No voice as yet had made the air
Be music with your name; yet why
That asking look? that yearning sigh?
That sense of promise every where?
Beloved! flew your spirit by?
As when a mother doth explore
The rose-mark on her long-lost child,
I met, I loved you, maiden mild!
As whom I long had loved before--
So deeply, had I been beguiled.
You stood before me like a thought,
A dream remembered in a dream.
But when those meek eyes first did seem
To tell me, Love within you wrought—
O Greta, dear domestic stream!
Has not, since then, Love's prompture deep,
Has not Love's whisper evermore,
Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar?
Sole voice, when other voices sleep,
Dear under-song in Clamor's hour.
THE COMPOSITION OF A KISS.
CUPID, if storying legends tell aright,
Once framed a rich elixir of delight.
A chalice o'er love-kindled flames he fix'd,
And in it nectar and ambrosia mix'd:
With these the magic dews which evening brings,
Brush'd from the Idalian star by faery wings:
Each tender pledge of sacred faith he join'd,
Each gentler pleasure of the unspotted mind-
Day-dreams, whose tints with sportive brightness glow,
And Hope, the blameless parasite of Woe.
The eyeless Chemist heard the process rise,
The steamy chalice bubbled up in sighs;
Sweet sounds transpired as when th' enamor'd dove
Pours the soft murmuring of responsive love.
The finish'd work might Envy vainly blame,
And " Kisses was the precious compound's name.
With half, the god his Cyprian mother blest,
And spread on Sara's lovelier lips the rest!
III.-MEDITATIVE POEMS,
IN BLANK VERSE.
Yea, he deserves to find himself deceived,
Who seeks a Heart in the unthinking Man.
Like shadows on a stream, the forms of life
Impress their characters on the smooth forehead:
Nought sinks into the Bosom's silent depth.
Quick sensibility of Pain and Pleasure
Moves the light fluids lightly; but no soul
Warmeth the inner frame.
HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY.
Besides the Rivers, Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides; and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."
HAST thou a charm to stay the Morning-Star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran BLANC!
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent Sea of Pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy chrystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipped the Invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought,
Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret Joy:
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty Vision passing-there
As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my Heart, awake!
Green Vales and icy Cliffs, all join my Hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the Vale!
O struggling with the Darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink :
Companion of the Morning-Star at Dawn,
Thyself Earth's ROSY STAR, and of the Dawn
Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?
Who filled thy Countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee Parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged Rocks
For ever shattered and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came,)
Here let the Billows stiffen, and have Rest?
Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the Mountain's brow
Adown enormous Ravines slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless Torrents! silent Cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full Moon? Who bade the Sun
Clothe you with Rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?—
GOD! let the Torrents, like a Shout of Nations
Answer! and let the Ice-plains echo, GOD!
GOD! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye Pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of Snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, GOD!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal Frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the Eagle's nest!
Ye Eagles, play-mates of the Mountain Storm!
Ye Lightnings, the dread arrows of the Clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the element!
Utter forth GOD, and fill the Hills with Praise !
Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing Peaks, Oft from whose feet the Avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure Serene Into the depth of Clouds, that veil thy breastThou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy Base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of Incense, from the Earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent Sky,
And tell the Stars, and tell yon rising Sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises GOD.
WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN THE HARTZ FOREST.
I STOOD On Brocken's* sovran height, and saw
Woods crowding upon woods, hills, over hills,
A surging scene, and only limited
By the blue distance. Heavily my way
Downward I dragged through fir groves evermore,
Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral forms
Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard,
The sweet bird's song became an hollow sound;
And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly,
Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct
From many a note of many a waterfall,
And the brook's chatter; 'mid whose islet stones
The dingy kidling with its tinkling bell
Leaped frolicsome, or old romantic goat
Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on
In low and languid mood:† for I had found
That outward Forms, the loftiest, still receive
Their finer influence from the Life within:
Fair Cyphers of vague import, where the Eye
Traces no spot, in which the Heart may read
History or Prophecy of Friend, or Child,
Or gentle Maid, our first and early love,
Or Father, or the venerable name
Of our adored Country! O thou Queen,
Thou delegated Deity of Earth,
O dear, dear England! how my longing eye
*The highest mountain in the Hartz, and indeed in North Germany.
From some high eminence on goodly vales,
And cots and villages embowered below,
The thought would rise that all to me was strange
Amid the scenes so fair, nor one small spot
Where my tired mind might rest, and call it home.
SOUTHEY'S Hymn to the Penates.
Turned westward, shaping in the steady clouds
Thy sands and high white cliffs!
My native Land!
Filled with the thought of thee this heart was proud.
Yea, mine eye swam with tears: that all the view
From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills,
Floated away, like a departing dream,
Feeble and dim! Stranger, these impulses
Blame thou not lightly; nor will I profane,
With hasty judgment or injurious doubt,
That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel
That God is everywhere! the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty Family,
Himself our Father, and the World our Home.
COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE,
My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown
With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed! The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caressed,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
O the one life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where-
|