nor visible motion.
Like monumental effigies rise there

The living trees; the dark firs' solemn green,
The leafless twigs, not feeling yet the birth
Of the life rising in their veins unseen,

Drawn from their mother's infinite teeming breast.
The birds are silent, or in sleep, or living,
Like the still trees, in yon inspiring sun,
Who, from his central temple in the sky,
Doth look the fount of immortality

:

He is to life its pulse and motion giving,
Yea, its creation from eternity:

All-all is happiness or grief repressed,
Wearing the forms of gladness or of rest.

II.

My spirit opens, too, unconsciously:

And, for a moment, with its inner eye

Doth read the intense harmonies round me nowTruths from abstraction's inmost vision won; Glimpses which Nature gives and then withdraws : As if to seek her secrets she impelled

The souls that worshipped her; and then withheld,
Lest they should read too deeply of her laws.
In the sharp boughs, against the sky defined,
I hear the Eolian strings that meet the wind
Of Nature's ancient harp of melody!
My own immortal spirit is a string
To the great impulse of life vibrating,
Opening itself in thankfulness and love,
To God within me-round me-and above!
The giant Earth, with all its infinite life,
The living parts of one eternal Whole,
Pervaded by one interfusing Soul,*

With which each flower, each blade of grass, is rife,t
Slumbers before me: her broad, sun-basked brow
Is motionless; and yet she doth not sleep,
Sunk in a dreamless torpor, in which sense,
Life, energy, is merged in one intense
Vision-a musing contemplation deep;‡
Lulled by the music of the winds that keep
In her ears everlasting lullaby!

III.

And, as our souls, absorbed in reverie,
Rest without thought, or sense, or consciousness,

*Spiritus intus alit: totosque infusa per artus

Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.-Virgil.

So also St. Paul-"Do I not fill heaven and earth ?"

+ ἀυτὸν πάντα κοσμειν τὰ πράρωατα διὰ παντων ἰοντά.—Plato.

"If any one," says Plotinus, "will attribute apprehension or sense to Nature, it must not be such as is in animals, but something that differs as much from it as the sense or cogitation of one in profound sleep differs from that of one who is awake."

Holding, but exercising not, the powers,
Consciously proving in its wakeful hours:
Even so is Nature-such doth she possess ;
Such is she now, absorbed in thankfulness.
A silent spectacle herself; a dream
Of contemplation and of peace supreme!*
The idea of the Ineffable revealed:
Seen only by the poet, Nature's priest,
Presiding at her sacramental feast,

From uninitiated eyes concealed.

So doth she move on silently through space,
Light and shade chequering o'er her passive face:
While her vast forehead, turning to yon fire,
Feels the enkindling warmth it doth inspire:
And, it may be, revolving round the flame,
Doth with it indistinct remembrance claim,

A glimmering knowledge that from thence she came !

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ON A BEAUTIFUL CHILD SLEEPING:

ROSE P

I.

O thou love of loves! thou sleepest;

Life's world is shut out from thee,
And what carest thou? thou reapest
Gladness of thine own, and keepest

In thy heart thy jubilee:

Silent I, at last, have found thee;

Sleep hath cast her mantle round thee!

* Plotinus calls this idea of Nature éaμa Oɛúpnμa, a spectacle and contemplation, as likewise the energy of Nature towards it, Oɛwpía ăчopos, a silent contemplation; he allows that Nature may be said to be, in a certain sense, Þiλoleάμwv, a lover of spectacles or contemplation.

II.

And how beautiful art thou,

Nestling in thy golden rest! Thy rich ringlets veil thy, brow; Thy clasped hands are folded now Carelessly on thy white breast:

While those rosy lips, apart,

Tell the quick beatings of thy heart!

III.

What dream now o'er thee holds power?—
Oh! that I could, entering

Thy soul, pure as a young flower,
Hide me there, as in a bower,

'Mid fresh leaves and blossoming:

But that wish will bless me never;
Time has closed youth's gates for ever!

IV.

Dost thou, sweetest, gather roses
Beneath some transparent sky?

Where heaven o'er thy head uncloses,
And a cherub face discloses,

Beckoning thee to mount on high;
While thou sigh'st for wings to bear
Thee to meet that angel there!

V.

Ah, no! gladness now has taken
Thy light bosom for its home:
Dimples round thy lips awaken;
Thou art not in sleep forsaken,

1827.

Over flowrets thou dost roam; While thy mother, laughing there, Braids them in thy dark brown hair.

VI.

Yes-thy fragrant lips are parted;

Thou hast gained thy little will:

Like the butterfly, light-hearted,
Thou in sport from her hast darted:-
Dream on, and be happy still :

Oh! that thy life pure may be

As the joy thou giv'st to me!

ON THE SHORE OF THE ADRIATIC: BETWEEN RIMINI AND RAVENNA.

A wild and stormy twilight: yea, a scene
For memory to recal that such hath been,
When thou, dark Adriatic shore! shalt seem
In the far past the vision of a dream.
Like a black canopy outspread, the sky,
Fell type of a remorseless destiny,

Frowns lowering along the horizon's line,

Where the foam, breaking o'er the leaden brine, Gleams like the sea-mew's wing! the coming waves, Silently opening like yawning graves,

Break heavily, and with a hollow roar

Recoil, wild sweeping down the pebbled shore.*

* Βη δ ̓ ἀκέων παρὰ θῖνα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλασσης. Homer.