 | My Mind and its Thoughts, in Sketches, Fragments, and Essays |  |
LINES,
TO THOSE WHO HAVE SAID “YOU ARE TRANQUIL.”
If calm the forehead's silent air,
As peace with folded wing were there;
Nor tear betray the electric pain,
Which rushes on the trembling brain:
Nor does the speaking sigh impart
What dies within the closing heart;
As firm the unfaultering voice may seem,
And clear the cold eye's transient gleam:
Yet has the secret sufferer known
To dwell on hope forever flown.
And that cold eye been wont to weep,
While memory rose—to murder sleep.
Even thus the rainbow's arch of flame,
In token of deliverance came!
Though garb'd in nature's tranquil form,
Its home the cloud, its birth the storm;
While bruised, the drooping groves declare,
How hard the thunder's bolt struck there.
As peace with folded wing were there;
Nor tear betray the electric pain,
Which rushes on the trembling brain:
Nor does the speaking sigh impart
What dies within the closing heart;
As firm the unfaultering voice may seem,
And clear the cold eye's transient gleam:
Yet has the secret sufferer known
To dwell on hope forever flown.
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While memory rose—to murder sleep.
Even thus the rainbow's arch of flame,
In token of deliverance came!
Though garb'd in nature's tranquil form,
Its home the cloud, its birth the storm;
While bruised, the drooping groves declare,
How hard the thunder's bolt struck there.
Could glance, or moan, or murmur, show
That selfish, solitary woe,
To one unwandering thought confined
A hermit on the desert mind,
A wreck, from life's full ocean toss'd,
In the hard storm of anguish lost,
Yet to the careless world appears,
Nor breathed in sighs, nor drown'd in tears:
Thus o'er the mansion—home of death,
The chapel curves the polish'd dome,
Where music pours his angel breath,
And beauty brings her mortal bloom,
With mingling praise, and melting prayer,
As heaven and earth were meeting there.
Mindless of RUIN'S rapid power,
Heed they, that near sepulchral gloom?
Where late his sceptred arm was laid
On glory's wreath and beauty's flower,
Causing their blended tints to fade,
In the long winter of the tomb,
Heed they, in youth's beginning year,
The threatening blast, cold-hovering near?
Heed they mid life's meridian glow
How fast the falling shadows flow,
Which evening's sullen hours bestow?
If sunk the earth's vain hope appear,
Again its ray may dawn, and rise
Smiles mingle with the grieving tear,
But cherish'd sorrow never dies.
That selfish, solitary woe,
To one unwandering thought confined
A hermit on the desert mind,
A wreck, from life's full ocean toss'd,
In the hard storm of anguish lost,
Yet to the careless world appears,
Nor breathed in sighs, nor drown'd in tears:
Thus o'er the mansion—home of death,
The chapel curves the polish'd dome,
Where music pours his angel breath,
And beauty brings her mortal bloom,
With mingling praise, and melting prayer,
As heaven and earth were meeting there.
Mindless of RUIN'S rapid power,
Heed they, that near sepulchral gloom?
Where late his sceptred arm was laid
On glory's wreath and beauty's flower,
Causing their blended tints to fade,
In the long winter of the tomb,
Heed they, in youth's beginning year,
The threatening blast, cold-hovering near?
Heed they mid life's meridian glow
How fast the falling shadows flow,
Which evening's sullen hours bestow?
If sunk the earth's vain hope appear,
Again its ray may dawn, and rise
Smiles mingle with the grieving tear,
But cherish'd sorrow never dies.
| My Mind and its Thoughts, in Sketches, Fragments, and Essays | |