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127

PIECES IN BLANK VERSE AND HEROIC MEASURE.

MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS, (1830.)

'Tis just the moment when time hangs in doubt
Between the parting and the coming day:
The deep clock tolleth twelve: and its full tide
Of swelling sound pours out upon the wind:
The bright cold stars are glittering from the sky,
And one of large light, fairer than the rest,
Looks through yon screen of leaf-deserted limes.
Not undelightful are the trains of thought
That usher in my midnights. Thou art there
Whom my soul loveth; in that calm still hour
Thy image floats before mine inward eye,
Placid as is the season, wrapt in sleep,
And heaving gently with unconscious breath;
While thy bright guardian watches at thy head,
Unseen of mortal, through the nightly hours,
Active against intrusion on thy mind
Of aught unholy: careful to preserve
The sanctuary of thy spirit swept and pure
For early worship when thine eyelids wake.
Sleep softly, and wake softly! may thy dreams
Be all of Heaven, as mine are all of Thee.
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WRITTEN JANUARY 1, 1832.

The year is born to-day—methinks it hath
A chilly time of it; for down the sky
The flaky frost-cloud stretches, and the Sun
Lifted his large light from the Eastern plains.
With gloomy mist-enfolded countenance,
And garments rolled in blood. Under the haze
Along the face of the waters, gather fast
Sharp spikes of the fresh ice; as if the year
That died last night, had dropt down suddenly
In his full strength of genial government,
Prisoning the sharp breath of the Northern winds;
Who now burst forth and revel unrestrained
Over the new king's months of infancy.
The bells rung merrily when the old year died;
He past away in music; his death-sleep
Closed on him like the slumber of a child
When a sweet hymn in a sweet voice above him
Takes up into its sound his gentle being.
And we will raise to him two monuments;
One where he died, and one where he lies buried;
One in the pealing of those midnight bells,
Their swell and fall, and varied interchange,
The tones that come again upon the spirit
In years far off, mid unshaped accidents;—
And one in the deep quiet of the soul,
The mingled memories of a thousand moods
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Of joy and sorrow;—and his epitaph
Shall be upon him;—“Here lie the remains
Of one, who was less valued while he lived,
Than thought on when he died.”

WRITTEN IN AN ARTIFICIAL PLEASURE-GROUND, (1834.)

'Tis pretty, doubtless: water, grass, and trees,
The man who hath a heart must always please:
The morning glories from yon steaming lake
A thousand colours into being wake;
The naked sunlight of the summer day
Is veiled by boughs that overarch the way;
And moonlight sweetly in her silver flood
Bathes the long reaches of the lawn and wood.
But ever comes upon the sated breast
A sense of incompleteness and unrest,
A loathing of the fretfulness of men,
And yearning for Earth's natural face again.
Thus when surprised our family circle bend
Over some token sent us by a friend,
Admire the traces of his happy art,
Turn every side, and criticise each part,—
Emblazoned in the tradesman's mystic lines
Lo at the back a three-and-sixpence shines!
130

PALINODE TO THE FOREGOING.

Thus sung I in these grounds erewhile, perchance
Tempted by sudden aptitude of words
Into that measure which least pleaseth me,
Sacred to Satire and unquiet thought.
Forgive me, shades; forgive me, thou calm lake
Of spreading water, quietly asleep
Between thy fringing woods: Man is not less
Than Nature holy; and these records fair
Of striving after likeness to the forms
Of natural beauty may not be despised
By man, as them imperfect; rather stored
Within the patient spirit, if perhaps
The slow-learnt lesson of obeying God
By them be furthered; and the complete soul
Pass from the fretful crowd of hopes and fears
Into her silent oratory, where,
With calm submission and unshaken trust,
She may lay out herself to imitate
All forms of beauty spiritual, and make
A pleasure-ground within, for angels fit,
And Him whose voice was heard among the trees,
Walking in Eden in the cool of the day.

AMPTON, SUFFOLK, (1833.)

There is a wood, not far from where I pass
My unrecorded hours in pleasant toil;—
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Each tangle of the spreading boughs I know
And where each bird doth nestle; every poc
That makes a mirror for the quivering leaves;
The days are past when I could wander on
And lose myself, expecting at each turn
New pillared avenues of stately trees,
And glimpses of far waters.
Even thus
With all the joy and beauty of this Earth
Become familiar things; wonder shall yield
To cold arrangement; and the voices deep
Of the great Kings of Song shall cease to stir
Mine inner fount of tears. The power of God
Shall not be thereby shortened in my soul,
But in my weakness rather perfect made,
In the sure progress of untroubled Love
That heals the fevered heart; as in the morn
Upon the fading of the partial stars
Wins the calm Daylight, over all diffused.

WRITTEN IN A COPY OF “THE REVOLT OF ISLAM.”

[_]

GIVEN AS A WEDDING-PRESENT TO HER WHO IS ADDRESSED IN THE FOLLOWING LINES, BUT ORIGINALLY GIVEN TO MYSELF BY THE LAMENTED ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM.

Beloved, to whose wedded hand I trust
This treasure of sweet song, it is but meet
That thou shouldst know its value; that the gift
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May have its honour, and the giver share
His meed of grateful love.
No common price
Attends this wedding-gift; for blessed eyes
Have looked upon its pages; eyes whose light
Gladdened a circle of united hearts,
While yet they shone; and now that they are quenched
In the cold grave, they dwell upon our souls,
A memory that can never die, a power
That may not pass away. 'Twas not thy lot
To know and love him: let it be enough
That oft his lips pronounced thy name with love,
As one he fain would know, in happy days
Of youthful confidence and sacred joy.
He lived in love; and God, whose son he was,
Not willing that the spirit pure should pass
Into the dim and damping atmosphere
Of these our earthly haunts and scenes of care,
While yet the hills and skies and common sights
O'erflowed his soul with joy, and wondrous thoughts
Sprung burning in his heart, fetched him away
To the unwithering banks and deep-green glades
Where flows the River of Eternal Truth.
Be then by thee this gift as precious held
As is his memory by the giver; look
On every page with inly fervent heart;
Learn lessons of pure beauty, and to shun
Only the errors of the poet's creed,
Yielding free duty to his code of love.
133

LINES WRITTEN OCTOBER 23, 1836,

A FEW HOURS AFTER THE BIRTH OF MY FIRST CHILD.

Beautiful babe, I gaze upon thy face
That bears no trace of earth: thy silk-soft cheek
Gladdens me even to tears, and thy full eyes
Blue as the midnight heaven;—what thoughts are they
That flit across thy being, now faint smiles
Awakening, now thy tiny fairy fingers
Weaving in restless play? above thee bends
An eye that drinks sweet pleasure from thine own,
A face of meaning wonderful and deep,
A form in every member full of love.
Once thou wert hidden in her painful side,
A boon unknown, a mystery and a fear;
Strange pangs she bore for thee; but He, whose name
Is everlasting Love, hath healed her pain,
And paid her suffering hours with living joy.
Thou gentle creature, now thine eyes are hid
In soft Elysian sleep: a holy calm
Hath settled on thee, and thy little hands
Are folded on thy breast. Thus could I look
For ever on thee, babe, with yearning heart
And strange unwonted pleasure.
And thou too,
Sweet mother, hast been dallying with sleep
Till thou hast yielded; and I sit alone,
Alone, as if by Providence divine,
To watch in spirit, and in peaceful verse
To speak my thankfulness and purest joy.
—Some, with the gift of song, have prophesied
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High duties for their offspring: and the words,
Fresh from the parent heart, have wrought a charm
Upon their childhood and their growing youth;
And life hath taken colour from their love.
—And thou, my little Alice, now so frail,
So new to the new world, in after-years
Shalt feel the wondrous tide of poesy
Rise in thy swelling breast; the happy earth,
And every living thing;—spring with its leaves,
And summer clad in flowers, and autumn flush
With ripe abundance, and the winter frost,
Shall lay the deep foundations of thy soul
In peace and purity. Thence thou shalt love
The tale of strange adventure;—watch the dance
Of moonlit fairies on the crisping grass,—
And nurse thy little joys unchecked and free
With rhymes antique and laughter-loving sports,
With wanton gambols in the sunny air,
And in the freshening bath of rocky streams.
But God hath knowledge of the years between:
Fair be thy lot, my first and early born;
The pledge and solace of our life-long love.

