University of Virginia Library

'Would that I were the spirit of yon star,
That seems a diamond on the throne of heaven!
'Would that my holiest thought could ever dwell
Mid the unsearchable vastness of the sky!
For 't is deep midnight: and bland stillness sleeps
On dewy grove and waveless stream, and airs,
Floating about like heavenly visitants,
Breathe o'er the slumbering flowers, and leafy woods,
Such holy music as the tired heart loves—
Low, murmuring, melancholy strains—so soft
The ear scarce catches sound, though deeply feels
The hushed communing heart the influence
Of their lone oracles!—Departed hours
Of mingled bane and bliss—of hope and fear—
Of faithless friendship—unrequited love—
Unshared misfortune, undeserved reproach—
And humbled pride—and dark despondency—
Hours of high thought and silent intercourse
With the old seers and sages, when the soul
Walked solemnly beside departed bards
And lion-hearted martyrs; and o'erveiled
Forest and hill, and vale, and rivulet,
With the deep glorious majesty of mind!
Shadowing, with a most dainty phantasy,
The cold and harsh realities of things,
With the divine undying dawn of heaven,
Whose beauty blossoms and whose glory burns!

At such a time of thoughtful loneliness
Ye come like seraph shades, and bear me back,
On darkened wings, to earlier passages
Scarce less unblest than present years of grief
I grope through now!—But woes, once borne, become
Strange pleasures to our memory; the Past
Hath its romance—its mellow lights and shades,
Soothing deep sadness like the brightest hope
That bursts upon the future. While we gaze
Down the dark vista, where in bitter pain
And weariness and solitude of soul,
We long have roamed forsaken—all the scene
Assumes a calm repose, a verdure mild
As midnight music, and our hearts o'ergush
With tearful tenderness. O, there is bliss
E'en in the darkest memory—a depth
Of passion that now slumbers, and of thought,
Though voiceless, eloquent and full of power,
Which leaves all common hope, in life's routine,
Dim and delusive as the fire-fly's light.

Full orbed in pearly beauty walks the moon,
Flinging on fleecy clouds soft gleams of light,
That silver every fair and floating fold
Mid the blue ether—while her beams below
On slumbering vale and cliff, and haunted wood,
And broad deep stream, an awful wilderness,
Fall at the outskirts of vast shadowings,
Like heaven's great light on wings of angels thrown.
And now the breeze, in music's fitful gush,
Harps mid the osiers and wide harvest lakes
Of grass and grain—and then the voices rise
Of fays and fairies in the fir-wood near.

Now sleepless bard—who never is alone—
May mingle with the harmony of Heaven,
Triumphant o'er the evil of the world;
His heart may banquet on each gentle scene
Of loveliness, and shrink not back aghast
As from the mock and scoff malign of men.
To voices soft as sighs of sleeping flowers
And tender as a fair young mother's kiss,
His spirit listens in its joy. On him
The beauty of the old astrology,
The silent hymn of heaven in starlight falls;
And alchemy bestows its choicest lore,
And poetry, with all its holiness,
Sinks gently o'er him like the early dew
On the fair foliage of the Hesperides.

The cricket sings, the aspen twinkles quick
Beneath the moonbeam, and the waters purl
O'er shining pebbles and by wildwood banks
As if blest life in every drop prevailed.
The deep enchanted forests seem to bend,
And make no sound through their vast solitudes,
As if they deeply listened to THE Voice,
Whose whisper fills the universe. O'er all,
Waters and woods, mountains and valleys deep,
A spirit reigns whose secret counsel heals
The goaded mind and wasted heart, and guides
Ill-fortuned dwellers of the earth to peace;
And he is wise, who, in his budding youth,
Casting aside the paltry pride of praise,
In the night season leaveth strife and care
And vain ambition, to go forth and drink
The music and the blessedness of earth,
While man forgets the God he scorns by day.
Reclining on the moonlight rocks, he sees
The proud Orion, the soft Pleiades,
And every glorious constellation move
With light and hymn of worship, and his soul
O'erleaps the feuds and falsehoods of the world,
The trembling and the triumph of an hour,
And mingles with the universal Deity.
The warring passions of the human heart
Sink, then, to rest; bright angel forms repose
By piny woods and shady waterfalls,
And seraph voices sing of heaven and love
In every leaf stirr'd by the vesper airs.
And this communion of upsoaring thought,
This conscious inspiration (holier far
Than Delphic oracles or hermit's dream,)
Becomes our earthly paradise, when gleams
Of worlds inscrutable flash through the gloom
Of this our sinning nature, body-bowed,
And the accepted words of ancient men,
Gifted beyond their age and station here,
Become assured revealings of that life
All hope to gain but few dare think upon,
As wisdom thinks, who dwells not with the vain,
The greedy and the proud, but hath her throne
In the pure heart, whose ever-living Hope
Glows like a lone star in the depth of Heaven.