Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee!
Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morn
Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention: Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embrace
Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold instincts,
Filled, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels;
Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swelled upward;
Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains,
Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches.
WRITTEN DURING A TEMPORARY BLINDNESS, IN THE YEAR 1799.
O, WHAT a life is the eye! what a strange and inscrutable essence!
Him, that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him ;
Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother ;
Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slum-
Even for him it exists! It moves and stirs in its prison ! Lives with a separate life: and-"Is it a spirit ?" he murmurs : "Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language!"
UTTER the song, O my soul! the flight and return of Mohammed, Prophet and priest, who scatter'd abroad both evil and blessing, Huge wasteful empires founded and hallow'd slow persecution, Soul withering, but crush'd the blasphemous rites of the Pagan And idolatrous Christians. For veiling the Gospel of Jesus, They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than the vilest.
Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca,
Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness.
Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol ;—
Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid-the people with
mad shouts
Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation
Flew, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous river
Shatters its waters abreast, and in mazy uproar bewilder'd,
Rushes dividuous all-all rushing impetuous onward.
CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES.
HEAR, my beloved, an old Milesian story!—
High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels,
Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland;
In the dim distance amid the skyey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had plac'd it.
From the far shores of the bleak resounding island
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple.
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,
Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it
Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor
Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.
DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE,
THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE.
UNCHANGED within to see all changed without
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret?
Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight,
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou may'st-shine on! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite :
And though thou notest from thy safe recess
Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.
A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed,
And such a feeding calm its presence shed,
A tender love so pure from earthly leaven
That I unnethe the fancy might control,
'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven,
Wooing its gentle way into my soul !
But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and yet-
Alas! that change how fain would I forget!
That shrinking back, like one that had mistook!
That weary, wandering, disavowing look!
'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame,
And still, methought, I knew, it was the same!
This riddling tale, to what does it belong?
Is't history? vision? or an idle song?
Or rather say at once, within what space
Of time this wild disastrous change took place?
Call it a moment's work (and such it seems)
This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams;
But say, that years matur'd the silent strife,
And 'tis a record from the dream of life.
ALL look and likeness caught from earth,
All accident of kin and birth,
Had pass'd away. There was no trace
Of aught on that illumined face,
Uprais'd beneath the rifted stone
But of one spirit all her own ;—
She, she herself, and only she,
Shone thro' her body visibly.
LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827.
ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair-
The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing-
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.
VERSE, a breeze mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee-
Both were mine! Life went a maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young ?-Ah, woful when !
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flashed along :—
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Naught cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I liv'd in't together.
Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like ;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O! the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit-
It cannot be, that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd :—
And thou wert aye a masker bold !
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe, that Thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size :
But springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.
Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
'Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old:
That only serves to make us grieve.
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
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