Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση
[blocks in formation]

ONE word is too often profaned

For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it,

One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the heavens reject not:
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY.

THE fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle,-
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

TO A SKYLARK.

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!

[ocr errors]

Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

[art.

In profuse strains of unpremeditated

Higher still and higher,

From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,
Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud. As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and

heaven is overflowed.

[blocks in formation]

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow,

A thing wherein we feel there is some The world should listen then, as I am

But an empty vaunt,

hidden want.

listening now.

[blocks in formation]

deep woe

DEATH.

DEATH is here, and death is there,
Death is busy everywhere,
All around, within, beneath,
Above, is death,- and we are death.

First our pleasures die,- and then Our hopes, and then our fears,- and when

These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust,- and we die too.

All things that we love and cherish,
Like ourselves, must fade and perish;
Such is our rude mortal lot,—
Love itself would, did they not.

THE CLOUD.

Are brackish with the salt of human I BRING fresh showers for the thirst

tears!

[blocks in formation]

ing flowers,

From the seas and the streams; bear light shades for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,

As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.

TELL me, thou star, whose wings of I sift the snow on the mountains be

light

Speed thee in thy fiery flight, In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now?

Tell me, moon, thou pale and gray Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way, In what depth of night or day

Seekest thou repose now?

Weary wind, who wanderest Like the world's rejected guest, Hast thou still some secret nest On the tree or billow?

low,

And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the

blast.

Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,

Lightning, my pilot sits, In a cavern under, is fettered the thunder,

It struggles and howls by fits; Over earth and ocean with gentle motion,

This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that | Like strips of the sky fallen through

move

In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,

Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain

or stream,

The spirit he loves, remains; And I, all the while, bask in heaven's blue smile,

Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,

And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning-star shines dead.

As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,

As still as a brooding dove.

[blocks in formation]

me on high,

Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, [pearl; And the moon's with a girdle of The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

From cape to cape, with a bridgelike shape,

Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march,

With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,

Is the million-colored bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky:

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

FROM "THE SENSITIVE-PLANT."

A SENSITIVE-plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew,

And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,

And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

[blocks in formation]

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,

And narcissi, the fairest among them all,

Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,

Till they die of their own dear loveliness.

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale,

That the light of its tremulous bells is seen

Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,

Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew

Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,

It was felt like an odor within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the

bath addrest,

Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,

Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air

The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,

As a Manad, its moonlight-colored Till the fiery star, which is its eye, cup, Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,

The sweetest flower for scent that blows;

And all rare blossoms from every clime

Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom

Was prankt, under boughs of embowering blossom,

With golden and green light, slanting through

Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, And starry river-buds glimmered by, And around them the soft stream did glide and dance With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

And from this undefiled Paradise

The flowers, as an infant's awakening eyes Smile on its mother, whose singing

sweet

Can first lull, and at last must awaken it,

When heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them,

As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden

gem, Shone smiling to heaven, and every

one

Shared joy in the light of the gentle

sun;

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »