University of Virginia Library

I.

Queen of the shadowy clime!
Thou of the fairy-spell and wondrous lay:
Sweet Romance! breathe upon my way,
Not with the breath of this degenerate time,
But of that age when life was summer play,
When Nature wore a verdurous hue,
And Earth kept holiday;
When on the ground Chaldæan shepherds lay,
Gazing all night, with calm, creative view,
Into the overhanging blue,
And found, amid the many-twinkling stars,
Warriors and maidens fair,
Heroes of marvellous deeds and direful wars,
Serpents and flaming hair,
The Dragon and the Bear,
A silvery Venus and a lurid Mars.

II.

Come at thy lover's call,
Thou, that, with embraces kind,
Throwing thy tendrils round the lives of all,
Something in all to beautify dost find!
So thine own ivy, on the Gothic wall,
Or pendent from the arms
Of gnarléd oaks, where'er its clusters fall,
Clings to adorn and adds perennial charms.
And therefore, Romance, would I greet
Thee by the fairest of fair names,
Calling thee debonair and sweet;
For sweet thou art—inspiring Manhood's dreams,
When all aweary of the actual life;
And sweet thy influence seems
To Woman, shrinking from the strife,
The sordid tumult of the wrangling mart.
But doubly sweet thou art,
Leading the tender child by gentle streams,
Among the lilies of our flowery Youth;
Filling his all-believing heart
With thoughts that glorify the common truth;
Building before him, in the lustrous air,
Ethereal palaces and castles fair.

III.

With such mild innocence the Earth
Received thy blessings at her birth;
And in the pastoral days of yore,
To Man's enchanted gaze,
Nature was fair—O, how much more
Than in our wiser days!
Then deities of sylvan form,
While yet the hearts of men were young and warm,
Like shepherds wandered through the arching groves,
Or sang aloud, the listening flocks among,
Sweet legends of their loves;
Then Cupid and fair Psyche breathed their vows,—
He with the feathered darts and bow unstrung,
And garlands on his brows;
She folding gently to her bosom doves
Snow-white, forever, as their mistress, young;
And, as they sighed together, peerless Joy
Enwreathed the maiden and the raptured boy!

IV.

Yes! on romantic pilgrimage,
To the calm piety of Nature's shrine,
Through summer-paths, thou ledst our human-kind,
With influence divine.
In that orient, elden age,
Ere man had learned to wage
Dispassionate war against his natural mind,
Thy voice of mystery,
Reading aloud the Earth's extended page,
Bade human aspirations find
In the cool fountain and the forest-tree
A sentient imagery;
The flowing river and the murmuring wind,
The land—the sea—
Were all informed by thee!

V.

Through coral grottoes wandering and singing,
The merry Nereid glided to her cave;
Anon, with warm, luxurious motion flinging
Her sinuous form above the moonlit wave,
To the charmed mariner gave
A glimpse of snowy arms and amber tresses,
While on his startled ear
The sea-nymph's madrigal fell clear;
Then to the far recesses,
Where drowsy Neptune wears the emerald crown,
Serenely floated down,
Leaving the mariner all amort with fear.
In the under-opening wood,
What time the Gods had crowned the full-grown year,
The Dryad and the Hamadryad stood
Among the fallow deer;
Bending the languid branches of their trees,
With every breeze,
To view their image in the fountains near:—
The fountains! whence the white-limbed Naiads sang,
Pouring upon the air melodious trills,
And, while the echoes through the forest rang,
The white-limbed Naiads of a thousand rills
Far o'er the Arcadian vales a pæan spread.
Led by Diana, in the dewy dawn,
The Oread sisters chased the dappled fawn
Through all the coverts of their native hills;
Home, with the spoils, at sultry noon they fled,—
Home to their shaded bowers,
Where, with the ivy, and those sacred flowers
That now have faded from the weary earth,
Each laughing Oread crowned an Oread's head.
The mountains echoed back their maiden mirth,
Rousing old Pan, who, from a secret lair,
Shook the wild tangles of his frosty hair,
And laid him down again with sullen roar:
But now the frightened nymphs like statues stand,
One balancing her body half in air,
Dreading to hear again that tumult sore;
One, with a liquid tremor in her eye,
Waving above her head a glimmering hand;
Till suddenly, like dreams, away they fly,
Leaving the forest stiller than before!

VI.

Such was thy power, O Pastoral Romance!
In that ambrosial age of classic fame,
The spirit to entrance.
Fain would I whisper of the latter days,
When, in thy royal name,
The mailéd knights encountered lance to lance,
All for sweet Romance and fair ladies' praise;
But no! I bowed the knee
And vowed allegiance to thee,
As I beheld thee in thy golden prime,
And now from thy demesne must haste away:
Perchance that of the aftertime,
Of nodding plumes and chivalrous array,
In aftertime I sing a roundelay.

VII.

Fair Spirit of ethereal birth,
In whom such mysteries and beauties blend!
Still from thine ancient dwelling-place descend
And idealize our too material earth;
Still to the Bard thy chaste conceptions lend,
To him thine early purity renew;
Round every image grace majestic throw!
Till rapturously the living song shall glow
With inspiration as thy being true,
And Poesy's creations, decked by thee,
Shall wake the tuneful thrill of sensuous ecstasy.