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diff --git a/old/55507-0.txt b/old/55507-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 775b976..0000000 --- a/old/55507-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4338 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Justin Martyr, and Other Poems, by -Richard Chenevix Trench - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Story of Justin Martyr, and Other Poems - -Author: Richard Chenevix Trench - -Release Date: September 8, 2017 [EBook #55507] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF JUSTIN MARTYR *** - - - - -Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - - POEMS. - - - - - THE - STORY OF JUSTIN MARTYR, - AND - OTHER POEMS. - - BY - RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, - PERPETUAL CURATE OF CURDRIDGE CHAPEL, HANTS. - - LONDON: - EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. - - MDCCCXXXV. - - - - - LONDON: - BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, - WHITEFRIARS. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - -Dedicatory Lines 1 - -The Story of Justin Martyr 9 - -Sonnet 27 - -To ---- 28 - -To the same 29 - -To the same 30 - -To the same 31 - -To the same 32 - -A Legend of Alhambra 33 - -England 38 - -The Island of Madeira 39 - -Gibraltar 40 - -England 41 - -Poland 42 - -To Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, on his reported Conduct -towards the Poles 43 - -On the Results of the last French Revolution 44 - -To England 45 - -Sonnet 46 - -Sonnet to Silvio Pellico 47 - -To the Same 48 - -From the Spanish 49 - -Lines 52 - -To a Friend entering the Ministry 53 - -To a Child Playing 57 - -The Herring-Fishers of Lochfyne 59 - -In the Isle of Mull 60 - -The same 61 - -At Sea 62 - -An Evening in France 63 - -Sonnet. To my Child, a Fellow-traveller 68 - -The Descent of the Rhone 69 - -On the Perseus and Medusa of Benvenuto Cellini 80 - -Lines written at the Village of Passignano, on the Lake of Thrasymene 81 - -Vesuvius, as seen from Capri 84 - -Vesuvius 85 - -The same continued 86 - -To England. Written after a visit to Sorrento 87 - -Lines written after hearing some beautiful singing in a -Convent Church at Rome. 88 - -On a Picture of the Assumption by Murillo 92 - -An Incident versified 95 - -Address on leaving Rome to a Friend residing in that City 98 - -Tasso’s Dungeon, Ferrara 105 - -Sonnet 106 - -At Brunecken, in the Tyrol 107 - -Sonnet 108 - -Lines written in an Inn 109 - -To E ---- 114 - -To ----, on the Morning of her Baptism 119 - -To a Lady singing 122 - -The same continued 123 - -The same continued 124 - -The same continued 125 - -The same continued 126 - -Sonnet 127 - -Sonnet 128 - -Sonnet 129 - -Despondency 130 - -Ode to Sleep 133 - -Atlantis 139 - -Sais 143 - -Sonnet 144 - -Recollections of Burgos 145 - -To a Friend 148 - -To the Constitutional Exiles of 1823 151 - -To the same 152 - -Sonnet 153 - -On an early Death 154 - -Sonnet 160 - -Sonnet 161 - -New Year’s Eve 162 - -To my Child 163 - -Sonnet 164 - -Sonnet. In a Pass between the Walchen and the Waldensee 165 - -Sonnet 166 - -Sonnet 167 - -To my God-Child, on the Day of his Baptism 168 - -The Monk and Bird 172 - - - - -ERRATA. - -[Corrected in this etext] - - -Page 9, line 6, _for_ look _read_ looks. - -... 26, ... 3, _for_ flonrish _read_ flourish. - -... 137, ... 6, _for_ starerd _read_ starred. - - - - -DEDICATORY LINES. - - - - - TO ---- - - - If, Lady, at thy bidding, I have strung - As on one thread these few unvalued beads, - I cannot ask the world to count them pearls, - Or to esteem them better than they are: - But thou, I know, wilt prize them, for by thee - Solicited, I have beguiled with these - The enforcèd leisure of the present time, - And dedicate of right my little book - To thee, beloved--sure at least of this - That if my verse has aught of good or true, - It will not lack the answer of one heart-- - And if herein it may be thou shalt find - Some notes of jarring discord, some that speak - A spirit ill at ease, unharmonised, - Yet ’twere a wrong unto thyself to deem - These are the utterance of my present heart, - My present mood--but of long years ago, - When neither in the light of thy calm eyes, - Nor in the pure joys of an innocent home, - Nor in the happy laughter of these babes, - Had I as yet found comfort, peace, or joy. - But all is changèd now, and could I weave - A lay of power, it should not now be wrung - From miserable moods of sullen sin, - Chewing the bitter ashes of the fruit - Itself had gathered; rather would I speak - Of light from darkness, good from evil brought - By an almighty power, and how all things, - If we will not refuse the good they bring, - Are messages of an almighty love, - And full of blessings. Oh! be sure of this-- - All things are mercies while we count them so; - And this believing, not keen poverty - Nor wasting years of pain or slow disease, - Nor death, which in a moment might lay low - Our pleasant plants,--not these, if they should come, - Shall ever drift our bark of faith ashore, - Whose stedfast anchor is securely cast - Within the veil, the veil of things unseen, - Which now we know not, but shall know hereafter. - - Yet wherefore this? for we have not been called - To interpret the dark ways of Providence, - But that unsleeping eye that wakes for us, - Has kept from hurt, and harm, and blind mischance, - Our happy home till now. Yet not for this - Can we escape our share of human fears - And dim forebodings, chiefly when we think - Under what hostile influence malign - They may grow up, for whom their life is cast - Now to begin in this unhappy age, - When all, that by a solemn majesty - And an enduring being once rebuked - And put to shame the sordid thoughts of man, - Must be no more permitted to affront - Him and his littleness, or bid him back - Unto the higher tasks and nobler cares - For which he lives, for which his life is lent. - - Yet what though all things must be common now, - And nothing sacred, nothing set apart, - But each enclosure by rude hands laid waste, - That did fence in from the world’s wilderness - Some spot of holy ground, wherein might grow - The tender slips, the planting of the Lord; - Within the precincts of which holy spots, - With awful ordinances fencèd round, - They might grow up in beauty and in peace, - In season due to be transplanted thence - Into the garden of God,--what though all these - May perish, there will yet remain to us - One citadel, one ark, which hands profane - Will scarce invade, or lay unholy touch - Upon the sanctities inviolate, - And pure religion of our sacred homes. - And here the culture may proceed, and here - Heaven may distil its rich and silent dews, - When all around is parched as desert heath. - For this may come, the withering and the drought, - The laying waste of every holy hedge - May come, how soon we know not, but may fear; - Since nations walk, no less than men, by faith, - As seeing that which is invisible - Unto the sealèd eye of sensual men: - And where this vision is not, or the seers - Are lightly counted of, the people perish. - And woe unto our country, if indeed - She has left off this wisdom, or esteems - This for her higher wisdom--to despise - All spiritual purpose, all far-looking aim, - And all that cannot be exchanged for gold-- - Woe unto her, and turbulent unrest - Unto ourselves, who cannot hope or wish - In her disquiet to lead quiet lives, - Or to withdraw out of the stormy press - And tumult--to withdraw and keep the latch - Close fastened of our little world apart, - A peaceful island in a stormy sea, - A patch of sunshine amid shadows lying; - This must not be, we were not called to this. - And all the peace we know must be within, - And from within--from that glad river fed, - Whose springs lie deeper than that heat or cold, - Or the vicissitudes earth’s surface knows - Can reach to harm them. - - Mayest thou know well - What are these springing waters, wells of life, - By the great Father dug for us at first, - And which, when sin had stopped them, love anew - Has opened, and has given them their old names - And former virtue[1]; and from these refreshed, - Mayest thou pass onward through the wilderness, - And knowing what of ill is imminent, - And may descend upon us, evermore - Strengthen with faith and prayer, with lofty thought - And effort, and it may be in some part - With soul-sustaining verse, the citadel - Of courage and heroic fortitude, - Which in the centre of a woman’s heart - Is stablished, whatsoever outwardly - Of doubt or womanly weak fear prevail. - - - - - POEMS, &c. - - - - - THE STORY OF JUSTIN MARTYR. - -(SEE JUSTIN MARTYR’S FIRST DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO.) - - - It seems to me like yesterday, - The morning when I took my way - Upon the shore--in solitude; - For in that miserable mood - It was relief to quit the ken - And the inquiring looks of men-- - The looks of love and gentleness, - And pity, that would fain express - Its only purpose was to know, - That, knowing, it might soothe my woe: - But when I felt that I was free - From searching gaze, it was to me - Like ending of a dreary task, - Or putting off a cumbrous mask. - - I wandered forth upon the shore, - Wishing this lie of life was o’er; - What was beyond I could not guess, - I thought it might be quietness, - And now I had no dream of bliss, - No thought, no other hope but this-- - To be at rest--for all that fed - The dream of my proud