University of Virginia Library

Where is the home of Love? Upon the mountains
Amid the icy peaks and slopes of snow,
Or in the soft green valleys far below,
Where willows' tresses trail in crystal fountains?
Haunts he the homes that stud the sandy reaches,
The white-washed walls where fisher-folk abide,
Shaken at every rising of the tide,
The dim expanse of shore, the gravelly beaches?
Men seem uncertain; one there is that teaches
That “Love is of the valley,” I think rather
To every place and person he is father,
Though diverse are his forms, and ways, and speeches;
He dwells, methinks, in every bower of roses,
And peeps from out each petal of a flower,
Into the essence of the scent his power
Impressed pervades the waves and widths of air,
From point to point his balmy breath to bear,
Laden with sweets of all the world of posies;
Along the winding paths of woods he walks,
And with the strawberry gatherers he talks,
And hides himself within the yellow stalks
Of corn, in seas of grass his head reposes,
In petals of pimpernel his eyes he closes,
Atween the curtains red secure he dozes,
And all his panting pale pursuers balks;
I've seen him seated all the livelong day
Astride upon a scented seat of May
Thrilling right out from thence his roundelay,
And heard him in the night upon the seas
Laugh in the blithesome laughter of the breeze,
And shout a-sailing on the watery way,
When he will shine upon us none can say,
Nor where, 'tis “as his majesty doth please;”
Sometimes, upon some merry summer morn
From out a night of silvery silence born,
The hills are startled with his hunting horn
And all the crimson spaces of the dawn
With sounds of life and light are sudden filled,
While all the strings of melody are thrilled
That right across creation's gulf are drawn,
Like gossamer spiders' threads across a plain,
Or air-dividing tiny threads of rain,
Or streaks the canvas of the sky that stain
When sunset's scarlet flames have riven and torn
Its smooth white surface; sometimes in the night
When all the waves are dancing, laughing light
Melodious music underneath the moon,
Ripple after ripple melting into tune,
Love sends upon the soul a sudden swoon,
And, losing self, across the seas one goes,
While all the life of love about one flows,
Along the veins in giant throbs and throes
The hot blood pulsing, at one gasp of sight
This Universe of mute mysterious might
Flaming across one's vision, all the ages
Read by the light of lightning, history's pages
An open scroll, all wisdom of all sages,
The sources whence pale Passion's river rages,
The roots of that Great Tree whose leaf assuages
Our mortal agonies, and for ever wages
With evil one continual winning war;

In slow procession through our eyelid portals
The story of the loves and hates of mortals
Streams endlessly, and all the loves that are
And shall be, piercing through the silent spaces
Our eyes behold at once the world's embraces,
The hands that pray, the passion of all faces,
The circle of caresses, tear-drop traces,
Hope's chariot around the world that chases
The steeds of dark Despair, the wars of races,
We hear the sound of kisses in all places;
And, hand in hand with Love, from star to star
We dance along the railroad rays of light,
Cleaving, as if with arrow's fiery flight,
The abysmal sacred silences of Night,
Finding in every moon the self-same story,
With golden sheaf of similar human glory
The glorious heads of solar systems crowned,
We span the spaces star from star that sunder,
And all the cloudy home of Monarch Thunder
And bright-eyed Lady Lightning his fair spouse,
[The Queen of those that kiss—her kisses slay,]
Lies bare before us, in the air around
Mighty orchestral choruses resound,
From off the surfaces of spheres that bound
Alive along the windy ways of space
Flung loudly and triumphantly; they rouse
The sleeping white-enfolded form of Day,
Who casts aside with rosy fluttering fingers
The star-bespangled robe of Night that lingers
Still here and there about the western sky,
And, opening wide his single sunny eye,
Across the fields of ether far and nigh
Sends glances hot the dews of dark to dry,
And gladden into scent the flowers that sigh
For his sweet coming, into song the birds,
And into motion musical the herds,
Smiling upon them with his festive face.