CHRISTMAS EVE, 1836.

The stars are clear and frosty, and the Earth
Is laid in her first sleep, secure and calm;
The glorious works of God, as at the first,
Are very good. It is the blessed night
When, if the say of ancient chronicles
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Deceive not, no ill spirit walks abroad;
A night for holy prayers and fancies pure;
A night when solitude in bed and board
Might frame itself celestial company
Out of its peopled thoughts.
But here with me
Are two, on whom toil and the quiet time
Have wrought sweet slumber; and by breathings soft
They testify their presence to my heart,
And waken kindly thoughts.
My earliest loved,—
Thou who, in laughing childhood and ripe youth,
Wast ever mine; with whose advancing thought
I grew entwined,—and who, in time, didst yield
Thy maiden coyness, and in mystic band
Didst link thyself to me:—one heart, one life
Binds us together; in the inmost soul
Either is known to other; and we walk
The daily path of unrecorded life,
Blest with a double portion of God's love.
And thou, in thy warm nook beside our bed,
Peacefully wrapt in slumber infantine,
Thou treasure newly found of springing joy,
Thou jewel in the coronet of love,
Thou little flower, a choice plant's earliest gem,
Thou brightest morning-star by Love divine
Set on the forehead of the hopeful east,—
Thou reckest not of time; our human names
Mould not thy varying moods; if marking aught,
Measuring thy days by still-expected hours
Of soft appliance to thy mother's breast;
And yet methinks so hallowed is the time,
136

That even thy cushioned cheek hath trace of it,
Clothed in a deeper and peculiar calm.
The blessings of a kindly Providence
Light on ye both; the way of life, not dark
With gathering storms as yet, invites us on;
We must advance, in threefold union strong,
And strong in Him who bound our lives in God.

RYDAL MOUNT, June 1838.

This day without its record may not pass,
In which I first have seen the lowly roof
That shelters Wordsworth's age. A love intense,
Born of the power that charmed me in his song,
But grown beyond it into higher moods
And deeper gratitude, bound me to seek
His rural dwelling. Fitting place I found,
Blest with rare beauty, set in deepest calm:
Looking upon still waters, whose expanse
Might tranquillise all thought; and bordered round
By mountains springing from the turfy slopes
That bound the margin, to where heath and fern
Dapple their soaring sides, and higher still
To where the bare crags cleave the vap'rous sky.

A VILLAGE TALE.

RELATED ALMOST IN THE WORDS OF THE NARRATOR.

