Gray, scarred and hairy-robed, must press With bleeding feet the wilderness! O! that its voice might pierce the ear Of princes, trembling while they hear A cry as of the Hebrew seer: Repent! God's kingdom draweth near!
WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF HIS MEMOIRS
DEAR friends, who read the world aright, And in its common forms discern
A beauty and a harmony
The many never learn
Kindred in soul of him who found In simple flower and leaf and stone The impulse of the sweetest lays Our Saxon tongue has known,-
Accept this record of a life
As sweet and pure, as calm and good, As a long day of blandest June In green field and in wood.
How welcome to our ears, long pained By strife of sect and party noise, The brook-like murmur of his song Of nature's simple joys!
The violet by its mossy stone,
The primrose by the river's brim, And chance-sown daffodil, have found Immortal life through him.
The sunrise on his breezy lake, The rosy tints his sunset brought, World-seen, are gladdening all the vales And mountain-peaks of thought.
Art builds on sand; the works of pride And human passion change and fall; But that which shares the life of God With Him surviveth all.
LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION.
FAIR Nature's priestesses! to whom, In hieroglyph of bud and bloom, Her mysteries are told;
Who, wise in lore of wood and mead, The seasons' pictured scrolls can read, In lessons manifold !
Thanks for the courtesy, and gay Good humor, which on Washing Day Our ill-timed visit bore; Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke The morning dreams of Artichoke, Along his wooded shore !
Varied as varying Nature's ways, Sprites of the river, woodland fays,
Or mountain-nymphs, ye seem; Free-limbed Dianas on the green, Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine, Upon your favorite stream.
The forms of which the poets told, The fair benignities of old,
Were doubtless such as you ; What more than Artichoke the rill Of Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hill Arcadia's mountain-view?
No sweeter bowers the bee delayed, In wild Hymettus' scented shade, Than those you dwell among; Snow-flowered azalias, intertwined With roses, over banks inclined
With trembling hare-bells hung!
A charmed life unknown to death, Immortal freshness Nature hath; Her fabled fount and glen
Are now and here: Dodona's shrine Still murmurs in the wind-swept pine,- All is that e'er hath been.
The Beauty which old Greece or Rome Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at hom We need but eye and ear
In all our daily walks to trace The outlines of incarnate grace, The hymns of gods to hear!
A TRACK of moonlight on a quiet lake, Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shore Whisper of peace, and with the low winds make Such harmonies as keep the woods awake, And listening all night long for their sweet sake A green-waved slope of meadow, hoverod o'er By angel-troops of lilies, swaying light
On viewless stems, with folded wings of white;
A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, far seen Where the low westering day, with gold and green, Purple and amber, softly blended, fills
The wooded vales, and melts among the hills ; A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest On the calm bosom of a stormless sea, Bearing alike upon its placid breast,
With earthly flowers and heavenly stars impressed, The hues of time and of eternity:
Such are the pictures which the thought of thee, O friend, awakeneth, charming the keen pain Of thy departure, and our sense of loss Requiting with the fulness of thy gain.
Lo! on the quiet grave thy life-borne cross, Dropped only at its side, methinks doth shine, Of thy beatitude the radiant sign!
No sob of grief, no wild lament, be there, To break the Sabbath of the holy air;
But, in their stead, the silent-breathing prayer Of hearts still waiting for a rest like thine. () spirit redeemed! Forgive us, if henceforth, With sweet and pure similitudes of earth,
We keep thy pleasant memory freshly green, Of love's inheritance a priceless part,
Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe, is seen To paint, forgetful of the tricks of art,
With pencil dipped alone in colors of the heart
God's love and peace be with thee, where Soe'er this soft autumnal air
Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair!
Whether through city casements comes Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms, Or, out among the woodland blooms,
It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face, Imparting, in its glad embrace, Beauty to beauty, grace to grace !
Fair Nature's book together read, The old wood-paths that knew our tread, The maple shadows overhead,—
The hills we climbed, the river seen By gleams along its deep ravine,— All keep thy memory fresh and green.
Where'er I look, where'er I stray, Thy thought goes with me on my way, And hence the prayer I breathe to-day!
O'er lapse of time and change of scene, The weary waste which lies between Thyself and me, my heart I lean.
Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-word, nor The half-unconscious power to draw All hearts to thine by. Love's sweet law.
With these good gifts of God is cast Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast To hold the blessed angels fast.
If, then, a fervent wish for thee
The gracious heavens will heed from me, What should, dear heart, its burden be?
The sighing of a shaken reed— What can I more than meekly plead The greatness of our common need?
God's love unchanging, pure, and true- The Paraclete white-shining through His peace--the fall of Hermon's dew!
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