youth had fled, - My dream of youth, that I would be - Happy and glorious, wise and free, - In mine own right, and keep my state, - And would repel the heavy weight, - The load that crushed unto the ground - The servile multitude around; - The purpose of my life had failed, - The heavenly heights I would have scaled, - Seemed more than ever out of sight, - Further beyond my feeble flight. - The beauty of the universe - Was lying on me like a curse; - Only the lone surge at my feet - Uttered a soothing murmur sweet, - As every broken weary wave - Sunk gently to a quiet grave, - Dying on the bosom of the sea-- - And death grew beautiful to me, - Until it seemed a mother mild, - And I like some too happy child; - A happy child, that tired with play, - Through a long summer holiday, - Runs to his mother’s arms to weep - His little weariness asleep. - Rest--rest--all passion that once stirred - My heart, had ended in one word-- - My one desire to be at rest, - To lay my head on any breast, - Where there was hope that I might keep - A dreamless and unbroken sleep; - And the lulled ocean seemed to say, - “With me is quiet,--come away.” - There is a tale that oft has stirred - My bosom deeply: you have heard - How that the treacherous sea-maid’s art - With song inveigles the lost heart - Of some lone fisher, that has stood - For days beside the glimmering flood; - And when has grown upon him there - The mystery of earth and air, - He cannot find with whom to part - The burden lying at his heart; - So when the mermaid bids him come, - And summons to her peaceful home, - He hears--he leaps into the wave, - To find a home, and not a grave. - - Anon I said I would not die; - I loathed to live--I feared to die-- - So I went forward, till I stood - Amid a marble solitude, - A ruined town of ancient day. - I rested where some steps away - From other work of human hand - Two solitary pillars stand, - Two pillars on a wild hill side, - Like sea-marks of a shrunken tide: - Their shafts were by the sea-breeze worn, - Beneath them waved the verdant corn; - But a few paces from the crown - Of that green summit, farther down, - A fallen pillar on the plain, - Slow sinking in the earth again, - Bedding itself in dark black mould, - Lay moveless, where it first had rolled. - It once had been a pillar high, - And pointing to the starry sky; - But now lay prostrate, its own weight - Now serving but to fix its state, - To sink it in its earthy bed; - I gazed, and to myself I said, - “This pillar lying on the plain - The hand of man might raise again, - And set it as in former days; - But the fall’n spirit who shall raise, - What power on earth? what power in heaven?” - How quickly was an answer given - Unto this voice of my despair! - But now I sat in silence there, - I thought upon the vanished time, - And my irrevocable prime, - My baffled purpose, wasted years, - My sin, my misery--and my tears - Fell thick and fast upon the sands; - I hid my face within my hands, - For tears are strange that find their way - Under the open eye of day, - Under the broad and glorious sun, - Full in the heavens, as mine have done, - And as upon that day they did, - Unnoticed, unrestrained, unchid. - How long I might have felt them flow - Without a check, I do not know, - But presently, while yet I kept - That attitude of woe, and wept, - A mild voice sounded in mine ears-- - “You cannot wash your heart with tears!” - I quickly turned--and, vexed to be - Seen in my spirit’s agony, - In anger had almost replied-- - An aged man was at my side; - I think that since my life began, - I never saw an older man, - Than he who stood beside me then, - And with mild accents said again: - “You cannot cleanse your heart with tears, - Though you should weep as many years - As our great Father, when he sat - Uncomforted on Ararat-- - This would not help you, and the tear - Which does not heal, will scald and sear. - What is your sorrow?” - - Until now - I never had unveiled my woe-- - Not that I shunned sweet sympathies, - Man’s words, or woman’s pitying eyes; - But that I felt they were in vain, - And could not help me--for the pain, - The wound which I was doomed to feel, - Man gave not, and he could not heal. - But in this old man’s speech and tone - Was something that allured me on: - I told him all--I did not hide - My sin, my sorrow, or my pride: - I told him how, when I began - First to verge upward to a man, - These thoughts were mine--to dwell alone, - My spirit on its lordly throne, - Hating the vain stir, fierce and loud, - The din of the tumultuous crowd; - And how I thought to arm my soul, - And stablish it in self-controul; - And said I would obey the right, - And would be strong in wisdom’s might, - And bow unto mine own heart’s law, - And keep my heart from speck or flaw, - That in its mirror I might find - A reflex of the Eternal mind, - A glass to give me back the truth-- - And how before me from my youth - A phantom ever on the wing, - Appearing now, now vanishing, - Had flitted, looking out from shrine, - From painting, or from work divine - Of poet’s, or of sculptor’s art; - And how I feared it might depart, - That beauty which alone could shed - Light on my life--and then I said, - I would beneath its shadow dwell, - And would all lovely things compel, - All that was beautiful or fair - In art or nature, earth or air, - To be as ministers to me, - To keep me pure, to keep me free - From worldly service, from the chain - Of custom, and from earthly stain; - And how they kept me for a while, - And did my foolish heart beguile; - Yet all at last did faithless prove, - And, late or soon, betrayed my love; - How they had failed me one by one, - Till now, when youth was scarcely done, - My heart, which I had thought to steep - In hues of beauty, and to keep - Its consecrated home and fane, - That heart was soiled with many a stain, - Which from without and from within - Had gathered there, till all was sin, - Till now I only drew my breath, - I lived but in the hope of death. - - While my last words were giving place - To my heart’s anguish, o’er his face - A shadow of displeasure past, - But vanished then again as fast - As the breeze-shadow from the brook; - And with mild words and pitying look - He gently said-- - “Ah me, my son, - A weary course your life has run; - And yet it need not be in vain, - That you have suffered all this pain; - And, if mine years might make me bold - To speak, methinks I could unfold - Why in such efforts you could meet - But only misery and defeat. - Yet deem not of us as at strife, - Because you set before your life - A purpose and a loftier aim, - Than the blind lives of men may claim - For the most part--or that you sought, - By fixed resolve and solemn thought, - To lift your being’s calm estate - Out of the range of time and fate. - Glad am I that a thing unseen, - A spiritual Presence, this has been - Your worship, this your young heart stirred-- - But yet herein you proudly erred, - Here may the source of woe be found, - You thought to fling, yourself around, - The atmosphere of light and love - In which it was your joy to move-- - You thought by efforts of your own - To take at last each jarring tone - Out of your life, till all should meet - In one majestic music sweet-- - Deeming that in our own heart’s ground - The root of good was to be found, - And that by careful watering - And earnest tendance we might bring - The bud, the blossom, and the fruit - To grow and flourish from that root-- - You deemed we needed nothing more - Than skill and courage to explore - Deep down enough in our own heart, - To where the well-head lay apart, - Which must the springs of being feed, - And that these fountains did but need - The soil that choked them moved away, - To bubble in the open day. - But, thanks to heaven, it is not so, - That root a richer soil doth know - Than our poor hearts could e’er supply, - That stream is from a source more high, - From God it came, to God returns, - Not nourished from our scanty urns, - But fed from his unfailing river, - Which runs and will run on for ever.” - When now he came to heavenly things - And spake of them, his spirit had wings, - His words seemed not his own, but given-- - I could have deemed one spake from heaven - Of hope and joy, of life and death, - And immortality through faith, - Of that great change commenced within, - The blood that cleanses from all sin, - That can wash out the inward stain, - And consecrate the heart again, - The voice that clearer and more clear - Doth speak unto the purgèd ear, - The gracious influences given - In a continued stream from heaven, - The balm that can the soul’s hurt heal, - The Spirit’s witness and its seal. - - I listened, for unto mine ear - The Word, which I had longed to hear, - Was come at last, the lifeful word - Which I had often almost heard - In some deep silence of my breast-- - For with a sense of dim unrest - That word unborn had often wrought, - And struggled in the womb of thought, - As from beneath the smothering earth - The seed strives upward to a birth: - And lo! it now was born indeed-- - Here was the answer to my need. - - But now we parted, never more - To meet upon that lone sea-shore. - We have not met on earth again, - And scarcely shall--there doth remain - A time, a place where we shall meet, - And have the stars beneath our feet. - Since then I many times have sought - Who this might be, and sometimes thought - It must have been an angel