He was a blessed father; and he taught
Us, his four children (for in that my day
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There were no schools as now) the way to read
The wonderful account, how this large world
Came into being, and the sun and moon,
And all the little stars that deck the heavens.
He loved my mother; and when her he lost,
And first came home among the sable train
Of mourners, and his desolation sank
Into his soul, we thought his heart would burst.
But soon he built him up another home
In a new partner's breast. She loved us all
As if we were her own: and 'twould have made
Your heart rejoice to see my father sit
After his daily labour, self-deceived
Into domestic happiness, and blest
With us his rosy circle. But stern Death
Envied the healing of the breach he made,
And took our second mother. By this time
My father was in years; and I believe,
Without the two chairs filled beside the fire,
And some one to be busy and bear rule
In the house-matters, and to share his bed,
He would have known no peace. Therefore a third
He led to church, and brought to live with us.
But, oh, how changed was now our quiet hearth!
A strange and wayward woman; one who went
From church to meeting, and then back to church,
And got no good from either. She would be
Days without speaking; and in sudden mood
Pour forth such hours of wild and rambling talk,
That we all shook to hear her. Happily
My father knew not all; unsensing age
Came fast upon him, and his daily meal
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And daily fire, and journey to his bed,
Were all he sought or knew.
One winter night
I woke from sleep, and heard, or seemed to hear
Fierce struggling in their room, which joined our own.
There was no door; I left my bed, and crept
To the open ground-sill; but 'twas quiet all,
And pitch, pitch dark. Whether she heard me there
I know not; but I had scarce regained my bed
When she came to me, flying like distraught,
“Jenny, your father's lying stiff and still,
And will not be awaked.” I thought it strange
That she should try to wake him at midnight;
But I said nothing.
Sir, I said before
He was a blessed father; and we mourned
Our very hearts out. Long before this time
My sisters had been married: so 'twas mine
To live with my strange mother. We were then
In the old meeting-house that was; you know
The place: the stones that were beside the hearth
Were coverings of graves. 'Tis a lone house,—
A dismal, dismal place.
Well, from the hour
My father died, this woman had no peace.
By day she never kept to the same chair
Five minutes at a time. Now she would rise
And stir the fire, now stare into the street,
Now work a stitch or two; then fling her out
Without a hat or shawl, and roam about
The village and the fields; and in the night,
Oh, sir, 'twas dreadful; she would never go
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Up-stairs; but she and I slept in a bed
Placed in the lodging room, and all among
The grave-stones;—trust me, 'twas a dismal thing.
All night she never slept; and when I woke,
Whether at midnight or in dawn of morn,
I felt her beating with her lifted hand
Backward and forward, all about her breast:
“Mother,” said I, (for though she was not so,
We always mother'd her,) “you have not yet
Done beating of him off.” So she went on:
And happy, sir, was I when the time came
For me to leave her, and set up a home
Some twenty houses off, in love and peace,
With my own husband. We'd been married now
Some fifteen weeks, when, as I sat at work,
A neighbour came in haste, with wildered looks,
“Go to your mother.” Up I rose and went;
And oh, sir, what a scene: the doctor stood
With hands and arms all bloody, sewing up
A hideous wound. “Oh, mother, what a deed
Have you been doing!” After that she lived
Three weeks, but never spoke; and as she lived,
So, sir, she died; a wretched, wicked woman,
With strange unbridled thoughts; and deeds—God knows
What were her deeds: one day thev will be shown.
140

A SPRING SCENE.

A mossy bank: a young mother sits with her babe and an elder child.
MOTHER.
So thou hast brought thy bosom full of daisies
And gilded celandine. There, pour them forth—
A pretty April snow-storm. Now enfold
Thine arms about thy little sister's neck,
And gladden her with kisses.
[They are silent a while.
Thou bright ineloquent blue of the vast heaven,
Thou ocean studded with thine isle of light,
And thou all-wrapping, all-sufficing air—
How full are ye of mystery! what hosts
But now are winging through this visible round
Their spirit-way! what throbbings of deep joy
Pulsate through all I see, from the full bud
Whose unctuous sheath is glittering in the noon,
Up through the system of created things,
Even to the flaming ranks of seraphim!
And I and my beloved ones are part
Of the world's hymn of praise, a happy group
Of the Eternal's moulding;—gazed upon
Perchance of angels; thicker with rich gems
Of his own setting, than the guardian shrine
Of some cathedralled saint with offered jewels.
Shame upon Time, that will write age and care
Upon your velvet cheeks, my little ones,—
That will dry up the bosom where ye nestle,—
Yea, that in one short day can turn the vault
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Of this unspotted, glorious firmament
Into a dark-gray wilderness of clouds
Hurrying to blot heaven's light! Shame upon Time!

CHILD.
Mamma, will the weather be as fine in heaven?

