The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery Collected and Revised by the Author |
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COMMUNION WITH NATURE. |
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 | The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery |  |
COMMUNION WITH NATURE.
And Nature, through her world of types appears
Simplicity in grandeur thus to teach.
Expressive mountains! from whose massive forms
The dread Almighty speaks Himself to man
By eloquence, which hearing mind translates,
How often, underneath their shade august,
Or in the hollows of some green descent,
The tiny flowers in tenderness and bloom
Wave their young beauty! or, infantile plants
Bow to the breeze their unresisting heads,
While the faint lisp of dropping leaves returns
A murmur'd echo to the rippling stream
Which runs beside them, with loquacious play.
And thus, methinks, beneath that mental shade
The tow'ring giants of the mind produce,
Simplicity in loving calm delights
To watch the flowerets of affection bloom;
And see those lilies in the heart arise
Which make the garden of our spirit green,
Breathing mild fragrance o'er affection's world.
Simplicity in grandeur thus to teach.
Expressive mountains! from whose massive forms
The dread Almighty speaks Himself to man
By eloquence, which hearing mind translates,
How often, underneath their shade august,
Or in the hollows of some green descent,
The tiny flowers in tenderness and bloom
Wave their young beauty! or, infantile plants
Bow to the breeze their unresisting heads,
While the faint lisp of dropping leaves returns
A murmur'd echo to the rippling stream
Which runs beside them, with loquacious play.
And thus, methinks, beneath that mental shade
The tow'ring giants of the mind produce,
Simplicity in loving calm delights
To watch the flowerets of affection bloom;
And see those lilies in the heart arise
234
Breathing mild fragrance o'er affection's world.
And hence, admire we with revering gaze
True Greatness, when it lays all thunder by,
Till the soft childhood of the heart returns;
And solemn wisdom, sparkling into wit,
Can gild the heights of intellect with smiles.
But chief from music came the master-spell
Which Luther, like a spirit's echo loved!
To him it seem'd a charm divinely framed,
An earthless magic, out of mystery born,
And so with heaven instinct, that Satan fled
When Harmony her spells began to breathe,
Or sank o'er passion, like a healing dew
Pure from the fount of freshness in the skies.
True Greatness, when it lays all thunder by,
Till the soft childhood of the heart returns;
And solemn wisdom, sparkling into wit,
Can gild the heights of intellect with smiles.
But chief from music came the master-spell
Which Luther, like a spirit's echo loved!
To him it seem'd a charm divinely framed,
An earthless magic, out of mystery born,
And so with heaven instinct, that Satan fled
When Harmony her spells began to breathe,
Or sank o'er passion, like a healing dew
Pure from the fount of freshness in the skies.
'Twas thus the poetry of private life
Around him, with an unresisted reign,
Gather'd and glow'd. But oh! ye quiet fields,
Where, lost in sunshine, sang the soaring birds
In wing'd delight and ever-warbling song,
How would he listen to your choral joy,
Till the gay summer of his spirit smiled
With loving answer to the scene it loved!
And often, when some fever hot and harsh
From human outrage, wither'd him with pangs
Of weary anguish till the spirit wept,
Didst thou, meek Nature! with maternal smile
Look through his soul and laugh the cloud away.
To him thy shrines, thy solitudes profound,
Thy hues and shades, and harmonies perceived
Brought more than feeling to his heart of faith.
And so, the very flowers seem silent hymns,
And, by their aspect of persuasive bloom,
Remind him oft of Eden long no more;
Or, bid him muse on what the world may be
When second paradise again shall dawn:
Since all which fell by Adam's guilty fall
From outward glory into penal gloom,
And all of kingship which the soul enjoy'd
When man, as Monarch of creation, ruled
And, as anointed Priest of paradise, became
The mouth of Nature and her mute delights,—
To pristine splendour shall once more arise,
Till crownless Manhood wear a crown again;
Or earth redeem'd, Messiah's palace be,
And shine, as round His central throne it rolls,
The loved metropolis of sumless worlds.
Around him, with an unresisted reign,
Gather'd and glow'd. But oh! ye quiet fields,
Where, lost in sunshine, sang the soaring birds
In wing'd delight and ever-warbling song,
How would he listen to your choral joy,
Till the gay summer of his spirit smiled
With loving answer to the scene it loved!
And often, when some fever hot and harsh
From human outrage, wither'd him with pangs
Of weary anguish till the spirit wept,
Didst thou, meek Nature! with maternal smile
Look through his soul and laugh the cloud away.
To him thy shrines, thy solitudes profound,
Thy hues and shades, and harmonies perceived
Brought more than feeling to his heart of faith.
And so, the very flowers seem silent hymns,
And, by their aspect of persuasive bloom,
Remind him oft of Eden long no more;
Or, bid him muse on what the world may be
When second paradise again shall dawn:
Since all which fell by Adam's guilty fall
From outward glory into penal gloom,
And all of kingship which the soul enjoy'd
When man, as Monarch of creation, ruled
And, as anointed Priest of paradise, became
The mouth of Nature and her mute delights,—
To pristine splendour shall once more arise,
Till crownless Manhood wear a crown again;
Or earth redeem'd, Messiah's palace be,
And shine, as round His central throne it rolls,
The loved metropolis of sumless worlds.
| The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery | |