I * Like air-touch'd harps in flowery casements | Advanced to the freedom of the main, hung; And stand before your vast creations' plain, And roam your watery kingdom thro' and Like unto lovers' ears the wild words sung MELANCHOLY. THERE is a mighty Spirit, known on earth By many names, tho' one alone becomes Its mystery, its beauty, and its power. It is not Fear,-'tis not the passive fear That sinks before the future, nor the dark Despondency that hangs upon the past: Not the soft spirit that doth bow to pain, Nor that which dreads itself, or slowly eats Like a dull canker till the heart decays. But in the meditative mind it lives, Sheltered, caressed and yields a great return; And in the deep silent communion Which it holds ever with the poet's soul, Tempers, and doth befit him to obey High inspiration. To the storms and winds It giveth answer in as proud a tone; Or on its seat, the heart of man, receives The gentler tidings of the elements.— I-often home returning from a spot Holy to me from many wanderings, Of fancy, or in fact, have felt the power Of MELANCHOLY stealing on my soul, Mingling with pleasant images, and from Sorrow dividing joy; until the shape Of each did gather to a diviner hue, And shone unclouded by a thought of pain. Grief may sublime itself, and pluck the sting From out its breast, and muse until it seem Etherial, starry, speculative, wise. But then it is that Melancholy comes, Out-charming grief-(as the gray morning stills The tempest oft) and from its fretful fire Draws a pale light, by which we see ourselves, The present, and the future, and the past. MIDSUMMER-MADNESS. Now would I that I might cast me in the sea And perish not.-Great Neptune! I would be thro', And see your branching woods, and palace The bedded wonders of the lonely deep, I would be free.-Oh! thou fine element, That with thy thousand ears art round me bent, To listen and reply:-Immortal air! Viewless and now unfelt, I would be hurled Almost at will about your kingdom wide, And mount aloft and mingle in my pride With the great spirits of your purer world; And with the music of your winds sublime Commune, and see those shadows, for this earth Too buoyant, and excelling shapes, which Has lifted up to a diviner birth, Now will I plunge, and bathe my brain therein, And cleanse me of all dull poetic sin. May see the white stag glance across the sod Affrighted, like a dusky spectre pale. The rich nectarean juice in heaven above, A HAUNTED STREAM. It is perhaps a fable: yet the hind Surprised, runs trembling as for succour. Such streams as these did Dian love and such Of Aganippe's fount; of Hippocrene, Worthy from beauty, oh! but worthier far From sweet associate pleasures. Thou to me Art like the glass of memory, where the mind Sees, charmed and softened by thy murmuring, things It elsewhere dare not dream of; things that fled With early youth, and went-I know not whither: Shadows forgot, and hope that perished. -Beautiful river! on thy banks remote Still does the half-sunned primrose waste its sweets, And that pale flower that loves the valley, (white Like purity) comes forth; blue violets, The wild-brier-rose, and spotted daisies, which The young year scatters on the sward, and all That June or April love, or Autumn spares Amidst her golden bounty, live unhurt. Here, on May-mornings, I may hear the thrush Pour from his silver throat sweet music; and, 'Neath summer-stars the nightingale — for she Is queen of all earth's choristers, and holds Acquaintance with the evening-winds, which waft her Sweet tidings from the rose. The stockdove here Breathes her deep note complaining, 'till the air Seems touch'd, and all the woods and bo lows, sighing. Prolong the sound to sadness. Hark: 1 noise. SONG. Look upon these yellow sands, And down the wave float silently: As on her breast some sorrow weight What think you now?