Oh! happy days, whether of speech or song,
Happy as all things must be which belong
To pure joys of pure hearts, they pass'd away,
But left that memory which all true things may.
I find some verse which Gabriel writ one day,
A slight thing, for my eyes alone, but breathing
The spirit of the woodland, laid aside
Among that bright year's papers;-ever wreathing
Our days about with tendrils of his art,
He joined two spheres which lesser men divide,
And fill'd his poetry with his loving heart.
In a fair wood like this where the beeches are growing, Brave Robin Hood hunted in days of old;
Down his broad shoulders his brown locks fell flowing, His cap was of green, with a tassel of gold.
His eye was as blue as the sky in midsummer,
Ruddy his cheek as the oak-leaves in June,
Hearty his voice as he hail'd the new comer,
Tender to maidens in changeable tune.
His step had a strength and his smile had a sweetness,
His spirit was wrought of the sun and the breeze,
He moved as a man framed in nature's completeness,
And grew unabash'd with the growth of the trees.
And ever to poets who walk in the gloaming
His horn is still heard in the prime of the year ;
Last eve he went with us, unseen, in our roaming,
And thrill'd with his presence the shy troops of deer.
When the warm sun sank down in a golden declining, And night clomb the slopes and the firs to their tops, And the faint stars to meet her did brighten their shining, And the heat was refined into diamond drops;
Then Robin stole forth in his quaint forest fashion,
For dear to the heart of all poets is he,
And in mystical whispers awaken'd the passion
Which slumbers within for the life that were free.
We follow the lead unawares of his spirit,
He tells us the tales which we heard in past time,
Ah! why should we forfeit this earth we inherit,
For lives which we cannot expand into rhyme !
I think as I lie in the shade of the beeches
How lived and how loved this old hero of song;
I would we could follow the lesson he teaches,
And dwell as he dwelt these wild thickets among,-
At least for a while, till we caught up the meaning,
The beeches breathe out in the wealth of their growth,
Width in their nobleness, love in their leaning,
And peace at the heart from the fulness of both.
TELL me, my Gabriel, if thou wilt, while we
Rest on the roots of this old ivied tree,
Somewhat of early days, of travel past,
Of youth's adventurous hope behind thee cast.
A mist is on the landscape, far below
The homeward-stepping cattle softly low,
As when the shy and cloister'd poet saw,
And painted that sweet picture without flaw,
The dainty poem children learn by rote,
And English tongues from age to age shall quote:
Yon bashful rustic lingers by the stile,
With cap in hand, to win a passing smile;
The grey farm roofs are fading, and afar
Trembles the first ray of the evening star ;---
The unrippled river lies in curving lines,
And the faint breeze among these ancient pines
Has some weird meaning, such as poets hear,
Of differing import with the time of year.
Whatever elves or fairies here abide,
At this dim hour on elfin steeds do ride,
Tinkling their silver bells, and grasshopper
Beginneth now to make his evening stir.
Hark! the slow wind swell! to its solemn tune
Paces majestically the silver moon,
Endymion's darling; and the deeps of heaven
From inner depths to inner depths are riven:
Give me this hour, my poet, for some tale
Of German stream or haunted Alpine vale.
"Nay"-answer'd Gabriel, "these orchestral trees
Suggest a dream of other mysteries;
White mountain mists and spectral shapes that loom
Gigantic, thro' dead centuries of gloom.
Again I see the glorious western land
By salt-sea breeze tempestuously fann'd,
The jutting coast, the rapid rivers fed
From rock-bound tarn, the bare and slumberous head
Of Cader curtaining a thousand vales.
The wondrous beauty, the wild power of Wales!"
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