sent - To be a special instrument - And minister of grace to me, - Or deemed again it might be He, - Of whom some say he shall not die, - Till he have seen with mortal eye - The glory of his Lord again: - But this is a weak thought and vain. - - We parted, each upon our way-- - I homeward, where my glad course lay - Beside those ruins where I sate - On the same morning--desolate,-- - With scarcely strength enough to grieve: - And now it was a marvellous eve, - The waters at my feet were bright, - And breaking into isles of light: - The misty sunset did enfold - A thousand floating motes of gold; - The red light seemed to penetrate - Through the worn stone, and re-create - The old, to glorify anew; - And steeping all things through and through - A rich dissolving splendour poured - Through rent and fissure, and restored - The fall’n, the falling and decayed, - Filling the rifts which time had made, - Till the rent masses seemed to meet, - The pillar stand upon its feet, - And tower and cornice, roof and stair - Hung self-upheld in the magic air. - Transfigured thus those temples stood - Upon the margin of the flood, - All glorious as they rose of yore, - There standing, as not ever more - They could be harmed by touch of time, - But still, as in that perfect prime, - Must flourish unremoved and free, - Or as they then appeared to me, - A newer and more glorious birth, - A city of that other earth, - That Earth which is to be. - - - - - SONNET. - - - What good soever in thy heart or mind - Doth yet no higher source nor fountain own - Than thine own self, nor bow to other throne-- - Suspect and fear--although therein thou find - High purpose to go forth and bless thy kind, - Or in the awful temple of thy soul - To worship what is loveliest, and controul - The ill within, and by strong laws to bind. - Good is of God--and none is therefore sure - That has dared wander from its source away: - Laws without sanction will not long endure, - Love will grow faint and fainter day by day, - And Beauty from the straight path will allure, - And weakening first, will afterwards betray. - - - - - TO ---- - - - What maiden gathers flowers, who does not love[2]? - And some have said, that none in summer bowers, - Save lovers, wreathe them garlands of fresh flowers: - O lady, of a purpose dost thou move - Through garden walks, as willing to disprove - This gentle faith; who, with uncareful hand, - Hast culled a thousand thus at my command, - Wherewith thou hast this dewy garland wove. - There is no meaning in a thousand flowers-- - _One_ lily from its green stalk wouldst thou part, - Or pluck, and to my bosom I will fold, - One rose, selected from these wealthy bowers, - Upgathering closely to its virgin heart - An undivulgèd hoard of central gold. - - - - - TO THE SAME. - - - Look, dearest, what a glory from the sun - Has fringed that cloud with silver edges bright, - And how it seems to drink the golden light - Of evening--you would think that it had won - A splendour of its own: but lo! anon - You shall behold a dark mass float away, - Emptied of light and radiance, from the day, - Its glory faded utterly and gone. - And doubt not we should suffer the same loss - As this weak vapour, which awhile did seem - Translucent and made pure of all its dross, - If, having shared the light, we should misdeem - That light our own, or count we hold in fee - That which we must receive continually. - - - - - TO THE SAME. - - - We live not in our moments or our years-- - The Present we fling from us like the rind - Of some sweet Future, which we after find - Bitter to taste, or bind _that_ in with fears, - And water it beforehand with our tears-- - Vain tears for that which never may arrive: - Meanwhile the joy whereby we ought to live - Neglected or unheeded disappears. - Wiser it were to welcome and make ours - Whate’er of good, though small, the present brings-- - Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds and flowers, - With a child’s pure delight in little things; - And of the griefs unborn to rest secure, - Knowing that mercy ever will endure. - - - - - TO THE SAME. - - - If sorrow came not near us, and the lore - Which wisdom-working sorrow best imparts, - Found never time of entrance to our hearts, - If we had won already a safe shore, - Or if our changes were already o’er, - Our pilgrim being we might quite forget, - Our hearts but faintly on those mansions set, - Where there shall be no sorrow any more. - Therefore we will not be unwise to ask - This, nor secure exemption from our share - Of mortal suffering, and life’s drearier task-- - Not this, but grace our portion so to bear, - That we may rest, when grief and pain are over, - “With the meek Son of our Almighty Lover.” - - - - - TO