The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

But a mighty change came o'er me, for one lovely August morn
Off we started, I and Annie, and we walked through fields of corn,
Over many a breezy hill-top, while the sea beneath us shone,
Flashed its sapphires in the sunlight, as it smiled up at the sun.

There the fishing-boats were lying which in winter-time had dashed
Through the blinding whirling snow-storms, while the thunderous great waves crashed
Over gunwale, over bulwark; there they rested like the boats
On some silent summer river, where the untrembling lily floats.

Oh, the splendour of that morning! How it all comes back to me!
The sweet scent from cottage gardens, and the fresh scent from the sea:
Endless perfect radiant sunlight poured on meadow, hill, and plain;
For one hour the calm of Eden seemed to rest on earth again.

165

Hard it was, most hard, to fancy that the golden fields of corn
Ever by the winds of autumn had been smitten and lashed and torn:
Hard it was before the vision to call up the breakers white,
Filling all the bay in winter with their thunder day and night.

Perfect peace upon the waters—now the soft breeze sang a psalm;
The old trumpet-throated storm-wind had subsided into calm.
Perfect peace upon the moorland—dark the silent fir-clumps gleamed,
And within them the wood-pigeon murmured gently as she dreamed.

Wondrous light upon the town too; as we clambered up the hill
All the houses down below us seemed asleep, they were so still:
Little quiet whitewashed houses—all was peace in Newlyn town;
Peace and rest and golden sunlight, so it seemed as we looked down.

166

Such a sense there was in Nature, past the reach of words or Art,
Of a silent something waiting, of a loving spirit and heart.
I could almost feel the sweetness of a kiss within the air:
Almost catch within the cornfields the quick flash of golden hair.

Never till that very morning had the strange sense come to me
Of a life behind all Nature, of a soul within the sea;
Of a glory past expression, of a rapture to be won
From the silent heart of Nature, of a secret in the sun.

As we passed the cottage gardens where in sunlit soft repose
Gleamed the giant climbing fuchsias, the geranium and the rose,
I could see and love the blossoms, but the blossoms' selves were nought:
There was something hid behind them, even a sweet creative Thought.

167

There was then a soul in Nature—all was soulless, dark, no more;
There was woman's silvery laughter in the wave-pulse on the shore:
There was mystic meaning hidden in the dark-blue depth of air;
Far within the being of Nature was a Presence yet more fair.

And this Presence, turning meward, filled the land and filled the sky
With a glory vast and solemn, with a rapture pure and high:
I could reach the sacred Presence, I could worship at its shrine;
More—my very soul could claim it, I could murmur, “Thou art mine!”

There was something, deep in Nature—something sweet to be attained;
Heights of holy love to reach to, sacred friendship to be gained:
Something strange that, ever eluding mortal grasp and touch of hand,
Seemed to whisper, “Yet I love you—yet I smile and understand!”

168

“I am weary of the cornfields, I am weary of the air
Full of scents of radiant summer, I am weary of the fair
Starlit night that follows sunset, I am weary of the tides
Laving lonely coasts of granite and lone coral-islands' sides;

“I am weary of the sunrise over mountains lone and vast,
I am weary of dead ages, I am weary of my past;
I am weary of the worship of the star-hosts as they wheel,
As they dress their ranks obedient to the bugling thunder-peal;

“I am weary: I am eager not for soulless sympathy
Of my soulless white-sailed cloud-ships as they plunge along the sky;
I would see my love reflected in the human soul, my thought
In the brain that I for ages past man's lengthiest dream have wrought.”

So the loving sweet voice whispered—then it changed to mocking mirth,
Saying, “Yet I dwell in dreamland, I am part not of the earth:
Never human soul shall reach me till the course of time is run,
For I dwell beyond the sunset, and I dwell beyond the sun.

169

“Mightiest poets all have sought me—they have found me passing fair;
They have sung the glittering radiance of the morning in my hair:
Every soul has thought to claim me—each has seen within my eyes,
When he dreamed that he possessed me, the first virgin teardrops rise.

“Byron thought our wedding-chamber was the palace of the sea;
Wordsworth sought me on the mountains, Shelley sought in Italy,
And the lips of Keats my lover on my own lips seemed to close
So he fancied in the violet, so he felt within the rose.

“What the Christians find in Jesus, other loving souls have found
In the golden light of morning, in the rushing rivers' sound:
Yes, a godhead is in Nature, a divinity in me;
Once God thundered upon Sinai—now he thunders through the sea!

170

“Now he thunders on your mountains—when your mighty poet heard
Jura thunder, he was listening just as surely to the word
Of Jehovah as was Moses in the desert lone and grim:
Ever in Nature ye may find me, though to-day ye find not him.

“Though the Jewish God has vanished, though his angry lightnings gleam
Down the rocky heights no longer, though his kingdom was a dream,
I am living, I am with you, there is majesty in me:
In the red rose there is passion—there is love within the sea.”

So the sweet voice seemed to whisper, and I fancied as I heard
That a tenderer soft note sounded from the throat of every bird,—
That the lovely colour deepened in the flowers beside the road,—
That the sea's plain in the distance with a nobler radiance glowed:

171

And a wondrous sense came o'er me that for me that very day
Virgin was the spirit of Nature, that within my arms she lay
Never touched and never fondled, that she cared for me alone;
That she deigned to love a mortal, and to draw him towards her throne.

Though the far primordial hill-tops and the ancient winds and streams
Wrought their passion into music and had brought a million dreams,
Though man's heart throughout the ages had paid homage at her shrine,
Yet that day the spirit of Nature seemed superbly, wholly, mine.