There seems a floating whisper on the hill, LXXXVIII. Ye stars which are the poetry of heaven! Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star. LXXXIX. All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; All heaven and earth are still: From the high host Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast, All is concenter'd in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and defence. XC. Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone; A truth, which through our being then doth melt, The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, Binding all things with beauty;-'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. XCI. Not vainly did the early Persian make The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak, With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, XCII. The sky is changed!-and such a change! Oh night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! XCIII. And this is in the night-most glorious night! A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, A portion of the tempest and of thee! XCIV. Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed :- Of years all winters,-war within themselves to wage. Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, Flashing and cast around: of all the band, The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd That in such gaps as desolation work'd, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk`d. XCVI. Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye! Of your departing voices, is the knoll Of what in me is sleepless,-if I rest. But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal? Are ye like those within the human breast? Or do yo find, at length, like eagles, some high nest? XCVII. Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me,-could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. |