THOUGH that with silenced heart by stream or glade
The music of the morn hast haply heard,
When every leaf hath canopied some bird;
Whose step through wood and wilderness hath strayed
When all the living sunshine dies in shade,
When nothing in the haunted heaven hath stirred,
And earth hath echoed forth no wakening word;
Oh, come, ere yet the youthful year shall fade,
Among the mountains and the woods once more,
Pluck healthful pleasures, such as grew of yore
Wild in the ways of life. The fevered air
Of cities stifleth Reason, and their roar
Leaves in the soul the silence of despair;
Then come where Thought resides, for Music too is there.
PLEASURES lie thickest where no pleasures seem,
There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy, of silence, or of sound;
Some sprite begotten of a summer dream.
The very meanest things are made supreme
With innate ecstacy. No grain of sand
But moves a bright and million-peopled land,
And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem.
For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye
Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of things,
And touched mine ear with power. Thus, far or nigh,
Minute or mighty, fixed or free with wings,
Delight from many a nameless covert sly
Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings.
THE fairest thing that human eyes may view
Now breathes beneath my own-a sleeping child,
Smiling beneath its thoughts and visions mild;
Its face upturned in hope's pervading hue,
As the glad morning of the mind dawns through.
These wordless lips as yet have only smiled
On life, nor hath an evil taint defiled
Eyes that are closed like flowers-whose tears are dew
From the heart's inmost heaven.
Of Nature, in thy fresh and delicate dust.
If aught of ill be mingled, 'twere unjust
To deem it thine, for on thy forehead fair
Sit purity and peace: be ours the trust
That age shall find them still unchilled by crime or care!
I CLASS thee, moral Critic, with the few
Whose simple friendship is a kind of fame ;
On whose unpurchased praise we rest a claim
To glories which the Cæsars never knew.
Thy nature was conceived ere falsehood grew
A fashion in the world, and Wit took shame
To twine a wreath for Wisdom's naked name.
Thus have thy words a power that doth endue
Our dreams with faith, our deeds with gentleness.
Within the mirror of thy single mind
All noble thoughts their dear reflection find;
And thy calm spirit, shunning all excess-
Keen in its quest of good, to ills resigned
Pursues its way in smiles, intent to cheer and bless.
THERE is a social and a solemn spell,
A spirit in our dust, a dream divine,
Filling the world with inspiration fine,
And making virtue purely visible;
Whether in hall of state or studious cell,
Where'er the currents of our life incline,
Oh! equal Liberty! this power is thine!
For at thy voice, which Instinct knows as well
As doth a child its mother's natural tone,
The darkened soul looks sunward, like a bird
Whose wing hath paused on mountains not its own.
By thee, fair Freedom, in the outcast herd
The seeds of high nobility are sown,
And abject minds are taught the wisdom of a word.
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