No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse; Musæus, stationed with his lyre Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth,
Mute as a lark ere morning's birth.
Appeared, in pres nce of that spiritual
That aids or supersedes our grosser sight,
The form and rich habiliments of one
Whose countenance bore resemblance to
the sun,
Why grieve for these, though passed away When it reveals, in evening majesty,
The music, and extinct the lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at nature's call, or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
The garland withering on their brows;
Stand with remorse for broken vows;
Frantic-else how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice.
Hail, bards of mightier grasp ! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;
In whom the fiery muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard.
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.
Brothers in soul ! though distant times
Produced you, nursed in various climes,
Ye, when the orb of life had waned,
A plenitude of love retained;
Hence, while in you each sed regret
By corresponding hope was met,
Ye lingered among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind;
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top !
Such to the tender-hearted maid
Even ere her joys begin to fade;
Such, haply, to the rugged chief
By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief;
Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore,
The Son of Fingal ; such was blind
Mæonides of ampler mind;
Such Milton, to the fountain head
Of glory by Urania led !
Rerum natura tota est nusquam magis quam
in minimis."-PLIN, Nat. Hist.
BENEATH the concave of an April sky, When all the fields with freshest green were dight,
Features half lost amid their own pure light.
Poised, like a weary cloud, in middle air
He hung, then floated with angelic ease
(Softening that bright effulgence by degrees)
Till he had reached a summit sharp and
bare,
[the noontide breeze.
Where oft the venturous heifer drinks
Upon the apex of that lofty cone
Alighted, there the stranger stood alone;
Fair as a gorgeous fabric of the East
Suddenly raised by some enchanter's power,
Where nothing was, and firm as some old
To lie and listen, till o'er-drowsed sense
Sinks, hardly conscious of the influence,
To the soft murmur of the vagrant bee.
A slender sound! yet hoary time
Doth to the soul exalt it with the chime
Of all his years;-a company
Of ages coming, ages gone;
(Nations from before them sweeping,
Regions in destruction steeping,)
But every awful note in unison
With that faint utterance, which tells
Of treasure sucked from buds and bells,
For the pure keeping of those waxen cells;
Where she, a statist prudent to confer
Upon the public weal; a warrior bold,-
Radiant all over with unburnished gold,
And armed with living spear for mortal
A cunning forager
[fight;
That spreads no waste ;-a social builder;
In whom all busy offices unite [one
With all fine functions that afford delight, Safe through the winter storm in quiet dwells!
And is she brought within the power
Of vision ?-o'er this tempting flower
Hovering until the petals stay
Her flight, and take its voice away!-
Observe each wing-a tiny van!-
The structure of her laden thigh,
How fragile !---yet of ancestry
Mysteriously remote and high,
High as the imperial front of man,
The roseate bloom on woman's cheek;
The soaring eagle's curvèd beak ;
The white plumes of the floating swan;
Old as the tiger's paw, the lion's mane
Ere shaken by that mood of stern disdain
At which the desert trembles.-Humming
bee !
[unknown;
Thy sting was needless then, perchance
The seeds of malice were not sown;
All creatures met in peace, from fierceness
free,
And no pride blended with their dignity.
Tears had not broken from their source;
Nor anguish strayed from her Tartarian
The golden years maintained a course Not undiversified, though smooth and [shadow, then We were not mocked with glimpse and Bright seraphs mixed familiarly with men And earth and stars composed a universal heaven!
ODE TO LYCORIS.
MAY, 1817.
AN age hath been when earth was proud
Of lustre too intense
To be sustained; and mortals bowed
The front in self-defence.
Who then, if Dian's crescent gleamed,
Or Cupid's sparkling arrow streamed
While on the wing the urchin played,
Could fearlessly approach the shade?
Enough for one soft vernal day,
If I, a bard of ebbing time,
And nurtured in a fickle clime,
May haunt this horned bay;
Whose amorous water multiplies
The flitting halcyon's vivid dyes;
And smooths her liquid breast-to show
These swan-like specks of mountain snow,
White as the pair that slid along the plains
Of heaven, when Venus held the reins !
In youth we love the darksome lawn
Brushed by the owlet's wing;
Then. twilight is preferred to dawn,
And autumn to the spring.
Sad fancies do we then affect,
In luxury of disrespect
To our own prodigal excess
Of too familiar happiness.
Lycoris (if such name befit
Thee, thee my life's celestial sign !)