THE SAME. - - - O dowered with a searching glance to see - Quite through the hollow masks, wherewith the bare - And worthless shows of greatness vizored are, - This lore thou hast, because all things to thee - Are proven by the absolute decree - Of duty, and whatever will not square - With that “prime wisdom,” though of seeming fair - Or stately, thou rejectest faithfully. - Till chidden in thy strength, each random aim - Of good, whose aspect heavenward does not turn, - Shrinks self-rebuked--thou looking kindliest blame - From the calm region of thine eyes, that burn - With tempered but continuous flashes bright, - Like the mild lightnings of a tropic night. - - - - - A LEGEND OF ALHAMBRA. - - - The tradition on which the following Ballad is founded - is an existing one, and exactly as it is here recounted - was narrated to the author during his stay at Granada. - - O hymned in many a poet’s strain, - Alhambra, by enchanter’s hand - Exalted on this throne of Spain, - A marvel of the land, - - The last of thy imperial race, - Alhambra, when he overstept - Thy portal’s threshold, turned his face-- - He turned his face and wept. - - In sooth it was a thing to weep, - If then, as now, the level plain - Beneath was spreading like the deep, - The broad unruffled main: - - If, like a watch-tower of the sun, - Above the Alpujarras rose, - Streaked, when the dying day was done, - With evening’s roseate snows. - - Thy founts yet make a pleasant sound, - And the twelve lions, couchant yet, - Sustain their ponderous burthen, round - The marble basin set. - - But never, when the moon is bright - O’er hill and golden-sanded stream, - And thy square turrets in the light - And taper columns gleam, - - Will village maiden dare to fill - Her pitcher from that basin wide, - But rather seeks a niggard rill - Far down the steep hill-side! - - It was an Andalusian maid, - With rose and pink-enwoven hair, - Who told me what the fear that stayed - Their footsteps from that stair: - - How, rising from that watery floor, - A Moorish maiden, in the gleam - Of the wan moonlight, stands before - The stirrer of the stream: - - And mournfully she begs the grace, - That they would speak the words divine, - And sprinkling water in her face, - Would make the sacred sign. - - And whosoe’er will grant this boon, - Returning with the morrow’s light, - Shall find the fountain pavement strewn - With gold and jewels bright: - - A regal gift--for once, they say, - Her father ruled this broad domain, - The last who kept beneath his sway - This pleasant place of Spain. - - It surely is a fearful doom, - That one so beautiful should have - No present quiet in her tomb, - No hope beyond the grave. - - It must be, that some amulet - Doth make all human pity vain, - Or that upon her brow is set - The silent seal of pain, - - Which none can meet--else long ago, - Since many gentle hearts are there, - Some spirit, touched by joy or woe, - Had answered to her prayer. - - But so it is, that till this hour - That mournful child beneath the moon - Still rises from her watery bower, - To urge this simple boon-- - - To beg, as all have need of grace, - That they would speak the words divine, - And, sprinkling water in her face, - Would make the sacred sign. - - - - - ENGLAND. - - - Peace, Freedom, Happiness, have loved to wait - On the fair islands, fenced by circling seas, - And ever of such favoured spots as these - Have the wise dreamers dreamed, that would create - That perfect model of a happy state, - Which the world never saw. Oceana, - Utopia such, and Plato’s isle that lay - Westward of Gades and the Great Sea’s gate. - Dreams are they all, which yet have helped to make - That underneath fair polities we dwell, - Though marred in part by envy, faction, hate-- - Dreams which are dear, dear England, for thy sake, - Who art indeed that sea-girt citadel, - And nearest image of that perfect state. - - - - - THE ISLAND OF MADEIRA. - - - Though never axe until a later day - Assailed thy forests’ huge antiquity, - Yet elder Fame had many tales of thee-- - Whether Phœnician shipman far astray - Had brought uncertain notices away - Of islands dreaming in the middle sea; - Or that man’s heart, which struggles to be free - From the old worn-out world, had never stay - Till, for a place to rest on, it had found - A region out of ken, that happier isle, - Which the mild ocean breezes blow around, - Where they who thrice upon this mortal stage - Had kept their hands from wrong, their hearts from guile, - Should come at length, and live a tearless age. - - - - - GIBRALTAR. - - - England, we love thee better than we know-- - And this I learned, when after wanderings long - ’Mid people of another stock and tongue, - I heard again