HIGH thoughts are sometimes with me, Friend sincere, Even in this ill estate: I yet presume
A doubtful hope, that in far years to come,
When men shall talk of Wordsworth, Nature's seer,
And eagle-minded Coleridge, and the clear
Planet of song, that set in morning gloom
Among the pines, beneath the Cestran tomb,
And what like souls our England's latter year
Hath borne, they in that roll the name may write
Of one, whose inward power, in mists of grief
Long quench'd, and deeper gloom of spiritual night,
Yet, ere his flower of song had shed its leaf,
Brake forth, and spread itself in many a lay
Of love and truth, that might not pass away.
Among the clouds and trees the ancient wind
Is singing its great song: athwart the stars.
The lightning flashes, broad and tremulous:
Yet above all this tumult and within
There reigns, o'er all things sensibly diffused,
The spirit of deep stillness.
O grief! beside the stream of holy love
To stand, and mark its everlasting flow,
Its laughing leaps, its murmurs sweet and low,
Its bordering flowers, its glory from above; Yet feel that thine own home far distant stands
Amidst the desart sands!
"THOSE days are past;—and it is now
A place where all may come and go;
To which the tide of travellers flows,
For transient mirth, or brief repose:
All pressing to some onward aim,
They come, and vanish as they came :
The mansion hath in them no share,
Their hopes, their loves are all elsewhere.
No legends gather round its halls,
No household genii haunt its walls.
But yet to me, where'er I roam,
O'er that estranged and altered home,
O'er sacred hearth, and social room,
And echoing threshold, and the gloom
Of staircase old, o'er ivied towers,
And gardens bright with summer flowers,
O'er floor and roof, o'er wall and bed,
The glory of the Past is spread,
* The speaker (a Pagan) has been describing the home of his childhood.
Clothing its chambers with a light,
To which the noonday sun is night.
And if indeed, as Christians say,
The unbodied soul must live for aye,
I think that mine, where'er it be,
Will keep, through its eternity,
In joy or sorrow, unremoved,
The image of that place beloved."
THE mid-day cock is crowing,-
The solemn wind is blowing;
A moment to my heart they come,
Through the town's unjoyous hum,
Through the weary din, and stir, and press,
Those strange and mingled sounds of solemn cheerfulness!
-But the marvellous music is fled;
The waters have closed o'er it,
And will no more restore it ;
The corpse is there, but the life is flown;
My spirit is alone.
-O solitude! enchanter strong!
Would thou wert here, to wake the dead,
The pale cold sounds whose life is fled,
And bid them sing to thee, and join their song!
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