University of Virginia Library

What thinkest thou of the days of yore,
Maiden, whose starlit eyes between
The silken meshes of thy wandering curls
Look upwards, like sweet dew-besprinkled flowers
Deep in cool shadows of the long dark ferns?
Is thine a backward-gazing heart, that yearns
For the golden days, and the night of pearls,
And the wonder-crested hours,
That the men of other times have seen,
Ere the Earth was old and hoar?

She looked up through her waving hair
With a gaze of earnest love
To the pearly stars above,
And she shook the curls from her bosom bare,
And clasp'd her hands, and faintly said:
“O, to have lived when the earth was young!
When sorrow's plaintive harp was yet unstrung—
When the sun sprang eagerly every morn
From his nest i' the shadowy trees—
And the wild unfathom'd seas
Danced lightly round the blessed moon
When she rose at night upon the verge
Of the far-off surge,
And her fleet smile—not sad as now, and lorn,
But sweet as is the first dew-dropping kiss
Of two young artless roses, newly wed,
And making all the summer's noon
One long caress—
Went sliding smoothly o'er the onward waves,
Waking a dimpled laugh upon the lip
Of every rosy ripple on the deep,
Or in the branching caves,
Where shells, like flowers, in the waters dip,
And wily mermaids sleep!”
O then
One circling smile lived on the sun's clear face;
And all his glances bright
Flow'd into one wide look of light:
But as it glided down to earth,
Merrily twinkling,
The lovesome airs that near it had their birth
Came dancing all around
With ever-changing sound,
And in their mazy madness clove
The breadth descending from above,—
Breaking the long continuous stream
Of that full beam,
And as a shatter'd mirror sprinkling
The innumerous fragments—little wandering smiles—
Like starry crystals fair, across all space:
Over the mountains, and over the floods—
Over the marshes and over the woods—
Skimming abreast o' the coral-isles—
Fringing all the bubbling billows—
Peeping thro' the silver willows—
Dotting as with beads of gold
All the little lisping leaves
In the dingle, on the wold—
Steeping all the purple eves
In shiny seas of honey'd light—
Dropping tender ruby tips
Of sheen upon the pouting lips
Of every blossom, every shell,
And every dancing flower-bell—
Sowing tiny seedling-stars
And diamond-tinted spangles
On jutting frets and rugged angles
Of all crystal cavern spars—
Wreathing in bright festoons the gnarled rafters
Under their trellis-roofs of forest-green—
And oft with passing glitter scarcely seen
Darting like meteors over liquid orbs
And glowing bulbs of dew upon the feather'd sward,
And in frail webs of linked laughters
Weaving around the buoyant earth
A playful network of fantastic mirth—
Till jealous night absorbs
All merry moods that erst more loving hours afford.
I would be ever bathed in tears,
And live a lonely nun for years,
To kiss
The faded earth again to that old loveliness;
For it was then, when youngest Time
Slept on the calm knees of Eternity,
Uncursed with sorrow, unsear'd with crime,
That keenest witchery
Thrill'd thro' the glistening eye
Of every baby-star
That slept away
The glaring day
And from afar,
When russet morn stole o'er the sober sky,
More faintly twinkled, more feebly smiled,
Like a drowsy child
Deep in the down of her cradle of ether,
Humming and droning a low sweet song—
An airy lullaby,
Half sound, half silence, herald of repose—
Or, waked at evening, rose
And threaded the deeps of infinity,
With an angel above, and an angel beneath her,
Guiding her heedless steps along
The circled walks of the flowery sky;
Or with her sisters play'd—
Like winged glowworms fluttering through the shade
In western isles—
Hiding and seeking among the crowds
Of the windy cluster'd clouds,—
Stealthily peeping
And timidly creeping
Over the edges and out at the chinks,
Or, with little wanton winks,
Sparkling a moment in some deep clear break,
That bares the blue profound—
Like a sunny isle in a purple lake
With misty mountains bound!’