FROM AN EMIGRANT TO HIS ABSENT WIFE.
If thou wert here, these tears were tears of light!
But from as sweet a vision did I start
As ever made these eyes grow idly bright!
And though I weep, yet still around my heart
A sweet and playful tenderness doth linger,
Touching my heart as with an infant's finger.
My mouth half open, like a witless man,
I saw our couch, I saw our quiet room,
Its shadows heaving by the fire-light gloom;
And o'er my lips a subtle feeling ran,
All o'er my lips a soft and breeze-like feeling-
I know not what-but had the same been stealing
Upon a sleeping mother's lips, I guess
It would have made the loving mother dream That she was softly bending down to kiss
Her babe, that something more than babe did seem,
A floating presence of its darling father,
And yet its own dear baby self far rather!
Across my chest there lay a weight, so warm !
As if some bird had taken shelter there;
And lo! I seemed to see a woman's form-
Thine, Sara, thine? O joy, if thine it were!
I gazed with stifled breath, and feared to stir it,
No deeper trance e'er wrapt a yearning spirit!
SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL.
when I seemed sure thy face to see, Thy own dear self in our own quiet home; There came an elfish laugh, and wakened me:
'Twas Frederic, who behind my chair had clomb, And with his bright eyes at my face was peeping. I blessed him, tried to laugh, and fell a weeping!*
SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL.
IF I had but two little wings,
And were a little feathery bird,
То you I'd fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here.
But in my sleep to you I fly :
I'm always with you in my sleep!
The world is all one's own.
But then one wakes, and where am I?
All, all alone.
Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
So I love to wake ere break of day:
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids,
And still dreams on.
ON REVISITING THE SEA-SHORE.
AFTER LONG ABSENCE, UNDER STRONG MEDICAL RECOMMENDATION
NOT TO BATHE.
GOD be with thee, gladsome Ocean!
How gladly greet I thee once more!
Ships and waves, and ceaseless motion,
And men rejoicing on thy shore.
Dissuading spake the mild physician,
"Those briny waves for thee are death!"
soul fulfilled her mission,
And lo! I breathe untroubled breath!
Fashion's pining sons and daughters,
That seek the crowd they seem to fly,
Trembling they approach thy waters;
And what cares Nature, if they die?
Me a thousand hopes and pleasures,
A thousand recollections bland,
Thoughts sublime, and stately measures,
Revisit on thy echoing strand :
Dreams, (the soul herself forsaking,)
Tearful raptures, boyish mirth;
Silent adorations, making
A blessed shadow of this Earth!
O ye hopes, that stir within me,
Health comes with you from above!
God is with me, God is in me!
I cannot die, if Life be Love.
THE tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil,
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,
Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark,
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk
By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,
Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not!*
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has worked, (the flowers which most she knew I loved,)
And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.
In the cool morning twilight, early waked
By her full bosom's joyous restlessness,
Softly she rose, and lightly stole along,
Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower, Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze, Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung,
Making a quiet image of disquiet
In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool.
There, in that bower where first she owned her love,
* One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of the Myosotis Scor pioides Palustris, a flower from six to twelve inches high, with blue blossomn and bright yellow eye. It has the same name over the whole Empire of Germany (Vergissmein nicht) and, I believe. in Denmark and Sweden.
And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy
From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretched
The silk upon the frame, and worked her name
Between the Moss-Rose and Forget-me-not-
Her own dear name, with her own auburn haır!
That forced to wander till sweet spring return,
I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look,
Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood
Has made me wish to steal away and weep,)
Nor yet the entrancement of that maiden kiss
With which she promised, that when spring weturned,
She would resign one half of that dear name,
And own thenceforth no other name but mine!
SAD lot, to have no hope! Though lowly kneeling
He fain would frame a prayer within his breast,
Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of healing,
That his sick body might have ease and rest;
He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest
Against his will the stifling load revealing,
Though Nature forced; though like some captive guest,
Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast,
An alien's restless mood but half concealing,
The sternness on his gentle brow confessed,
Sickness within and miserable feeling:
Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams,
And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain,
Each night was scattered by its own loud screams:
Yet never could his heart command, though fain,
One deep full wish to be no more in pain.
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