University of Virginia Library

[Friendship is love's full beauty unalloyed]

Friendship is love's full beauty unalloyed
With passion that may waste in selfishness,
Fed only at the heart and never cloyed:
Such is our friendship ripened but to bless.
It draws the arrow from the bleeding wound
With cheery look that makes a winter bright;
It saves the hope from falling to the ground,
And turns the restless pillow towards the light.
To be another's in his dearest want,
At struggle with a thousand racking throes,
When all the balm that Heaven itself can grant
Is that which friendship's soothing hand bestows:
How joyful to be joined in such a love,—
We two,—may it portend the days above!

I.

[In the unbroken silence of the mind]

In the unbroken silence of the mind
Thoughts creep about us, seeming not to move,
And life is back among the days behind—
The spectral days of that lamented love—
Days whose romance can never be repeated.
The sun of Kelmscott through the foliage gleaming,
We see him, life-like, at his easel seated,
His voice, his brush, with rival wonders teeming.
These vanished hours, where are they stored away?
Hear we the voice, or but its lingering tone?
Its utterances are swallowed up in day;
The gabled house, the mighty master gone.
Yet are they ours: the stranger at the hall—
What dreams he of the days we there recall?

II.

[O, happy days with him who once so loved us!]

O, happy days with him who once so loved us!
We loved as brothers, with a single heart,
The man whose iris-woven pictures moved us
From Nature to her blazoned shadow—Art.
How often did we trace the nestling Thames
From humblest waters on his course of might,
Down where the weir the bursting current stems—
There sat till evening grew to balmy night,
Veiling the weir whose roar recalled the strand
Where we had listened to the wave-lipped sea,
That seemed to utter plaudits while we planned
Triumphal labours of the day to be.
The words were his: “Such love can never die;”
The grief was ours when he no more was nigh.

III.

[Like some sweet water-bell, the tinkling rill]

Like some sweet water-bell, the tinkling rill
Still calls the flowers upon its misty bank
To stoop into the stream and drink their fill.
And still the shapeless rushes, green and rank,
Seem lounging in their pride round those retreats,
Watching slim willows dip their thirsty spray.
Slowly a loosened weed another meets;
They stop, like strangers, neither giving way.
We are here surely if the world, forgot,
Glides from our sight into the charm, unbidden;
We are here surely at this witching spot,—
Though Nature in the reverie is hidden.
A spell so holds our captive eyes in thrall,
It is as if a play pervaded all.

IV.

[Sitting with him, his tones as Petrarch's tender]

Sitting with him, his tones as Petrarch's tender,
With many a speaking vision on the wall,
The fire, a-blaze, flashing the studio fender,
Closed in from London shouts and ceaseless brawl—
'Twas you brought Nature to the visiting,
Till she herself seemed breathing in the room,
And Art grew fragrant in the glow of spring
With homely scents of gorse and heather bloom.
Or sunbeams shone by many an Alpine fountain,
Fed by the waters of the forest stream;
Or glacier-glories in the rock-girt mountain,
Where they so often fed the poet's dream;
Or else was mingled the rough billow's glee
With cries of petrels on a sullen sea.

V.

[Remember how we roamed the Channel's shore]

Remember how we roamed the Channel's shore,
And read aloud our verses, each in turn,
While rhythmic waves to us their music bore,
And foam-flakes leapt from out the rocky churn.
Then oft with glowing eyes you strove to capture
The potent word that makes a thought abiding,
And wings it upward to its place of rapture,
While we discoursed to Nature, she presiding.
Then would the poet-painter gaze in wonder
That art knew not the mighty reverie
That moves earth's spirit and her orb asunder,
While ocean's depths, even, seem a shallow sea.
Yet with rare genius could his hand impart
His own far-searching poesy to art.

VI.

[And he the walking lord of gipsy lore!]

And he the walking lord of gipsy lore!
How often 'mid the deer that grazed the park,
Or in the fields and heath and windy moor,
Made musical with many a soaring lark,
Have we not held brisk commune with him there,
While he, Lavengro, towering by your side,
With rose complexion and bright silvery hair,
Would stop amid his swift and lounging stride
To tell the legends of the fading race—
As at the summons of his piercing glance,
Its story peopling his brown eyes and face,
While you called up that pendant of romance
To Petulengro with his boxing glory,
Your Amazonian Sinfi's noble story!

VII.

[Then came the day when first we climbed the Alps]

Then came the day when first we climbed the Alps,
Through winter snow: remember how we found
New-written missals from their farthest scalps,
Sun-gilded on illuminated ground.
We brooked no duomo but the open sky,
We pined for hills in the grand-ducal square,
When Florence beckoned us in passing by,
The Alps still with us while we tarried there.
Then Venice with her glittering palaced isles!
Though all be art, there Nature has her sway—
The queen of cities revels in her smiles,
That lure us thither, still we must not stay.
Onward we cross the plains of virgin snow,
By sunset robed in one rich purple glow.

VIII.

[Nature is little coy with those who love her]

Nature is little coy with those who love her:
Remember you the rhythmic prayer you said,
That seemed to pierce her through her icy cover,
With winter o'er her Alpine winter spread?
She let you early feel the olden spell,
That seals her lips, break on you from the skies,
Where she seemed “struggling with the years to tell
The secret at her heart through helpless eyes.”
Display to her your strength—not yours in vain—
The New Day breaks, the song must be of Her;
Lift up your voice, with rapture fill the strain,
The New Day brings a new interpreter,
And on those heights where you send forth your song,
Shall time's wide echo every note prolong.

IX.

[You who in youth the cone-paved forest sought]

You who in youth the cone-paved forest sought,
Musing until the pines to musing fell;
You who by river-path the witchery caught
Of waters moving under stress of spell;
You who the seas of metaphysics crossed,
And yet returned to art's consoling haven—
Returned from whence so many souls are lost,
With wisdom's seal upon your forehead graven,—
Well may you now abandon learning's seat,
And work the ore all seek, not many find;
No sign-post need you to direct your feet,
You draw no riches from another's mind.
Hail Nature's coming; bygone be the past;
Hail her New Day; it breaks for man at last.

X.

[Genius and Poetry should still advance]

Genius and Poetry should still advance
As Nature year by year extends her pale,
Till widens past all reach the wide expanse,
Disclosing heights that only She can scale.
Science fulfils the poet's prophecy—
Brings close the landscape that he saw afar,
Even as the glass that takes and gives the sky
Brings home from realms of cloud some burning star.
So even within the farthest galaxy
The science-poet knows what worlds are growing,
Where Nature's votaries of all wisdom free,
With far-off thought akin to his are glowing.
Seize on the deathless prize, far-reaching friend!
And yet let one same scroll our memories blend.

XI.

[You know the mountains and their peaks of snow]

You know the mountains and their peaks of snow,
You know the torrents scouring down their sides,
That sweep the rocks into the gulphs below;
You know the flowering vales,—the mountainbrides,
The forests where no eye beheld the planting,
The craning billows as they rise and fall;
The limpid azure o'er these wonders slanting,
Looped up by Nature's hand that moulded all,
While with creative smile herself amusing:
Her self-taught genius ever in ascension,
Conceiving all things, all in order choosing—
The sun and planets were her own invention.
No abstract symbol but a ruling power,
With all eternity her leisure hour.

