 | Poems |  |
131
ODE.
NATURES SUPREMACY!
Give me the wild note still, that springsWhen o'er the harp the minstrel flings
His gifted hand, and tries his power
In inspiration's mighty hour!
Awakening, from th' unconscious chords,
Wild notes that mock the power of words!
In careless untaught circles winding,
The soul's most hidden feelings finding,
Before the lay of cunning art,
Which charms the ear, but leaves the heart,
Give me the stream meandering on,
O'er many a bed of sedge and stone;
Here brawling loud—now whispering there,
But still depriving us of care;
Before the dull, the staid canal
That moves without a rise or fall.
132
Whose heart is like the linnet's wing,
Once caught and sooth'd with silken sway,
She'd charm the live-long hours away;
So wild, so simple is the dear,
She's heaven's own inmate wandered here.
My young wild thing! my young wild thing!
Thy heart is like the linnet's wing:
But, ah! once snar'd, my love, by me,
So bless'd thy humble home should be,
Thou ne'er shouldst sigh, love, to be free:
Pure Nature how thou wak'st our sighs,
Thou first best blessing of the skies!
All that belongs, lov'd power, to thee,
Is dear, heaven knows how dear, to me!
The flower, that in the desert blows,
The grape, that glad in nature grows,
Anacreonting all our fields,
A charm, more cool, more blessed, yields,
To longing eyes and burning lip,
That faint to gaze and die to sip,
Than can precocious fruit and flower,
Rais'd by the hot-bed's ripening power!
133
With Nature's speech, and Nature's feature,
Is dearer than the polish'd fair,
That blooms in cultivated air.
Her simple song of artless grace,
Far more delights the heart to trace,
Than all the scientific strains
Of classic Arno's maids and swains.
Her careless, playful, artless gait,
Her step so light, yet so elate,
More fascination has for me
Than walk of solemn dignity;
Or all the dancer's artful mazes,
Which but surprise the eye that gazes.
Pure love from Nature still has birth;
Nature's from Heaven—Art springs from Earth!
| Poems | |