Fragments.
I wander in fancy far away
To scenes of many a summer day,
Beautiful even now
In the pale and wan November ray,
When Nature lays her cooling hand
On the hot and aching brow,
And quiets the throbbing heart with a touch,
And whispers much,
In her own dear musical tone,
Of rest and calm,
And peace and balm,
Till the heart is tuned to her own sweet psalm,
And feels no more alone.
Oh, the healing she has brought!
Oh, the cures that she has wrought!
Only engage her as nurse and physician,
And let her fulfil her miraculous mission,
And you will find
That she leaves behind
All the wonders of homœopathy.
Oh! I could tell,
For I know so well,
How the unstrung nerves are tuned again,
And the load rolls off from the tirèd brain,
And strength comes back to the languid frame,
And existence hardly seems the same.
Her process is surer far and shorter,
When out of reach of bricks and mortar!
When all her gentle remedies
Are brought to bear, till the work is done.
Oh! give to me
A pierless and paradeless sea,
With a shore as God made it, grand and free,
And not a mere triumph of masonry;
Where the thundering shocks,
And the Titan play
Of the wild white spray,
Which dies on the shingly beach,
With a golden reach
Of fair smooth sand,
Laid by the hand
Of the lulling tide,
Inviting many a stroll or ride.
Oh, for the pure and lovely shell!
Oh, for the crimson frond!
Witness of all fair forms that dwell
In the marvellous deep below and beyond,
Where living flowers
From mermaids' bowers,
Many a living star,
Many a crystal, many a spar,
Where Nature distributes all her treasures,
And all her special sea-side pleasures.
Oh! give me the rocks of Ilfracombe,
With their witchery of gleam and gloom,
With the crystal pools in the tide-swept cave,
Where myriad fairy forests wave,
And the delicate fringes of crimson and green,
Purple and amber, ruby and rose,
With snowy gleaming shells between,
And marvellous forms of life are seen,
While the musical tide still ebbs and flows;
Where not a step but brings to view
Something exquisite, something rare,
Something marvellously fair,
Always beautiful, always new.
My heart is wandering still
At its strange and wayward will.
Oh, for the Glen of the Waters' Meet,
Where the merry Lyn leaps down
so
To that loveliest vale below,
And hastens to join the Channel flow;
Where the Lynton cliffs, without a frown,
Majestically crown
This mingling of sublime and sweet.
And oh, for the mighty roar
At the foot of Penmaenmawr!
Or an autumn storm
On the Greater Orme,
Where the giant breakers hurl their spray
At the mountain's mighty breast,
And the wild wind, mingling in the fray,
Seizes and whirls it high and away
Over the proud rock's crest;
While the maddened waves
Rush into the caves
With thunder and growl, and rush back again,
As if the assault had been all in vain,
But only to gather in awful might
For a tenfold struggle of fiercer fight.
Who would have time for a thought of care,
Or a fit of the blues, if standing there!
Away! away! to the bracing North,
To the grand old seas
Of the Hebrides,
To the sunny Clyde, or the silver Forth,
Purple heather above, and shadowy loch below,
Golden glory of furze, and a far-off wealth of snow,
Violet peaks afar, and dark green pines anear,
And long bright evenings so soft and clear,
And concert halls of birdies sweet
Trill and carol so blithely meet;—
Treasures untold, their myriad gleam
Is far beyond a poet's dream.
