Nor, though the sun of day be shrouded quite, Swerve from the narrow path to left or right. ON THE HILL-SIDE. THE winds behind me in the thicket sigh, The bees fly droning on laborious wing, Pink cloudlets scarcely float across the sky. September stillness broods o'er everything. Deep peace is in my soul: I seem to hear Catullus murmuring, "Let us live and love; Suns rise and set, and fill the rolling year Which bears us deathward, therefore let us love; Pour forth the wine of kisses, let them flow, And let us drink our fill before we die." Hush! in the thicket still the breezes blow; [sky; Pink cloudlets sail across the azure The bees warp lazily on laden wing; Beauty and stillness brood o'er everything.. NEW LIFE, NEW LOVE. APRIL is in; Blue shines the sky, Death took my dear: less fair, take our fill of loveliness, which breed This anguish of the soul intemperate; 'Tis self that turns to pain and poisonous hate The calm clear life of love the angels lead. Shall sunder us who once have O, that 'twere possible this self to breathed this air. Of soul-commingling friendship passion-fraught. THE PONTE DI PARADISO. Of all the mysteries wherethrough we move, This is the most mysterious - that a face, Seen peradventure in some distant place, Whither we can return no more to prove burn In the pure flames of joy contemplative! THE PRAYER TO MNEMOS YNE. LADY, when first the message came to me Of thy great hope and all thy future bliss, I had no envy of that happiness Which sets a limit to our joy in thee: But uttering orisons to gods who see Our mortal strife, and bidding them to bless With increase of pure good thy goodliness, I made unto the mild Mnemosyne More for myself than thee one prayer -that when Our paths are wholly severed, and thy years Glide among other cares and far-off men, She may watch over thee, as one who hears The music of the past, and in thine ears Murmur "They live and love thee now as then." SONNETS FROM “INTELLECTUAL ISOLATION." NAY, Soul, though near to dying, do not this! It may be that the world and all its ways Seem but spent ashes of extinguished days And love, the phantom of imagined bliss; Yet what is man among the mysteries Whereof the young-eyed angels sang their praise? Thou know'st not. Lone and wildered in the maze, See that life's crown thou dost not idly miss. Is friendship fickle? Hast thou found her so? Is God more near thee on that homeless sea Than by the hearths where children come and go? Perchance some rotten root of sin in thee Hath made thy garden cease to bloom and glow: Hast thou no need from thine own self to flee? Ir is the centre of the soul that ails: We carry with us our own heart's disease; And craving the impossible, we freeze To him who else were lonely, that another Of the great family is near, and feels. ON THE RECEPTION OF WORDSWORTH AT OXFORD. Ou! never did a mighty truth prevail With such felicities of place and time As in those shouts sent forth with joy sublime Fram the full heart of England's youth, to hail Her once neglected bard within the pale Of Learning's fairest citadel! That voice, In which the future thunders, bids rejoice Some who through wintry fortunes did not fail To bless with love as deep as life, the name Thus welcomed; - who in happy silence share The triumph; while their fondest musings claim Unhoped-for echoes in the joyous air, That to their long-loved poet's spirit bear. A nation's promise of undying fame. |