XII.

[She broods in essence-realms of poetry]

She broods in essence-realms of poetry,
'Mid infant stars beyond emotion's reach,—
New worlds maturing in the nebulous sky,—
Too blest to draw the breath of human speech.
Yet Nature's self seemed your familiar sprite
Who at a summons by compulsion rose
Obedient to the poet's mystic rite,
When bidden some new mystery to disclose,
As with divining rod you took the soundings
Of hidden depths to lay her secrets bare,
Where she, proud weaver, has her bright surroundings,
And shuttles all her graces in the air.
Like spirits lingering in the depths unseen,
Her ecstasy remains where she has been.

XIII.

[Fulfil the new-born dream of Poesy!]

Fulfil the new-born dream of Poesy!
Give her your life in full, she turns from less—
Your life in full—like those who did not die,
Though death holds all they sang in dark duress.
You, knowing Nature to the throbbing core,
You can her wordless prophecies rehearse.
The murmurs others heard her heart outpour
Swell to an anthem in your richer verse.
If wider vision brings a wider scope
For art, and depths profounder for emotion,
Yours be the song whose master-tones shall ope
A new poetic heaven o'er earth and ocean.
The New Day comes apace; its virgin fame
Be yours, to fan the fiery soul to flame.

XIV.

[The moments swell to hours, to days, and years]

The moments swell to hours, to days, and years:
Each its own secret doom resigns to us.
Time's steps are but alternate hopes and fears:
They lodge with us the nightly incubus,
And, at the dawn, the dreamings for the day.
Be one hour slow, another swift of pace,
They tarry not a moment on the way,
Nor haste along as if to win a race.
But were not time on its straight passage kept,
As held, in harness, by the steady-handed,
'Twould seem a season when a year had crept—
Or else a season to a year expanded.
Let not lost time your precious youth ensnare,
And sudden age come on you unaware.

XV.

[When he the world's colossal poet came]

When he the world's colossal poet came,
And seized the fairy fortress at a stride,
And over every head leapt into fame—
The science of the past was justified.
Man's noblest work had waxed from stage to stage,
Till all was perfect deemed beyond dispute;
When came the man who conquered every age,
And struck the voices of the centuries mute.
Old goals are gone, for all the giant's might,
Whose thoughts arose victorious over legions.
Dare we aspire to Nature's new-seen height?
The young perchance may reach the envied regions:
The golden belt is chased by hands divine,
For him who first in The New Day may shine.

XVI.

[True song the heavens themselves reiterate]

True song the heavens themselves reiterate
Above those peaks where Nature on her throne
Calls and impels the poet to his fate,
To conquer worlds unvisioned and unknown.
Genius pervades her piled-up solitude,
And monumental are its sacred places—
Upon the naked summit, granite-strewed,
The ever-living bard his lot embraces.
That seat of Nature is to poets given,
Whose genius, ever nearer to the sky,
Has passed above to where it made a heaven
Among the conquerors of posterity;
And where all thoughts that gave great ages birth
Are gathered to descend again on earth.

XVII.

[Who but for poetry had dreamed of heaven?]

Who but for poetry had dreamed of heaven?
Who in his dying visions would have seen
Worlds of new beauty free from sorrow's leaven
Beyond the realm of pain and death's demesne?
Who but for poetry in lonely lands
Could beauty with exalted eyes explore,
And gazing seaward from the pathless sands
Feel, as if seen, the everlasting shore?
Who but for poetry even here below
Had felt the wealth of beauty Nature spends,
Were it but in a fameless river's flow,
Or in the charm a worn-out willow lends,—
As in those Kelmscott meadows where we three
Compared our dreams of what the world might be?

XVIII.

[The world o'er-domed with light is Nature's shrine]

The world o'er-domed with light is Nature's shrine,
Her love for us is ever imminent:
She draws us near her by her writ divine—
Her service is of peace and pure content.
We feel her when the blue of trembling skies
With eddying ray towards earth's soft colours streams,
We feel her when they meet our conscious eyes,
Transmuting into soul the outer beams.
She is our ever-present minister;
No solace have we when from her we turn:
Love's gentle tide but ebbs and flows toward her;
Of her the beauty of our lives we learn.
But doth she know herself whence she arose?—
The soul of souls from whom all beauty flows!

XIX.

[As in a mirror with familiar eye]

As in a mirror with familiar eye
She sees herself, her universe reflecting
Her own unbroken claim to deity,
The whole from glassy depths on her projecting.
To her the suns are countless atomies;
They take from her their setting and their rising:
She feeds the loadstone that within them lies,
For their momentous cycles all devising,
Teaching their beams the secret touch of fate
To render worlds, else barren, life-infusing;
The seasons, through its charm, to regulate—
Of old traditions new ensamples using.
So in her young, as in her olden spheres,
She audits the events of coming years.

XX.

[Her charm sustains the poet's dynasty]

Her charm sustains the poet's dynasty,
And she appoints its lords of living light:
She summons you—dare you her voice deny?
She pours all summer's glory on your sight!
'Tis noon—what charm is this in sun and skies?
The day's procession halts upon its march
To find its flowers now rich in yellow dyes,
Glittering to dip into the azure arch.
Depict while yet they glow within your soul,
These harvests ripened in the warmth of thought;
The precious gleanings enter on your scroll:
The hour now struck in heaven is earthward brought.
This day remember, born of skies above,
Where all who seek for beauty find it love.

XXI.

[This lily, so unconscious, has the power]

This lily, so unconscious, has the power
To ask our love, not knowing its appeal:
All poetry were centred in a flower
Could we its many meanings read and feel.
It hides such virtue as a maiden vexeth:
She, blushing at your look, had nothing sought;
Yet now a gaze her consciousness perplexeth,
That to her cheek the rich vermilion brought.
Nature herself interprets in the rose
When she absolves such beauty of its cares,
But from a maiden bosom plucks repose,
And not the treacherous blush a moment spares.
So speech begins in silence—Nature's speech—
That poets feel, but reason cannot reach.

XXII.

[A sanctity safeguards that favourite flower]

A sanctity safeguards that favourite flower,
Although it budded, blossomed, but to die,
New summers come, its life is in the bower,
And death itself is immortality.
Yet man when summoned well may ask reprieve:
The conscious spirit loth to abdicate,
Asks what it is in others' lives to live?
Reason to ripen needs a longer date.
The lily in her offspring lives secure,
Puts forth new flowers—the sequence never ceases;
But man would have his consciousness endure:
With widened vision love of life increases.
His work when worthy lasts, although he dies;
But it doth not his soul immortalize.

XXIII.

[Yet art itself is dead if it betray]

Yet art itself is dead if it betray
The poet's presence in his storied theme;
Its task no self-emotion to convey;
With its own feeling, only, left to teem.
A story all reveals that serves to show
What joy must needs be there when smiles preside;
Or be the picture sad, a depth of woe
Must tears betoken over one who died.
This art supreme where Nature is abounds,
'Tis all her own: she utters not a sign
O'er breaking hearts that flatters them or wounds,
When 'gainst us all calamities combine.
No actor's art is hers; he would express
A scene of grief in his own bitterness.

XXIV.

[Yet what pathetic moments she betrays!]

Yet what pathetic moments she betrays!
In earthquake-graves wherein she buries all;
In steep volcanic flames that heavenward blaze,
For lava floods on homes to fiercer fall.
Pleasing herself, who doubts her power to please?
Upon the seas she lifts the new-born isles,
And covers them with wild, fruit-bearing trees;
But at her work 'tis only man who smiles;
She were unseen were all her systems wrecked.
So shall such proud example ever serve
The poet's art in beauty to perfect,
His hand in great designs to guide and nerve.
So shall the scenes he pictures be self-told,
Because his heart seems hid, his bearing cold.

XXV.

[Should she at times seem almost bent on ill]

Should she at times seem almost bent on ill,
Not all her moods to poetry belong,
Her savage passions other ends fulfil;
But these are not the welcome themes of song.
Ideal sympathy in lofty minds
Becomes the essence of divinest verse;
A self-engendered music through it winds,
That sweetest voices only can rehearse.
So feeling deepens fathomless for good,
Scouting such triumphs as of battle-fields,
Reaped by the shedding of another's blood.
Dead be the pompous boasts of swords and shields!
These let dramatic genius bear away;
Well might their terrors comedy array.

XXVI.

[Grand sounds the verse when genius wields the pen]

Grand sounds the verse when genius wields the pen,
And this alone all honour can impart
To wondrous acts of women and of men.
Though charity's firm hand control the heart,
What mixed emotions human breasts befall;
Even love grows harmful with a good intent!
With the same hand she hangs the criminal
And offers him the saving sacrament!
Far lovelier scenes pure poetry rehearses;
As women taintless in the thick of vice:
A theme like this may breathe in loving verses
The evil from the evil to entice.
Yet virtue is no slave—not given to lure
The vile, but its own safety to assure.

XXVII.

[What bitter words the thinker's toil repay!]

What bitter words the thinker's toil repay!
“Fame is but poison to the poet's mind!
Hopes disappointed measure out his day,
The laugh of pity follows close behind.
With unrequited toils there comes the moan,
The vulgar herd resents an aim too high;
And, be it Nature's fault and not your own,
'Tis you who must endure the penalty.”
Yet would you not fulfil your destiny?
On you the poet's part has been imposed:
Shrink not, whate'er the pending ill may be,
If your career in peace be only closed.
'Tis his last thought to whom great gifts are lent,
“Were my devoted days on duty bent?”

XXVIII.

[Save up the seconds of seed-bearing thought]

Save up the seconds of seed-bearing thought:
The soul a hundred-fold its fruit returns.
Each moment's miracle comes ready-wrought,
Whence every man may take the one he earns.
You I have seen upon the mountain height,
When listening to the ocean's softest chime,
Dallying with dreams beyond all common sight,
Whence sprang a sonnet worthy of all time.
Many there are who on the path of fame
May take the brilliant idler by surprise;
One happy thought has made a lasting name;
A single utterance may immortalize.
All this may be again; nay, one charmed line
May live for ever on the scroll divine.

XXIX.

[You say you care not for the people's praise]

You say you care not for the people's praise,
That poetry is its own recompense;
You care not for the wreath, the dusty bays,
Given to the whirling wind and hurried hence.
Yet of all pleasure have you loved the best
To dwell on every line where beauty lies,
And take it to your sympathizing breast;
Or needs the eager world a new surprise,
To show them where to find perfection's flow,
Not of a tuneless sophistry, thought-ridden,
But such as breathed three hundred years ago
In archives safely from the vulgar hidden.
A nation ends, but not its thoughtful page:
Be then your work man's lasting heritage.

XXX.

[O that our homely words could all express]

O that our homely words could all express
Our thoughts as they our inward sight surprise,
Attired like beauty in her sunset dress
Or in the robe of morn at early rise!
This art the obdurate syllable disowns;
The forms by us beheld, no others see:
These lend no tongue; we lose the subtle tones,
Although our verses seek their like to be.
O that some echo could those forms restore
As seen by us in visions luminous!
Then would the world neglect our art no more,
Though what is vivid still seems faint to us.
Things beautiful we can but know by sight:
Ill serve the sweetest words in place of light!

XXXI.

[But little know the myriads of mankind]

But little know the myriads of mankind
What monuments for them their fathers win;
The poet dies as dies the barren mind,
It is in death his deathless days begin.
To him of what avail? But he has willed
His wealth to every dweller on the soil,
That so shall ages drifting by be filled
With lustrous reminiscence of his toil.
Through him man's spirit quits its baser pleasures,
Beholding Nature's world as now his own,
Astonished at his newly-gotten treasures,—
Into his lap the wealth of ages thrown!
None know the loss when poets fruitless die,
Yet is the gap a people's poverty.

XXXII.

[The thousand volumes of poetic lore]

The thousand volumes of poetic lore
By turns have fortunes and misfortunes made;
One day these piles shall meet the eye no more,
And in their own still honoured dust be laid.
Great work leaves only greater to be done.
New goals are straighta-head; then onward press,—
On Nature's open course the gauntlet run;
She basks in glory at a new success.
The poetry of old is built on dream—
A dream of beauty never coming true!—
But Science shadows forth the nobler theme
Of wondrous Nature; be it sung by you!
Science and Nature, waiting hand in hand,
Now on the threshold of the New Day stand.

XXXIII.

[If at this hour you hold the contest dear]

If at this hour you hold the contest dear,
Your work, large-lettered, all the world shall see;
A prouder echo shall your children hear
When yours among the names shall honoured be.
You ask me to what end? You know full well!
Though not for rank and honours, least for pelf,—
A poet can on his own musings dwell—
Can be an auditor unto himself;
Can revel in the exquisite excess
Of Nature's genius-stirring gifts; reciting
Strains that the higher consciousness caress,
That sink into his soul like holy writing.
To him this bringeth more than heart's content:
His verse, by him unheard, were banishment.

XXXIV.

[How you have loved to dive down memory]

How you have loved to dive down memory,
And, with the rhyme you sought, bring up fond traits
Of childhood's happy doings long gone by:
The dear associates of your early days!
From forest pathless and from fretted beach,
Where the waves strive to plant a restful home
That all their long endeavours never reach,—
The rhymes you search for at your bidding come,
Rich in remembrances that intertwine
With new emotions not to childhood known,
That now the early innocence enshrine,
Matured and strangely into manhood grown.
A beauteous art that can young life awake,
And on young thought so long forgotten break!

XXXV.

[A poet born! How quickly one discerns]

A poet born! How quickly one discerns
His birthright—in the voice so rich of tone,
And in the absent mind; his thoughts by turns
Resigned to us, then once more all his own!
None but an equal can a poet scan,
Or say what means his ever-changing mood;
But who shall judge the solitary man
Whose temple hath so many ages stood?
As bold mosquitos swarm our blood to sip,
But only spy the spot where they alight,
So busy ones into his pages dip
Not knowing 'tis a god at whom they bite
They sound their trumpets in all ears, but who
Into their fairy paths his dreams pursue?

XXXVI.

[You gleaned the field of Nature when a child]

You gleaned the field of Nature when a child,
Before your mind could grasp the part she plays:
You dreamt not how to some she seemed defiled
And hard to rescue from her downward ways.
It was through sheer necessity she made
The brutes to prey upon each other's life;
Else had man's birth for ever been delayed,
Wherewith began the day of nobler strife.
Some love the baser instincts and pursue
Their envy, and revenge and bitter hate;
They still within themselves the brute renew,
Not humanized to reach the higher fate.
If in their bestial homes they choose to rot
It grieves, but man's strong place endangers not.

XXXVII.

[Does Nature all her wealth assign to man]

Does Nature all her wealth assign to man,
And in her stead her favourite child instal?
His agency is o'er the world's wide span;
Yet is he but the seeming lord of all.
Strange problems in his feeble head revolving,
He asks—Can he be lord and slave in one?
Not his, but Nature's all his high resolving:
She, mighty ruler, he the lord alone!
Yet he burns forests in their glorious growth,
Of his accord. Does he no protest hear?
Doth she incite the ravage, nothing loth,
And in the devastation have her share?
But she has not our pleasure or our pain;
All man destroys her hand can plant again.

XXXVIII.

[In her eternity she can restore]

In her eternity she can restore
Those forests in an instant of her time:
Yet how must poets all her waste deplore,
Not trained to palliate permitted crime!
Still, judge not Nature in her human phase,
For who shall all her weighty problems solve?
She was made man, who bears the blame and praise:
Thenceforth the baser acts on him devolve.
But never with her faults can poets deal,
Though in her keeping human nature fail:
Enough that her unfelt remorse they feel,
And the dire actions of their race bewail.
All good at last from ill may spring anew,
For nothing unexplained is false or true.

XXXIX.

[When kings, moon-stricken, challenge lesser kings]

When kings, moon-stricken, challenge lesser kings,
And thousands join to get their daily bread,
Together with the glory battle brings—
Whose task is it to shudder o'er the dead?
May souls not go on fighting in the sky?
For mortal hate is rash as well as brave:
A soldier deems it victory to die
If he can only win a statued grave.
But he whose sword has stabbed another's breast
Has gained a star to wear upon his own,
And so his feeble conscience is at rest,
The feud made up—its cause to him unknown.
Be this delusion, who its force can stem?
But, be it Nature's work, who dares condemn?

XL.

[Returns the hero to a sister's arms?]

Returns the hero to a sister's arms?
The one he killed, had he a sister too?—
Returns he to a loving maiden's charms?
Was it as fond a lover that he slew?
Meets he a mother whose full heart relieved
Receives him with a gush of grateful tears?
Is there a mother, too, who sore bereaved
In sorrow droops and life-long mourning wears?
What mystery is this—that laughs and weeps
At one same deed, whereby is one extolled,
Another 'neath a flattened tombstone sleeps,
Their life and death together growing old?
Yet this is the event of scarce a day
To her who planned and lit the Milky Way.

XLI.

[There is a Conscience in the universe]

There is a Conscience in the universe
Whose ghostly moanings drift down Nature's maze,
And hang on crimes no statute can reverse,
Or from old times the recollection raze.
A wandering ghost now in the boding streaks
Of sky that shudders in a wintry wind,
Now whining on its search where murder reeks,
To come and go and leave scared hearts behind.
And still it wanders in its aimless quest
As would a maniac who nothing saw,
But showed the past could not be made to rest,
And with its wrongs all time must over-awe.
No power can ever lay this Ghost of Doom,
Until the universe become a tomb.

XLII.

[Remembered pleasures come not back in vain—]

Remembered pleasures come not back in vain—
Youth learns of Nature all her winsome ways,
With all the bliss she can herself sustain,
To be a dream in store for later days.
What boy soul-primed has clomb to rapture's height,
Though to the world's low level it collapse,
But sees old summits in his darkest night,
When sickness his self-wasted being saps?
Nature begrudges none her festive hour,
Though not the disaffected she invites,
Who lets adversity his spirit sour,
And with that poor return her good requites.
So, as with eyes put out, must souls turn back,
Now o'er their gladsome, now their sorrowing, track.

XLIII.

[Turn not away from hope when unfulfilled]

Turn not away from hope when unfulfilled,
Great is its part in life's long-lasting fight:
Friends are not false because their hearts are chilled,
And woman is an every-day delight.
The early charm when lost can she recover
With passion that but pleasure was before.
The fire is there to welcome back a lover
Who sighs to rest afresh on joys of yore.
Your paradise is one same holy spot
O'er which young poetry its glamour threw:
There never can affection be forgot
That in two infant lives so early grew.
Then let deserted verse renew its chimes,
And summon back the heart-remembered times.

XLIV.

[She who in childhood gave you her caresses]

She who in childhood gave you her caresses,
Met you again the master of a pen
That all the soul of all romance expresses,
And wins you homage of the first of men.
But this, though growth of fortune it secures,
Goes little towards her love—she longs to hear
In poetry, whose newest gifts are yours,
The Morn proclaimed, the New Day drawing near.
She, sibyl-like, your secret genius ponders,
And in her transports borne to worlds afar,
Uplifts her large, reflecting eyes, and wonders,
Expectant of the morning with its star.
Then now, my friend, for love's great sake aspire:
The dawn begins to glow in holy fire!

XLV.

[Remember how your art has raised again]

Remember how your art has raised again
More than the dead: with an uplifted hand
Reviving souls that had in durance lain,
As by the stroke of a magician's wand.
This could you conjure by your potent rhymes,
Wrought to redeem the lost in misery bowed,
When, like a fog, broke all the gloom sublime,
As if were snatched away some burial shroud.
All base ideas are startled into light;
The energies return by struggles wasted;
And olden influence, ridded of its blight,
Has once again of its high purpose tasted.
A captive freed! The mendicant Despair
Decrutched and driven from its hated lair.

XLVI.

[Should the world reach a high humanity]

Should the world reach a high humanity,
Then it would count on verse as holy writ.
New ages, new ideas, have yet to be;
Will they with their affection treasure it?
When every false belief at length shall fail,
Be it in the vacated temples used!
With its exalting power must it prevail
O'er all the writings through the earth diffused.
Repeat it as a vaster book of psalms,
Impress it on the memory of youth:
Its frankincense the sinking soul embalms,
When it embodies new, eternal truth.
When friends you meet exchange it line for line,
That it as Scripture's sweetest texts may shine.

XLVII.

[As if at home the soul were visited]

As if at home the soul were visited
By Nature's choral band, whose music brought
Ideal shapes by her enchantment led
To act in gracious games of fervid thought,—
The poet gazes through firm-closèd sight,
As the exulting forms themselves arrange,
Draped in flower-hues, evolving their own light
In fixed imagination's rapid change.
What words can stay or touch them as they pass,
Or rise to rapture o'er their beauteous mien,
When vanishing like pictures in a glass,
Remembered ever, to be no more seen?
Need I these ravishments to you recall,
Who hold at will a poet's festival?

XLVIII.

[Where Nature is there dwells all beauty too]

Where Nature is there dwells all beauty too:
She will not fail, will not degenerate;
Afresh her blessed seasons burst in view,
Her hanging fruits alone her love relate.
Yet it is sad to see a summer fade,
But when the blossoms leave a woman's face
She in the summer is no more arrayed,
Though lingering charms still leave their dying trace.
Her smiles are like the longings of the grave,
And her eyes seem to tears the next of kin,
Tears left unshed—they cannot beauty save,
But as her heart's companions stay within.
Yet should we sorrow?—springs must have their fall,
And, to itself unknown, peace follows all.

XLIX.

[Death, yet awhile its stagnant spirit keeping]

Death, yet awhile its stagnant spirit keeping,
Is wonderful as in its living prime:
Fond eyes that saw, and still seem only sleeping,
Turned dustward toward the desert track of time;
Fond lips that kissed all beauty on one face,
Bearing their bliss away without mistrust,
Passing life's confine at so slack a pace,
Yet the next stage to be a cloud of dust.
Shall all this beauty, peace-stunned, smile no more?
Its ashes wear not out, as undefiled
Even as the heart-recorded love they bore—
And that same holy dust once looked and smiled!
But Nature holds it safe—the past still is;
An episode in her long day of bliss.

L.

[You see the old die peacefully in slumber]

You see the old die peacefully in slumber,
You see the young, just entering life, decline:
Dear mothers, little children without number,
In lingering sickness waste away and pine,
Till every smile foretells the time for leaving,—
At last so weak it trembles on the breath,
And, given to cheer, adds but a sob to grieving—
And all seems slowly drifting into death.
Yet may you see amid these scenes of weeping
The infant soul and body separate,
When in a child, her eyes with heaven in keeping,
The windows of her startled soul dilate;
And with them watch her spirit on its flight,
When suddenly grows dim its mid-day light.

LI.

[Complete your task, still read Urania's mind]

Complete your task, still read Urania's mind,
You are loved Nature's best biographer;
With what she gives to you endow mankind;
Your worship is, has ever been, of her.
You know how she through every living feature
Prepared for man yet far back in the past;
Looked forth for him, her only fellow-creature,
Who could gaze upward in her face at last.
The world turns toward you with attentive ears,
When you recite the story of your soul:
Show Nature's face as she to you appears,
When she unfolds the rubric of her scroll.
My time may now be short, yours long may be;
But, long or short, give all to poetry.

LII.

[You tell me life is all too rich and brief]

You tell me life is all too rich and brief,
Too various, too delectable a game,
To give to art, entirely or in chief;
And love of Nature quells the thirst for fame.
Ah, how the poet's pastime hastes us on,
How glide the dreams without the wonted sleep!
No sooner they begin than they are gone,
Yet time's full measure fail they not to keep.
Count not the pastime only, but the charm,
The grateful sense of a supreme content:
Ideas beneficent in myriads swarm,
Not heeding whence they came or where they went.
These are the profits that can never cease,
Our banker Heaven, our fortune perfect peace.

LIII.

[But need I in his ear all this repeat]

But need I in his ear all this repeat,
Whose lifted pen is victory's magic wand,
In whom sweet thoughts almost ere summoned meet,
Obedient to the cunning of his hand?
Friend! could the invisible burst into sight,
Thoughts, feelings, though impalpable as air
Ere shaped to fairy figures as you write,
Your touch in flashing symbols would lay bare.
No vulgar verse thus kindles into fire
Whose ardent fountain teems with sparkling spray,
Bright as the scintillations of a pyre
That rises faster than can waters play.
All things come at your will if only sought,
To illume the subtle links of thought to thought.

LIV.

[Who shall complain, when all of generous spirit]

Who shall complain, when all of generous spirit
Must feel that good prevails; let there come forth,
A poet lowly born, they heed his merit,
Whate'er it be; even magnify its worth.
The poor, too, for each other have a care,
The old familiar phrase, the homely song,
The humble cottage pride alike they share,
When round the hearth the manly figures throng.
Then may they well expect a brighter morn,
Who in bold thought by Nature freely given
Would seek to train the poet yet unborn
To moods that have a currency in Heaven.
For Nature from that stronghold takes her source,
And poetry flows widening in her course.

LV.

[And what is poetry but Nature's song]

And what is poetry but Nature's song,
Now loud as in a storm's sublimity,
Now silent where the old-faced fishes throng
Beneath the peerless crystal of the sea?
Ocean, the world's mysterious parasite,
More strange than air with its wing-flashing deep,
What creatures gambol in the watery light;
Yet noiseless all as in the calm of sleep!
The fairy forms above the spray are leaping,
They dive, they onward swim with fins unfurled.
These are her voices; these, her silence keeping,
Appear to move in concert round the world.
Then dolphin shoals proclaim the day as done,
With all the splendours of a setting sun.

LVI.

[The whales at her dictation spout the brine]

The whales at her dictation spout the brine,
Their fountains play o'er all the southern deep:
There ever planning seems she to recline
Amid calm seas that pander to her sleep.
Around, in flocks, her friendly albatross
With mimic wave-gyrations fills the air,
And feathery foam the breezes seem to toss
While tide-like to and fro the birds repair.
This have you seen, and longed for all the rest,
That not man's myriad eyes can ever gauge;
Yet Nature all sustains with hourly zest,
And catalogues her archives on her page.
To her things past still hold a present place,
As if they happened yet before her face.

LVII.

[These thoughts perturbed the tenour of your youth]

These thoughts perturbed the tenour of your youth,
Yet left their charm; impinging on your gaze,
The shadow that encrusts forgotten truth;
For blank the mind is, too, when in amaze
It leaves the coloured world in full career—
Nature, eclipsed by thought oft by the hour,
In fullest majesty to re-appear;
Plenipotentiary of Heaven's Great Power.
Thence what strange myths in man take phantom shape,
That sturdy reason cannot put to rout:
Few from their tangled mesh effect escape,
While sophistry o'er-masters doubt on doubt.
But you are safe who on all truth are bent,
And seek it ever as a sacrament.

LVIII.

['Twas yesterday—to us how long ago!—]

'Twas yesterday—to us how long ago!—
When nations first migrated from the womb:
With them the hills and vales now overflow,
And men the sway o'er all the lands assume.
As she keeps up the time-dividing list,
Recording all who once had come and gone,
Our memory drowns in the impervious mist
When the vast sun, now ancient, early shone.
Those ages, in their day so bright, seem bare,
As not of time; the chambers shut wherein
First thinkers only notched their date on air—
Yet what harmonious order there had been!
Each day on the forthcoming one is graved,
And, self-recorded, is for ever saved.

LIX.

[From Nature's central soul thoughts dart o'er space]

From Nature's central soul thoughts dart o'er space,
Like shooting stars, when she her vision throws
O'er scenes of circling symmetry and grace,
To where the ethereal ocean smoothly flows
'Mid constellations and outlying stars.
There the vast music floods, with her assent,
Attune and harmonize obsequious bars
As rapture for her farthest firmament.
These are her visions: such she hears and sees,
As she in fond inspection all reviews;
And as the music's rush yields willing keys,
Pouring song-rivers down her avenues,
Her sweet imagination calmly holds
Its council while her universe. unfolds.

LX.

[Behold her sun in twilight wandering!]

Behold her sun in twilight wandering!
The glitter floats amid the flurried hills,
When issueth from its blaze the golden spring,
Swollen by the sudden rush of ruby rills.
And, as the crimson runs into the yellow,
Creation's wondrous banner is unfurled,
With all its colours in their ripeness mellow,
As when first blushing at a virgin world.
So ere it sinks her sun commemorates,
By its emblazoned trophy, set on high,
The birth of colour at the golden gates;
Or now 'twere a tradition of the sky.
One flutter and the spectacle is ended,
The hills forsaken, the proud sun descended.

LXI.

[The poet of all time, the one in whom]

The poet of all time, the one in whom
She showed how man might unto god-head reach,
Rose not; but voices issue from his tomb,
And the Divinity of Nature preach.
Even now as 'twere a gospel, still his words
O'er-spread the earth, and shall be at the last
The next in power to his beloved Lord's.
Obeying with his book the trumpet's blast,
He shall to all appear in Paradise,
And his sweet memories of the earth shall bring,
When they who loved him here shall with him rise—
And holy verses from his volume sing.
For never shall be lost through time unbroken
The words that Nature through this man hath spoken.

LXII.

[When you, who draw your colours from the fields]

When you, who draw your colours from the fields,
Give woman's charm the freshness of the flowers,
Borrowing the conscious pencil Nature wields
Steeped in the love that rules this world of ours,
Nature, surprised, might see her image there
Transfigured to an angel's, yet her own,
While to the rhythmic panting of the air
Her bosom's murmur gives its softer tone,
Feeling herself in music's measure breathe—
Her very self, yet woman deified!
What thinks she? Does her fancy see beneath
The image of a poet lover's bride?
Is not her soul with woman's pride elated
To find herself anew in verse created?

LXIII.

[A poet's bride—all Nature's charms in one!]

A poet's bride—all Nature's charms in one!
Her face in its own virgin flame is shining
'Mid splendours such as are not of the sun;
Self-beauty with a soul self-truth divining.
Nature, in her beheld, is passing fair,
For she is woman's love. But roam the plains,
Her beams unclothed, no shadow dancing there,
She but with hidden green the grass-blade stains;
And, though your verse create her there anew,
She listens not, she still shines on estranged;
Yet none the less your verse to her is true,
But now to universal matron changed,
O'er her own work she answers not our voices,
Whereat, as woman made, her heart rejoices.

LXIV.

[How her imposing silence to us speaks]

How her imposing silence to us speaks
Our self-reliance better to enjoin!
Her fiat in himself the poet seeks,
Would he the smallest of her beauties coin.
Not voiceless, she withholds all blame or praise:
A judgment she bestowed on him at birth,
And now he need but follow in her ways,
And in her sure perfection find his worth.
Slow our advance, though eager its pursuit:
Self-judgment in her presence often fails;
Though slow her pace, though not in meaning mute,
Her image for the greater part she veils.
How in mere words can we her likeness trace,
Who but by glimpses look her in the face?

LXV.

[A poet's love transcends the love of all]

A poet's love transcends the love of all;
We listen to the dearest of his themes:
Flame-crested waves of passion from him fall,
Again to set ablaze our sobered dreams.
He raves not; adds not sunlight to the eyes;
They have a softer fire, no blinding glare,
And than a sun are nearer to the skies
When they upon their beams our spirit bear.
New is all beauty, old though be the charm;
No lightning in the flashings of her smiles,
To startle Nature with its false alarm;
But dimpling all the face with fairy isles.
All poetry bereft of love grows pale,
For woman's place is first in Nature's scale.

LXVI.

[Forget the language of the soul's despair]

Forget the language of the soul's despair:
Too much we crave, more than can one achieve;
Yet come we nearer to her year by year,
So long as we within her precincts live.
Her language and her thoughts, together clinging,
Seem by herself, and not by us, entwined,
Whence the sweet bars of verse in memory ringing,
Are as the native scenery of the mind.
So Nature communes with her votaries,
Who, generous beings, settle side by side
To cheer each other, as within them lies;
Whom meaner interests never can divide.
So you, my almost first poetic friend,
Your judgment to my grateful judgment lend.

LXVII.

[Friendship is love's full beauty unalloyed]

Friendship is love's full beauty unalloyed
With passion that may waste in selfishness,
Fed only at the heart and never cloyed;
Such is our friendship, ripened but to bless.
It draws the arrow from the bleeding wound
With cheery look that makes a winter bright;
It saves the hope from falling to the ground,
And turns the restless pillow towards the light.
To be another's in his dearest want,
At struggle with a thousand racking throes,
When all the balm that Heaven itself can grant
Is that which friendship's soothing hand bestows!
How joyful to be joined in such a love,
We two,—may it portend the days above!

LXVIII.

[Where rests religion but in sympathy?]

Where rests religion but in sympathy?
The wider this the greater is our race;
The claims of others never to deny,
The love of others never to efface.
'Tis the strong unit that can millions blend;
The poor and rich through it are near relations;
It is the tie in which all quarrels end,
The bond of kindly peace among the nations.
Strange temples cover earth and wasted lie!
In these had Nature's service been observed;
Had love of all been hallowed poetry,
Man's attributes had better been conserved.
How little such a philtre heeds its charm,
When one kind act can bitter foes disarm!

LXIX.

[Yet shall it not die out! What sympathy]

Yet shall it not die out! What sympathy
Softens the soul when some poor wretch unfed
You look upon with your all-pitying eye,
That many tears o'er many woes hath shed!
Can any grief be other than our own?
When such befalls must others not bewail?
In us for all, is there no common moan,
Lest the dear charity in man should fail?
These are the sentiments for temples made:
No threats, no promises, but love's appeal.
Who would such fellow-sympathy evade,
And let his heart his alien blood congeal?
He who in sympathy with all shall be
Has learned that Heaven's first love was Charity.

LXX.

[Born of the sky, the woods, the open air]

Born of the sky, the woods, the open air
Encompassing Egeria's sacred grot,
Your scenes are laid in Nature's secret lair
Where priests in florid stoles assemble not.
In sonnet you have traversed fairy lands
Beyond the utmost range of him who paints
The tempting face, the ever-praying hands,
The melting landscape, birth-place of the saints.
The sonnet in your hands might hasten back
The dead musicians who absorbed the words
That follow only in the poet's track,
To tangle them in their ecstatic chords.
Yours is the poet's world; then seize the time
And show what riches still lie hid in rhyme.