When nature marks the year's decline,
Be ours to welcome it;
Pleased with the harvest hope that runs
Before the path of milder suns,
Pleased while the sylvan world displays
Its ripeness to the feeding gaze;
Pleased when the sullen winds resound the
Of the resplendent miracle.
But something whispers to my heart
That, as we downward tend,
Lycoris! life requires an art
To which our souls must bend;
A skill-to balance and supply;
And, ere the flowing fount be dry,
As soon it must, a sense to sip,
Or drink, with no fastidious lip.
Frank greeting, then, to that blithe guest
Diffusing smiles o'er land and sea
To aid the vernal Deity
Whose home is in the breast!
May pensive autumn ne'er present
A claim to her disparagement !
While blossoms and the budding spray
Inspire us in our own decay;
Still, as we nearer draw to life's dark goal,
Be hopeful spring the favourite of the soul!
ENOUGH of climbing toil! - Ambition treads [and rough, Here, as 'mid busier scenes, ground steep Or slippery even to peril! and each step, As we for most uncertain recompense Mount toward the empire of the fickle clouds,
Each weary step, dwarfing the world below,
Induces, for its old familiar sights,
Unacceptable feelings of contempt,
With wonder mixed- that man could
e'er be tied,
| In anxious bondage to such nice array And formal fellowship of petty things! Oh! 'tis the heart that magnifies this life,
Making a truth and beauty of her own : And moss-grown alleys, circumscribing shades,
And gurgling rills, assist her in the work More efficaciously than realms outspread,
As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze
Ocean and earth contending for regard.
The umbrageous woods are left-how far beneath!
But lo! where darkness seems to guard the mouth
Of yon wild cave, whose jagged brows are fringed
With flaccid threads of ivy, in the still
And sultry air, depending motionless.
Yet cool the space within, and not un-
cheered
(As whoso enters shall ere long perceive) By stealthy influx of the timid day Mingling with night, such twilight to
As Numa loved; when, in the Egerian grot,
From the sage nymph appearing at his wish,
He gained whate'er a regal mind might
Or need, of council breathed through lips divine.
Long as the heat shall rage, let that dim
Protect us, there deciphering as we may
Diluvian records; or the sighs of earth
Interpreting; or counting for old time
His minutes, by reiterated drops,
Audible tears, from some invisible source
That deepens upon fancy-more and more
Drawn toward the centre whence those
sighs creep forth
To awe the lightness of humanity.
Or, shutting up thyself within thyself,
There let me see thee sink into a mood
Of gentler thought, protracted till thine
eye
Be calm as water when the winds are gone, And no one can tell whither. Dearest friend!
We two have known such happy hours together,
upon the day of the saint to whom the church | And their meaning is, Whence can comfort
was dedicated. These observances of our
ancestors, and the causes of them, are the
subject of the following stanzas.
WHEN in the antique age of bow and spear
And feudal rapine clothed with iron mail,
Came ministers of peace, intent to rear
The mother church in yon sequestered vale;
Then, to her patron saint a previous rite
Resounded with deep swell and solemn
close,
Through unremitting vigils of the night,
Till from his couch the wished-for sun
"What is quod for a bootless bene?" With these dark words begins my tale;
spring
When prayer is of no avail ?
“What is good for a bootless bene ?”
The falconer to the lady said;
And she made answer, Endless sorrow!"
For she knew that her son was dead.
She knew it by the falconer's words,
And from the look of the falconer's eye;
And from the love which was in her soul
For her youthful Romilly.
Young Romilly through Barden woods
Is ranging high and low;
And holds a greyhound in a leash,
To let slip upon buck or doe.
The pair have reached that fearful chasm,
How tempting to bestride!
For lordly Wharf is there pent in,
With rocks on either side.
This striding-place is called The Strid,
A name which it took of yore:
A thousand years hath it borne that name,
And shall a thousand more.
And hither is young Romilly come,
And what may now forbid
That he, perhaps for the hundredth time,
Shall bound across The Strid?
He sprang in glee,-for what cared he
That the river was strong, and the rocks
were steep?
But the greyhound in the leash hung back,
And checked him in his leap.
The boy is in the arms of Wharf,
And strangled by a merciless force;
For never more was young Romilly seen
Till he rose a lifeless corse.
Now there is stillness in the vale,
And deep unspeaking sorrow:
Wharf shall be to pitying hearts
A name more sad than Yarrow.
If for a lover the lady wept,
A solace she might borrow
From death, and from the passion of
death;-
* See "The White Doe of Rylstone," page 232. Old Wharf might heal her sorrow.
|