-Believe the sp and own The place is haunted. On yon slanting That dips its tresses in the wave, 'tis Poets have leant, and when the moon: flung Her bright smile on the quivering elem flave thought a strange communiss between That planet and the stream. Perhaps a nymph Of Dian's train, here, for her voice or beauty, And rocks arose, and thundering currents clashed; =ike when the mighty rivers of the West Meet the tempestuous seas; but still I lived, And held my way undaunted. Now I come To this sweet place for quict. Every tree, And bush and fragrant flower and hilly path, And thymy mound that flings unto the winds fts morning incense, is my friend; for I Did make acquaintance with inanimate things an very boyhood, and did love to break With shouts the mountain-silence, and to hang D'er flashing torrents, when the piny boughs Shook their dark locks, and plained in mournful tones Mysterious to the barren wilderness; An idle folly; he who can draw a joy that seem All mute, and does it-is wise. STANZA S. HAVE liv'd many seasons: and I stand Nor low nor lofty on this world at last: Yet with some hope (which I cannot withstand) snow shall not wholly bow me to the blast, Nor, all unknown, like a base weed be cast Away, and wither in my wintry grave, Shaming the soil that fed me: For the past-But fashion'd all for everlasting time: Arose like giants from the void below, Tis gone and 'twould be idle now to rave Of wasted hours, or mourn;-I am not folly's slave. (Which yet the winds themselves but seldom climb) Yet, like a pestilence, despondence hung free, Stood on the verge again: safe-for at liberty. Imperishable things-unstain'd, as 'twere, by crime. Sacred ye are. The very eye of God Darts roses on ye as it shuts at even. The earthquake on your breast hath never trod; Nor in vast fragments have your limbs been riven; Nor through your heart the red volcano driven, That foams in lava-cataracts from its bound; Or flings its blazing columns up to heaven, Sinking in darkening ashes on the ground. Thus Hecla, Etna feel; and all, save ye, around. Exorcised by the enchantress Memory From their dark grave-the heart. B quickly these, Like clouds of rain in summer, passed by And then he wantoned with the mountai breeze, And with the soft mysterious music of th trees Held frequent talk, like some familiar sp And his companion young would join La then, And tell how mortal creature might inhe Ethereal essence here, and haply again And oh! thou viewless Spirit, who dost (Though like a world-abandoned denizen breathe Upon his beautiful forehead scorn was sitting, And weariness and woe; and o'er his eye Shadows of dim tumultuous thought were flitting, Expand into that perfect element, Whate'er it be, that fills the frames of With their incomparable light. Intent Upon that theory sublime his soul was b And who may tell (though I believe it But that the soul by meditation may Plume its bright wings, and from its grow lot Spring, like a thing immortal, far away Or, as the white Alps mount and meet the da Accumulate upon its airy head Thoughts that fine spirits have bequeath ere they Lay down in silence on their wormy bed And conquer that chill voice which summa to the dead. I have seen the Alpine sun-set-oh! b weak Green, blue and burning red, was every stres My verse to tell what flash'd across my sig Like rainbow-beams, but trebly, tr bright; The earth, the air, the heavens, werel light: My vision was absorbed. I trembled th The Sun slow faded from the eyes of Softening his glance, and sinking in his m And died away. Ne'er have I seen the again. Yet have I lain in many a leafy nook Sequester'd, hiding from the summer b Idling, or haply with that charmed b Writ by the Avon-side; and loved to de Of pale Cordelia, gentle Imogen: Or, on some brook that slid, like guilt, a Hurrying the pilfered mosses downits str Pondered, and often at the close of day Gazed on the coming Moon, and felt, peri her sway. It is in high, remoter scenes, that we Become sublim'd, yet humble: there we That still beyond us spreads-infinity, And we still clay: or, all admiring, u And passions, which are buried ere they die, | To where those characters of beauty (Holy) shed 'round us an immortal worth, And are encircled by as frail a girth decayed. And may I own a quiet room, Or some that conquest lately brought And one I'd have, whose heaving breast But while we live, the air, the fruit, the Juno or Paphian Venus was, flower, Or Dian with her crested moon, I'd have her thoughts fair, and her skin FLOWERS. THERE the rose unveils Her breast of beauty, and each delicate bud But first of all the violet, with an eye Born of the breath of winter, and on his brow Lilacs,and flowering limes,and scented thorns, Catch their perfumings. |