 | The collected poems of William Ellery Channing the younger, 1817-1901 |  |
ROSALBA
With thee, fathomless Ocean, that dear child
I link—a summer child, flower of the world,
Rosalba! for, like thee, she has no bound
Or limit to her beauty; Venus-zoned,
She rather, like thy billows, bends with grace.
Nor deem the Grecian fable all a myth,
That Aphrodite from a shell appeared,
Soft spanned upon the wave; for o'er thy heart,
Unheeding stranger! thus Rosalba falls,
And by one entrance on thy privacy
Unrolls the mysteries and gives them tongue.
I link—a summer child, flower of the world,
Rosalba! for, like thee, she has no bound
Or limit to her beauty; Venus-zoned,
She rather, like thy billows, bends with grace.
Nor deem the Grecian fable all a myth,
That Aphrodite from a shell appeared,
Soft spanned upon the wave; for o'er thy heart,
Unheeding stranger! thus Rosalba falls,
And by one entrance on thy privacy
Unrolls the mysteries and gives them tongue.
Child of the poet's thought! if ever God
Made any creature that could thee surpass,—
The lightest sunset cloud that purpling swims
Across the zenith's lake,—the foam of seas,—
The roses when they paint the green sand-wastes
Of our remotest Cape,—or the hour near dawn,—
I cannot fathom it; nor how thou art made:
How these attempered elements in the mass
Run to confusion and exhale in fault,—
Begetting monstrous passions and dark thoughts,
Or slow contriving malice, or cold spite,
Or leagues of dulness, self-persuaded rare,—
But rise in thee like the vast Ocean's grace,
Ne'er to be bounded by my heart or hope,
Yet ever decorous, modest, and complete.
Made any creature that could thee surpass,—
The lightest sunset cloud that purpling swims
Across the zenith's lake,—the foam of seas,—
The roses when they paint the green sand-wastes
1000
I cannot fathom it; nor how thou art made:
How these attempered elements in the mass
Run to confusion and exhale in fault,—
Begetting monstrous passions and dark thoughts,
Or slow contriving malice, or cold spite,
Or leagues of dulness, self-persuaded rare,—
But rise in thee like the vast Ocean's grace,
Ne'er to be bounded by my heart or hope,
Yet ever decorous, modest, and complete.
Rose on her cheeks, are roses in her heart,
And softer on the earth her footstep falls
Than earliest twilight airs across the wave;
While in her heart the unfathomed sea of love
Its never-ceasing tide pours onward.
And softer on the earth her footstep falls
Than earliest twilight airs across the wave;
While in her heart the unfathomed sea of love
Its never-ceasing tide pours onward.
| The collected poems of William Ellery Channing the younger, 1817-1901 | |