Life and Phantasy :: :: University of Virginia Library

“These walls of green, my guarded Queen!
A labyrinth of shade and sheen,
Bar out the world a thousand miles,
Helping the pathway's winding wiles
To pose you to the end. Now think,

What thanks might one deserve for this—
Which lately was a swamp, and is
An elfin lake, its curving brink
Embost with rhododendron bloom,
Azaleas, lilies, jewelries,
(Ruby and amethyst grow like these
Under our feet) on fire to dress,
Round every little glassy bay,
The sloping turf with gorgeousness?
As right, we look our best to-day;
No petal dropt, no speck of gloom.

Emmeline, this faery lake
Rose to its margins for your sake;
As yet without a name, it sues
Your best invention; think and choose.
Its flood is gather'd on the fells,
(Whose foldings you and I shall trace)
Hid in many a hollow place;
But through Himalayan dells,
Where the silvery pinnacles
Hanging faint in furthest heaven
Catch the flames of morn and even,
Round their lowest rampart swells
The surge of rhododendron flow'rs,
Indian ancestry of ours:
And the tropic woods luxuriantly
By Oronooko's river-sea
Nurtured the germs of this and this;
And there's a blossom first was seen
In dragon-vase of white and green
By the sweetheart of a mandarin,
Winking her little eyes for bliss.

Look, how these merry insects go
In rippling meshes to and fro,
Waltzing over the liquid glass,
Dropping their shadows to cross and travel
Like ghosts, on the pavement of sunny gravel.

Maybe to music, whose thrills outpass
Our finest ear,—yes, even yours,
Whom the mystery of sound allures
From star to star. In this gulf beyond,
Silent people of the pond
Slip from noonday glare, to win
Their crystal twilights far within.
See the creatures glance and hide,
Turn, and waver, and glimmer, and glide,
Jerk away, ascend, and poise,
Come and vanish without noise,
Mope, with mouth of drowsy drinking,
Waving fins and eyes unwinking,
Flirt a tail, and shoot below.
How little of their life we know!
Or these birds' life that twittering dart
To the shrubbery's woven heart.
Which is happier, bird or fish?
Have they memory, hope, and wish?
Various temper? perverse will—
That secret source of boundless ill?
Why should not human creatures run
A careless course through shadow and sun?
Ah, Love, that may never be!
We are of a different birth,
Of deeper sphere than the fishes' home,
Higher than bird's wings may roam,
Greater than ocean, air, and earth.