LXXI.

[Know you a widow's home? an orphanage?]

Know you a widow's home? an orphanage?
A place of shelter for the crippled poor?
Did ever limbless men your care engage
Whom you assisted of your larger store?
Know you the young who are to early die—
At their frail form sinks not your heart within?
Know you the old who paralytic lie
While you the freshness of your life begin?
Know you the great pain-bearers who long carry
A bullet in their breast that does not kill?
And those who in the house of madness tarry,
Beyond the blest relief of human skill?
These have you visited, all these assisted,
In the high ranks of charity enlisted.

LXXII.

[Had you the least of these no succour shown]

Had you the least of these no succour shown,
The destiny you seek and shall embrace,
You could not justly look on as your own;
The generous only gain a poet's place.
The hard of heart, though lofty be their theme,
To them doth Nature deign but little aid;
They never think, entangled in their scheme,
How they the high aspiring art degrade.
A pure, inimitable thought recoils
From narrowing sympathies; its path is closed,
Some meaner mood its bright ascendance foils,
Its flight as if by lowering skies opposed.
You, conscience-free, have chosen the better part,
And swift as thought can through the boundless dart.

LXXIII.

[While Nature in her far-off worlds reposes]

While Nature in her far-off worlds reposes
She is not absent from our lonely sphere;
If in the twinkling stars by night she dozes,
Her eyes are never shut upon us here.
What potency such omnipresence shows!
No vagrant meteor can her watch elude;
No starry remnant down the welkin goes
By her upon its venture unpursued.
How dread her silence in those distant realms,
'Mid riches she throughout all time has hoarded!
Each system, all but her which overwhelms,
In seas ethereal by her ever forded!
We in our graves for centuries shall have lain
Ere prayer can reach her in her far domain.

LXXIV.

[But Nature never sleeps; her rounded eyes]

But Nature never sleeps; her rounded eyes
Are worlds of light the wasteless suns enfolding;
Whoever sleepeth, he as surely dies,
The heirloom of ancestral slumberers holding;
The spectre waiting on the night but shows
How half in shadow dreamy death is doled,
Then darker, tomb-shaped, leaves all to repose,
Old slumbers into one long slumber rolled.
The world's retiring list is daily out,
Names honoured and dishonoured are paraded;
Kings, who in public die, the most devout;
But for a court above, how clad, how jaded!
Even Nature wonders at these new recluses—
So fierce their fights, and now so tame their truces.

LXXV.

[When we have gauged the wealth she has for man]

When we have gauged the wealth she has for man,
It will suffice for reason then to tell,
If it be part of her outstanding plan
Again that he should in her presence dwell.
By fondest argument on us entailed,
We praise her here, but less in scenes remote;
There, where her greatest wonders are unveiled,
Souls may, like ours, to her their days devote.
All man's ideas, the greatest even, how crude!
Yet reasonable thought may well infer,
She who creates need fear no solitude
Where souls are not, who serve and worship her.
To venture on the thought, if reason dare,
Where heaven spreads out must souls be with her there.

LXXVI.

[Willing ourselves throughout all time to serve]

Willing ourselves throughout all time to serve,
No vacancy for us afar we see,
And Nature does not from her purpose swerve:
Her workers need not ever-living be.
She scarce would people her new colonies
With souls transported from an older state,
And out of it maintain her full supplies:
Would she not rather there fresh souls create?
All is inscrutable to such as we!
Man there would fain administer her will;
But things that are not but that are to be,
It is for time, not reason, to fulfil.
Her unbelievers and believers die,
And much alike their bones in durance lie.

LXXVII.

[Have they thought out aright their narrow scope]

Have they thought out aright their narrow scope,
Who simple reason shun and rest content
To give their whole reliance up to hope,
Which freely as a fortune they have spent?
If life that lasts be precious to our kind,
Why do they kill each other in their prime?
Shall they new being at their option find
Who might have lived even here a longer time?
Is it the shepherds or the sheep who care?
Here while by years of dreariness opprest,
For profitless employ they hope elsewhere:
Were not the grave a better place of rest?
For rather would they fight and others slay,
Than spend at home a single weary day.

LXXVIII.

[To think the pleading for immortal joy]

To think the pleading for immortal joy
Should rise from earth where thousands sport with death!
Laws guard us; the defenceless we decoy,—
Begrudged by men their little term of breath.
How blest seem they who near some jungle dwell,
To there the royal tiger lowly lay;
The elephant on its proud march to fell,
The lioness smite while with her cubs at play!
What training comes of this blood-thirsty strife?
To man doth it the better knowledge bring,
The meekness needed in eternal life,
When he would shoot an angel on the wing?
Nature's stern laws no cruelty decreed;
Yet such high game our lofty kindred need!

LXXIX.

[How long will she endure her endless wrongs—]

How long will she endure her endless wrongs—
Are battle-fields to still the world surprise?
Yet may she spare the rich Achaian songs,
The singing islands and their waiting skies.
How long will she to ruined Roma cling,
A slaughter-ground half buried, half asleep?
How long before her growing earthquakes fling
Those orient shores into the ready deep?
To this even newer continents must come,
And only crumbling roofs survive the race.
Yet heaven remains, the wretched sinner's home,
Of hopeful souls the last abiding place.
But Nature loves the world; she here may dwell
Till like the moon it dwindles to a shell.

LXXX.

[The Alps are in this world! Let us adjourn]

The Alps are in this world! Let us adjourn
And ponder there our home as it began;
The earth there ends; it is the mighty bourn
Whose wrecks, ere shaped for use, to ruin ran.
How grander than are steeps of forest tree,
Than rolling pasture with its vagrant streams,
Than vengeful waves upon a cruel sea,
Than all whereon the sun darts burning beams,—
That world whose glacier-gulphs are fathomless,
Awaiting yet a plan! whose peaks impend
And to the socket on our eye-balls press,
Till all in bristling terror seems on end!
Gulphs, cataracts, together lost below;
But feeling staggers, thoughts refuse to flow.

LXXXI.

[All Nature is the poet's hunting ground]

All Nature is the poet's hunting ground,
The idea divine, like air, is wafted by;
No murderous weapon, no obsequious hound:
All as at first betrothed to poetry.
A dove might perch upon the poet's arm,
A fawn might gambol fearless at his feet!
Come, loved gazelle, with eyes as woman's warm,
Come lonely lamb with your heart-touching bleat!
The heaven of old is in this earth concealed;
The angel's trail is easy to retrace!
Where'er the poet turns he sees revealed
The path to some beloved resting-place!
In Nature's wilderness, a voice is crying—
Behold the poet's heaven around us lying!

LXXXII.

