The Poetical Works of Laman Blanchard :: :: University of Virginia Library

What forms are these, touched by the silver hand
Of honouring Time? Methinks I see the face
Of Genius, smiling on the radiant race
That crowned old Greece with glory, and command
Even now the love and praise of every land!
The beauty of the dead herein we trace,
Their very minds seem moulded into grace—
Nay-their most fixed affections may be scanned
In these life-printed pages. Who may tell
How thought hath been inspired! Perchance this form
Was fashioned in the heart's mysterious cell,
An image which young Passion worshipped well;
Or haply in a dream, a visioned storm,
First on the mind it rose, a rainbow bright and warm.

178

II

'Twas subtle Nature's ever-working skill
That gave these graces life. Most calm and white
They lie, like clouds. In some enchanted night,
When sleep had sealed up every earthly ill,
The mind, awakening like a miracle,
First in the purple shade, the starry light,
The glory, and the marvel, and the might,
Found fine realities, diviner still
Than its own dreams, shapes wonderfully fair,
And faces full of heaven. Or from the sea
In its proud flow, the pearls, sublime and bare;
The woods, wind-shaken, from the shell-strewn lea,
Were these creations caught, that breathe, and bear
Old Nature's likeness, still, profound, and free.

1831.