MOTHER.
Thanks for that artless question. I was growing
Mindless of that great spring which knows no check.
Yes, little prattlers, you may fancy heaven
A sky for ever blue,—a laughing sun
That knows no flitting shadows,—a fair lawn
Besprinkled with your favourite flowers, and birds
Pouring around their gushing melodies;
And you, and this soft little one, and me,
Sitting as we sit now, but all enwrapt
With lustrous beauty and unearthly light.
Thus now;—but you will grow, and then your fancy
Will alter; and your heaven no more be this,
But the lone walk with one whom love hath knit
Into your very soul; while nightingale
From blosmy hawthorn's heart awakes the night
To praise; and o'er ye both, from myriad stars,
The mighty presence of the Eternal Love
Falls, as the dewy odours on the air,
The incense of the temple where ye roam.
Then life perchance will change afresh; and love
Be reft of its support, and stand alone:
And then your heaven will be a loftier thing,
A gazing on the open face of God,—
Knowledge, and light, and the unbounded sea
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Of presences seraphic. Then, my child,
Life will go onward yet, and will become
Labour and sorrow, and your beauty-dreams
Will have passed by, and all your high desires
Have sunk away;—and then your heaven will be
Wherever there is rest; and so the way
Down to the grave,—a thing you love not now,—
Will be smoothed off and altered as it nears,
Till you shall e'en desire it for its sake.

CHILD.
Sing me a song about the sky in heaven.

MOTHER.
Fade, fade away,
Close by night, and droop by day,
Little gilded flower:
Thou hast brethren up above
Watered by Eternal Love,
In our Father's bower.
Roll, onward roll,
Veil the sun and gloom the pole,
Dark and dismal cloud:
There are skies in heaven above
Where the glorious sun of love
Shines without a shroud.

APRIL, 1844.

There was a child, bright as the summer prime,
Fair as a flower. Not long his speaking eyes
143

Had uttered meaning: nature's love not long
Had stolen into his heart. One sweet May morn
His young life dawned: so that the Summer heats
Unconscious passed he through; the Autumn fruits
Just gladdened him with bloom; the sparkling frost
Awoke his greeting smile: but when the Spring
Broke out upon the earth, lighting with stars
Of floral radiance all the level green,
Then was his joy a living laughing thing;
He held the coloured buds; their beauty fed
His eager longing; up to those he loved
He held them in the fulness of his joy,
And laughter, eloquent of inward bliss.
Dear child,—for thou wert ours,—this and the like,
A few sweet visions of thine infant smiles,
A few bright hours of purity and calm,
Are all of thee that we remember now:
For in the sunshine of that rising Spring,
When lavish bloom was poured on all around,
Thy cheek alone grew pale: day after day
Thou fadest from our sight: yet even thus,
Long as thine eyes could gaze, thy fingers clasp,
Brought we our tribute due of gleaming buds,
Glad, if we might one moment wake anew
Thy dormant thought, and light thine eyes with joy.

NOVEMBER, 1847.

Oh for one word of that Almighty voice,
Whose tone, though gentle, pierced the ear of death—
Talitha, cumi! Oh that He might stand
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Above this faded flower, and breathe back life!
Was there no way, my sister dear, but this,
That in the fulness of thy life of love,
Expanding duties, daily strengthening ties,
And with this new-born treasure lately found,
Thou must drop off and die? Mysterious God,
In whose high hearing nothing Thou hast made
But sounds in heavenly harmony entire,—
Teach us the master-note, that may reduce
To concord this heart-breaking dissonance;
Shine on us with that Sun, whose mighty rays
Have shone upon our sister, so that all
Left on this earth, though dear a thousand-fold
To her, whose heart is filled with purest love,
Moves not one sigh,—so blessed is she now.

A WINTER MORNING SCENE, (1849.)

Far on the sloping casement from the East
Looks through the frosted haze the purple sun,
As with a heavenly presence filling all
The lowly chamber. First, the wakened girl
With fullest heart bends o'er the slumbering boy;—
“Awake, arise; the golden morning comes!”
Not his the sleep that needs be summoned twice;
At once his bright eyes open,—and at once
His merry voice gives welcome jubilant
To the first rays of day. There yet is one
Calm in warm slumber:—“Sister, come and see!
The glory of the Lord is on the hills,
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An angel is come down to wake the sun!”
Together rising, see the gladdened group
Fresh from the dews of sleep, and glorified
By the now streaming sunshine, full of joy,
Gazing entranced.

