University of Virginia Library

GENTLE DOVES!

Gentle Doves, how soft your moan!—
Sadness swells in rich sweet tone—
Oh! to interpret ev'ry sound—
That seems to imply an inward wound;
And oh! to know what means that note
Ye seem thus to repeat by rote—
'Tis but the depth of your delight
Haply that doth thus unite
Your music-moan with Grief's faint style
(Our human sufferings to beguile!)—
The sweet, sweet music consecrate
To woes and miseries of dark fate
By our sorrowing hearts may prove
To ye but lays of Joy and Love!—
Still all that's beautiful is known
To ye as beautiful alone!—
But, oh! how many glorious things
For us are linked with Grief's sharp stings:
Half—half Earth's loveliest wealth is lost
To us; whom Sorrow shadoweth most!—
She takes too much for her own share
Of all that's bright in Earth and Air!—
Too much to her young Joy transfers—
Half of the beautiful is hers—
Oh! far too much—as well they know
Who e'er felt—(who hath not felt?)—woe!
The twilight's soft and tenderest hour—
When fleeting dreams and dews have power;
The moonlight-sea in its repose—
Which momently more beauteous grows;
The autumnal glories of the grove—
When the year's pomp is on the move
(Yet never more sublime to see
Than in that fall of Empiry!—)
The silent gathering of the storm—
O'erhanging Earth, like some vague form,
Indistinct and shadowy all—
Upbuilding darkness like a wall—
The silence of the starry sky—
In holy Night's regality;
The perfect beauty without breath
Of a young child's face in death—
Still these things, these things Sorrow claims—
She calls them by pathetic names—
She takes them ever for her own
As her's they are for ever known—
And yet how many more beside
In this august Creation wide
Silvery sounds and shadowy sights—
Fleeting visions—floating lights;
Dreamy presences and powers—
Mighty changes—mystic hours—
Oh! far more than I can say,
Sorrow's rule and reign obey—
For Joy hath given them up to her,
And so she makes them minister
To her most sad needs evermore,
Until the wave sleeps on the shore—
(The calm wave of the moonlight sea,
Transparent in tranquillity—)
Like to a dying thing, whose death
E'en makes us, saddening, hold our breath—
Till the loosened leaves that know—
The autumnal, hectic, Hesperus-glow,
Seem to us, with sighs and moans,
To mimic faint the mortal groans—
Of expiring creatures, fain
To live, and languishing in pain—
Until the starry silent sky,
In its empyreal majesty—
Seems to us almost to mourn
For Worlds from its embraces torn—
Worlds that perished and that past,
Mighty—yet not made to last;
Worlds extinguished and decayed—
Which the awful debt have paid;
Until a fair child's face in death,
That hath just resigned its breath,
Is to us a gloomy sight,
Though lovelier than the orbs of light,
That crowd the bright Heaven's beaming space,
Running their immortal race;
Lovelier than those orbs by far,
More beautiful than sun or star—
Fair as the soul of heavenly birth—
That but just had dawned on earth—
Snatched to that Heaven full swiftly back,
Ere in the dull, vile, beaten track—
It had long enough remained
To be either dimmed or stained,
Fresh from Heaven—and swiftly sped—
Ere by contact, dark and dread,
With the things of earth 'twas soiled—
Unpolluted, undespoiled,
Back to its bright home again,
Free from any spot or stain!
From Heaven it came—to Heaven 'twas caught,
Ere it lost the light it brought!—
Oh! Sorrow, Sorrow, thou dost steal,
Howe'er that theft thou mayst conceal,
Many a lovely thing from Joy—
In thy stern service to employ.
But theft can ne'er be thrift, and so
These fair things, shadowed o'er by woe—
Thus saddening, saddening us the more,
To the bosom's—being's core,
Only make us pant to escape
From the threatening, frowning Shape!—
Make us long, with earnest mind—
Joy and Peace once more to find—
Which these stolen treasures bring
Back to thought, to pierce and wring
With yearnings passionate and deep—
While beneath thy sway we weep!—
Only make us pant and sigh,
More fondly and most fervently,
From that sway to move once free—
And taste the true felicity!—
So much do these most lovely things
(While each a mighty message brings—
To us still—whose heavenly hints—
Deep Feeling on the memory prints!)
Paint to us what bliss must be,
Reminding us incessantly—
Thus of the blessedness of joy—
Which gloomy Sorrow doth destroy.
Thus thy thefts, oh! Sorrow, vain
Still shall be to fix thy reign—
On firm foundations in our hearts,
Whence almost e'en the life departs
In lingering, lengthening languishments—
(In sighs and moans still seeking vents—)
Sickening with the yearning fond,
To grasp the visioned bliss beyond
Aye! thus almost the life departs—
Fainting in our fervent hearts—
With the intense o'erwrought extreme—
Of its deep despairing dream,
Glimpsing e'en through Sorrow's veil,—
Hearing e'en through Sorrow's tale—
Something that would be delight,
Did not she enforce her right,
And win them from their wonted way,
Draw them from their aim astray,
And stamp on them her shadowy seal,
And from Joy, insidious steal!—
But theft shall not be thrift—and thus
Those stolen treasures shall to us
Ever, hints delicious bring
Of some glad and blessed thing—
Which, when Sorrow's sway is o'er,
May be our own for evermore!
Gentle doves—your music-moan
Makes me dream of bliss unknown,
E'en the while that I complain,
Beneath the present power of pain!