[A poet's claim stands first for life eternal]

A poet's claim stands first for life eternal:
Though he live not for ever, he has spent
His days, though dubious, amid pastures vernal,
The like of those above the firmament.
If he be not translated, he has earned
The testimonial by just Nature given,
Which, should the Highest pass o'er unconcerned,
Would qualify him for some other heaven.
Is it not wiser so to end his days,
Though his performance be of no avail,
Than pair with fools in their uncomely ways,
Who at the hope of all salvation rail?
If here he but fulfils a term, his soul
Should do its best to glorify the whole.

LXXXIII.

[Oft do you say in your conversing mood]

Oft do you say in your conversing mood
Religion is embraced in poetry:
Though vast as is the moral both include,
What one affirms the other can deny.
None would in metaphor his prayer array;
When Nature we address comes no such check;
But not to her, the silent one, we pray,—
In her bright presence but ourselves we seek,—
And she inspires, and from her depths of love
Her hand pours fond embalmings down our heart.
She also was made man; in her we move,
Transient our day, but still of hers a part.
On earth she holds her Heaven, and we unload
Our thoughts to her within her blest abode.

LXXXIV.

[Think what a boon is life, however short!]

Think what a boon is life, however short!
To be, though in an hour to but have been;
To know, or to have known, of wonders wrought;
To see the vast existence, or have seen,
As it rolls round in spheres, and deluges
The soul's perceptions! If the day and night
Man saw but once, henceforth 'twere ever his:
The eternal shares he in a ray of light,
The secret he has found, it is his own.
The joyous moment has not been in vain;
The whole to know, and ever to have known,
Where but to see the marvels o'er again.
The unborn through the length of time, how poor,
Left out of all creation ever more!

LXXXV.

[Great is the poet's high terrestrial band]

Great is the poet's high terrestrial band;
Great is the proud divine's vast Pastoral,
By holy men for man's advantage planned
To join in one loud voice a prayer for all.
Their sacred offices are truly great;
But man, how greater, how above all fame!
He lives and dies on Nature's old estate,
And ever to her membership has claim.
Had Heaven cessation, think what she has been!
Had Nature pause, and unrenewed her lease,
Her worlds dismissed and no more to be seen,—
Had time with sudden jar felt all must cease,
How greater were it, though no more to be,—
Than had it been a blank eternity!

LXXXVI.

[O, let us sail to where the oceans lead]

O, let us sail to where the oceans lead,
Where man has later growth in regions lone!
The time is brief, so yonder let us speed,
To greet the tropic or the frozen zone.
Age creeps upon us, day is vanishing,
The sun out yonder has a warmer beam;
There a last song to Nature let us sing,
Though drawn no closer to our early dream.
But Nature there in loveliness shines out;
There earth by heaven is daily visited,
Its own sweet nuptial flowers it spreads about,
As if to Heaven for each gay season wed.
There let us go if thence unto the pole;
A change is needed by the weary soul!

LXXXVII.

[The birds there sit like fruits upon the tree]

The birds there sit like fruits upon the tree;
Boughs bloom with many-coloured butterflies;
These cleave the sunbeams as they zigzag flee,
While, where they rest, seem flowering shrubs to rise.
The river blossoms, flooded for repose,
As if its noontide impetus were spent;
The saddened soul it soothes not as it flows,
For beauty in excess breeds discontent.
To think how time glides by, and all devours!
While yet the gorgeous tints seem fading not,
It only stronger marks the change that lowers!
A broken heart at last must be our lot.
The frozen lands lie yonder—let us go,
The icebergs summon us to realms of snow.

LXXXVIII.

[There summer has its setting like the sun]

There summer has its setting like the sun,
Autumnal tints and azure skies contrasting;
The carnival of colours has begun,
Borne down unchanged through ages everlasting.
The forest leaves, pale, sallow, up to golden;
Empurpled, crimsoned, ripened unto red;
The festival as known to epochs olden,
Kept up till every bough its leaves has shed.
Then is the forest like a columned tomb,
A skeleton cathedral with its aisles,
Its archway stretched along the stately gloom;
No sound, no motion down the distant miles.
There Nature hides, with seeming ostentation,
Her worthless dead in their own desolation.

LXXXIX.

[Yet can these marvels only captivate]

Yet can these marvels only captivate,
Not wean the soul; let us to deserts drear,
Where scathing sand-storm better may abate
A love that holds a lovely world too dear.
Let us seek Nature where her cataracts foam,
The hills and forests echoing to their thunder;
Where barren steppes refuse to all a home,
Save beasts that tear each other's limbs asunder,—
Danger at every pace, but death in flight,—
A wilderness of serpents doom-bequeathing,
Where hunters, eager for an equal fight,
Within the reptile's spiral coil are writhing.
Yet, soon with awe the old affection blending,
The fascination still is love unending.

XC.

[Then seek we Nature 'neath the polar star.]

Then seek we Nature 'neath the polar star.
Love trembles there, but not in her embrace;
Yet there, despite the ever ice-bound bar,
Are love divine and human face to face.
There may we feel why timid night has fled,
Why the imprisoned waters turn to stone.
No life, for death to follow in its stead;
The sunbeams freezing up the fountain's lone.
Yet Nature calls; above sublimest heights
She radiates flame, heaven's azure under-arching;
Her rosy, green, and golden northern lights
That signal her as o'er the ice-lands marching.
So our love warms upon her frozen rivers;
Our heart for her on every frontier quivers.

XCI.

[How can we die? And what memorial]

How can we die? And what memorial
Have we to leave of our brief sojourn here?
Shipwreck might well our wandering souls befall;
To us the ocean has been ever dear.
Or shall we clamber to the Andes' height,
Take one fond view, and, gazing from the steep,
With vastest heaven and every star in sight,
Within the hallowed presence fall asleep.
Select for us a fitting burial spot,
That we within her reach may ever rest,
And never by our country be forgot!
Unclose our eyes, and with them heavenward bent,
The world we love shall be our monument.

XCII.

[Shall we still wander? Nature everywhere]

Shall we still wander? Nature everywhere
Shows us some secret beauty: not a nook
Know we but that her love receives us there;
Yet as the years haste on we seem forsook.
Must love not mutual be? must then a tear
Shed for its sake no other eyelid fill?
But not so is it in her presence here,—
Affection's tear is solitary still.
The heart is sorely wrung in coming age,
Promoted not, the same as when begun.
So must it be unto the ending stage;
The sand to its last glint well-nigh has run.
We thither tend; fast comes the day of rest:
All is ordained; what is, is for the best.

XCIII.

[Could we once choose, 'twere at some distant time]

Could we once choose, 'twere at some distant time
To look at Nature from our world again;
To see our birthplace in the pleasant clime,
Perhaps to know we did not live in vain!
How dear to gaze toward Heaven with tearful eyes,
Death-darkness up to then our grave pervading,
And bathe our vision in the liquid skies;
To meet the dauntless sun their ether wading!
How blest would fall so brief a holiday,
Could this but be to break our term unending!
To find the soul not subject to decay;
Perhaps to dream in death it was ascending!
Be the once dead permitted to aspire,
Record, O Nature! this, our last desire!