LACRYMÆ PATERNÆ, (1851.)

I.

This tranquil Sabbath morn hath hushed the earth
Into unwonted calm. The clear pale hills
Lie beneath level lines of sunny clouds,
Walling our prospect round. A hundred fields
Rest from their six days' tillage;—save where kine
Peaceful their herbage crop, or ruminate
Recumbent. Every vernal garden flower,
Crocus gold-bright, or varnished celandine,
Or violet, sapphire-eyed or bridal white,
Opens its bosom to the ascending sun.
One only looks not up, but ever droops,
Droops, but with matchless grace, and not to earth,
But, with firm stalk, its head alone depends,—
The snowdrop, lovelier than them all. Ev'n thus
Bow down, my spirit, with thy load of grief,
Bow down,—but be not crushed:—be yet thy stem
Upright and firm, on God's good purpose stayed.
But I no more can look into the heaven
As do yon gayer blooms: touched by God's hand,
“Mara my name, but Naomi no more:”—
For one lithe form I miss this Sabbath morn,
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Which, full of life and joy, on days like this
Tripped o'er these walks, feeding on sight and sound,
Holding half-closed the holy book in hand,
And mingling with the loved and half-learned lore
Of parable, or sweet recital, gleams
Of nature's various life. O memory sweet!
O inexhausted fount of tearful joy!

II.

Once more among the rose-tree boughs, that trail
Athwart the cloudless sky, from where I sit
I see our little yearly visitant
The blithesome wren, run eager: now with wings
Outspread and fluttering, now with swiftest dart
At latent insect,—then with warbling trill
Of soft and liquid song, singing his hymn
Of purest vernal joy. But not alone
Such sight and music stir me:—one short year,
How short, how long! since thou, thy hand in mine,
Our breath in silence held, stoodst by my side,
Summoned from busy task to watch that bird—
I see thee now,—thy clear blue eyes lit up
With eager light of love,—thy frame, attent
And rapt to catch each note of that sweet song:
I hear thee whisper, “Oh, how beautiful!”
Dear child of memory! on my lonely path
Bright are the rays shed from thee; brighter far
Than aught I find in men or books beside!

III.

I search the heavens and earth for news of thee,
But find them not. That sunlit continent
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Hung in mid-air, that with transmitted light
Gladdens this peaceful night, is that thy home?
Abidest thou where bright and pale by turns
Her hills and plains gleam evident? Art thou
Among the thousand times ten thousand saints
There stationed, till He come, and we arise
To meet Him, when He brings ye in the air?
Nor shrink I from such questioning. His works
Who framed the wondrous universe, by rule
And due apportionment are fitted all,
Each to its separate use. And that pure isle
Of treasured light, journeying with this our earth,
Wherefore thus waits it on the world of man?
Say, to give light by night; but wherefore then
So scant, and intermitted? Say, to swell
The tides salubrious, and to air, sun-dried,
Restore its genial moisture. But nor this
Seems to suffice. Hath that fair-fashioned world
No tributary use for this world's lord?
Doth it no purpose serve for man? If life,
Life various and material, there were fed
As here below, then would the varying clouds
Dapple her argent surface, and pale belts
Of fleecy mist athwart her orb extend,
Which are not found. Material life and growth,
Nourished as here, is none. If living tribes
Are there, then live they by some law unknown
To us, whom tillage of the moistened soil
Feeds, on the succulent and annual growth
Of still decaying matter still renewed.
If there they live, they live without decay,
Unnourished, and undying. Beauty there
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Spreads not the landscape with rich fields and woods,
Brown glebes, and errant streams: but spiry rocks
Burn in untempered sunlight, and wide shades
Invite to cool, and deepen into night.
Fit haunt for spirits,—for to local bound,
Though hard to set, all spirits are confined,
Save that unbounded One, who lives through all,—
Fit haunt for blessed spirits to abide,
In holiest intercourse and love unsoiled,
In sight of earth and heaven, their final bliss.
Nor let us dream of aught that might degrade
Our holiest Faith in this. He that was dead
And lives again, the bright and morning Star
Of all our yearning hopes,—shall any say
They dwell not there, because they dwell with Him?
He is, where sin is not. Among them there,
He, in the body of His glory, may
As once in Eden, walk: high Visitant,
Teacher sublime:—there may they humble sit
Beside His feet, and learn.
Here let us pause:
Nor further licence give to Fancy's wing:
Ev'n thus, may some believe, too wide we roam.

IV.

Ev'n thus, may some believe, too wide we roam:
But roam we wider still. Yon orb of light
Daunting the heavenward eye with potent beam,
Serves it not, too, some glorious end for man?
Say, it were made to rule this nether day:
Almighty Power might with such sheen endow
Some point minute; nor spend a million worlds
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To light one system of dependent orbs.
Say, it were built so vast, by central force
Those orbs to draw attractive, lest in space
Wheeling immense, the orbits far and cold
Of planets even now but known to man
Their common bond forget, and errant roam,
Yet,—be this so,—shall each dependent world
Be portioned out for bird and beast and man,
And this, the noblest, dreary all and blank,
Home of no life,—alone of all the band,
Though brightest, radiant with no love nor joy?
And grant that high Intelligences dwell
Within yon spanning belt of dazzling fire,
Whence, and what are they? Do they fall, as here,
By death, and feed decay? Do they, as here,
Sorrow, and sin, and toil, and hate, and pine?
Fades there the brightest? Has love there its frosts,
Its worms that gnaw the root,—its withering buds?
Our earth obeys its law, vicissitude:
One while, we bask beneath the genial ray,
One while, in grateful night our strength renew:
Winter gives nature rest,—the voice of Spring
Calls forth the buds,—Summer the bloom unfolds,
And lavish Autumn sheds the mellowed fruit,
And so we live by change. But there no night
Drops on the vales, nor visits them the dawn:
That orb serene eternal brightness clothes;
Nor seasons' varied course is known, nor march
Of years recurrent: fit abode for those
Whose life hath done with change, and rests in bliss.
What if each system have its sun, its heaven?
What if the sentient dwellers in its orbs,
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Their course of conflict run, their goal attained,
Meet on those glittering spheres in joy and love?
And what if all, uncounted firmaments
Of suns, with angel habitants, around
The Central Throne, in mingling glory roll?

V.

Why day by day this painful questioning?
I know, that it is well. I know that there
(O where?) thou hast protectors, guardians, friends,
If such be needed: angel companies
Move round thee: mighty Spirits lead thy thoughts
To founts of knowledge which we never saw.
I know that thou art happy;—fresh desire
Springing each day, and each day satisfied:
God's glorious works all open to thy view,
His blessed creatures thine, where pain nor death
Disturbs not nor divides. All this I know:
But O for one short sight of what I know!

VI.

September 3, 1850.

Here take thy stand: within this chamber lone
That looks upon the unfathomable blue
Of the blest ocean, take thy stand awhile:
Ah, mournful task! and watch yon fading face,
So lately lit with love and eager joy,
Now blank, but beautiful! Trace thou those lines
Which death hath spared; build up that noble brow,
Part the fair hair, and mimic with thy brush
That curl, whose very flexure tells of him.
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Precious thine art—God's gift—how often said,—
How never felt till now! This Autumn day
We leave thee here with him. Death, cease thy work!
Forget thy course, Decay! One favouring hour
Befriend our wish, how earnest, but how vain!

VII.

O sweet refreshment to the wearied heart,
This converse with the unalterable dead!
I know not where, nor rightly what thou art:
I only know that thou art blest and bright,
Unfading, and mine own: and thus I sit
Long pensive hours alone, scarce stirred in thought,
Scanning thy presence through a mist of tears.
Others may change, but thou shalt never change:
Forgetfulness, and distance, and neglect,
The chills of earthly love,—the stealthy pace
Of summer-stealing age,—these touch not thee:
That heart of thine, fresh well of living love,
Hadst thou been here, might in long years have failed,
Or poured on thankless fields its errant streams,
Or flowed away (such sad vicissitudes
We learn to look for, who live long on earth)
Else-whither in abundance, sparing here
Few drops and scant. But now, beloved one,
That everlasting fount is all our own.

VIII.

They tell me, that we soon shall meet again:
That some have heard the mighty chariot wheels
Roar in the distance; that the world's salt tears
Are cleaving their last furrows in her cheeks.
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It may be so: I know not. Oft the ear
Attent and eager for some coming friend,
Construes each breeze among the vocal boughs
Into the tokens of his wished approach.
But this I know: HE liveth and shall stand
Upon this earth: and round Him, thick as waves
That laugh with light at noon, uncounted hosts
Of His redeemed: and this I further know:
Then shall I see thee,—amidst all that band,
Know thee unsought: and midst a thousand joys
Ineffable,—our own shall we possess,
Clasped heart to heart, and looking eye to eye.
O dawn, millennial day! Come blessed morn!
Appear Desire of Nations! rend thy heavens,
And stand revealed upon thy chosen hill!

FRAGMENT OF A PROPOSED DRAMA, 1832.

Alcibiades loquitur.

—Like a great river, toward the rising sun
Broad Hellespont is flowing: far beyond,
Over a land of never-dying names,
Tower the brows of Ida. I can see
The white waves chase each other on the deep,
Between our Chersonese and Vulcan's isle;
And there, where the azure level of the sea
Flush meets the laughing blue, full many a league
My thought sails daily till above the waves
Gray headlands rise, and Acro-Sunium's fane
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Traces its glittering shafts upon the sky.
O A thens—O my mother—couldst thou now
Make peace in my torn bosom: couldst thou now
Receive thy son, as thou receivedst him,
With thronging ports and humming populace,—
Could I but now be standing as I stood
Upon the sacred way, where grateful passed
The holy pomp beneath my guarding hand!
—But why thus weak? Is it that all is lost?
May not the tumult of wild battle yet
Be poured around me? may not yet again
The horse wave dash about the ploughing prow, And subject cities [OMITTED]

A CRIMEAN THOUGHT.

Again those heavy tidings. On the breeze
Laden with death, they come. A thousand more
Stiff on the sod of Tauris: yon fair fleet,
Bearer of hope and comfort, charged with strength
For the great conflict, scattered on the rocks
Of that inhospitable sea. And those
Who lit our homes with joy, whose manly forms
Big with their manlier souls, we saw depart,
Whose names were borne with all our prayers to heaven,
Each, worthy to be chief,—each chief, a king,—
They, to be pierced, all helpless as they fell,
By the barbarian recreants, as men turn
To crush a reptile maimed!
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Farewell, Farewell!
And now, methinks, might England's banners droop
Each on its staff,—and now should mirth be hushed,
And traffic pause, and all our heavy bells
Go tolling for the fall'n; and the stark Foe
Who rules his icy realms in savage state,
Ukase his serfs, and peal Te Deums high,
Heaven's favourite, fenced by storms: while Britain's star
Sinks darkling in her western mists of blood.
NO! by the slain of Alma! by the band
Who flew to death on Balaklava's height!
NO! by the wild alarum, that rung out
In the dark dawn from proud Sebastopol,
Herald of Russia's shame: NO! by each wave
That smote our quivering barks, while the false foe
Marked down their struggling crews,—it shall not be!
Lift high the banner: stream it in the wind,
The wind, which is not his! Rouse, England's hearts!
From bowered hamlets, from our breezy hills,
From crowded suburbs, from the sea's far isles,
Come to the rescue, strong in Freedom's choice,
Each man, a host: his valour, in himself:
His quarrel, writ in heaven: his hope, with God!
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