thy martial music blow, - And saw thy gallant children to and fro - Pace, keeping ward at one of those huge gates, - Which like twin giants watch the Herculean straits: - When first I came in sight of that brave show, - It made my very heart within me dance, - To think that thou thy proud foot shouldst advance - Forward so far into the mighty sea; - Joy was it and exultation to behold - Thine ancient standard’s rich emblazonry, - A glorious picture by the wind unrolled. - - - - - ENGLAND. - - - We look for, and have promise to behold - A better country, such as earth has none-- - Yet, England, am I still thy duteous son, - And never will this heart be dead or cold - At the relation of thy glories old, - Or of what newer triumphs thou hast won, - Where thou as with a mighty arm hast done - The work of God, quelling the tyrants bold. - Elect of nations, for the whole world’s good - Thou wert exalted to a doom so high-- - To outbrave Rome’s “triple tyrant,” to confound - Every oppressor, that with impious flood - Would drown the landmarks of humanity, - The limits God hath set to nations and their bound[3]. - - - - - POLAND, 1831. - - - The nations may not be trod out, and quite - Obliterated from the world’s great page-- - The nations, that have filled from age to age - Their place in story. They who in despite - Of this, a people’s first and holiest right, - In lust of unchecked power or brutal rage, - Against a people’s life such warfare wage, - With man no more, but with the Eternal fight. - They who break down the barriers He hath set, - Break down what would another time defend - And shelter their own selves: they who forget - (For the indulgence of the present will) - The lasting ordinances, in the end - Will rue their work, when ill shall sanction ill. - - - - - TO NICHOLAS, EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. - - ON HIS REPORTED CONDUCT TOWARDS THE POLES. - - - What would it help to call thee what thou art? - When all is spoken, thou remainest still - With the same power and the same evil will - To crush a nation’s life out, to dispart - All holiest ties, to turn awry and thwart - All courses that kind nature keeps, to spill - The blood of noblest veins, to maim, or kill - With torture of slow pain the aching heart. - When our weak hands hang useless, and we feel - Deeds cannot be, who then would ease his breast - With the impotence of words? But our appeal - Is unto Him, who counts a nation’s tears, - With whom are the oppressor and opprest, - And vengeance, and the recompensing years. - - - - - ON THE RESULTS OF THE LAST FRENCH REVOLUTION. - - - How long shall weary nations toil in blood, - How often roll the still returning stone - Up the sharp painful height, ere they will own - That on the base of individual good, - Of virtue, manners, and pure homes endued - With household graces--that on this alone - Shall social freedom stand--where these are gone, - There is a nation doomed to servitude? - O suffering, toiling France, thy toil is vain! - The irreversible decree stands sure, - Where men are selfish, covetous of gain, - Heady and fierce, unholy and impure, - Their toil is lost, and fruitless all their pain; - They cannot build a work which shall endure. - - - - - TO ENGLAND. - - A SEQUEL TO THE FOREGOING. - - - Thy duteous loving children fear for thee - In one thing chiefly--for thy pure abodes - And thy undesecrated household Gods, - Thou most religious, and for this most free, - Of all the nations. Oh! look out and see - The injuries which she, who in the name - Of liberty thy fellowship would claim, - Has done to virtue and to liberty; - Whose philtres have corrupted everywhere - The living springs men drink of, all save thine. - Oh! then of her and of her love beware! - Better again eight hundred years of strife, - Than give her leave to sap and undermine - The deep foundations of thy moral life. - - - - - SONNET. - - - You say we love not freedom, honoured friend; - Yea, doubtless, we can lend to scheme like yours - Small love. Yet not for this--that it assures - Too much to man--this would not me offend: - But for I know that all such schemes will end - With leaving him too little,--will deprive - Of that free energy by which we live: - For of such plots the final act attend-- - See them who loathed the very name of king, - Emulous in slavery, bow their souls before - The new-coined title of some meaner thing - Than ever crown of king or emperor wore; - For such in God’s and Nature’s righteousness, - The weakness which avenges all excess. - - - - - SONNET TO SILVIO PELLICO, - - ON READING THE ACCOUNT OF HIS IMPRISONMENT. - - - Ah! who may guess, who yet was never tried - How fearful the temptation to reply - With wrong for wrong, yea fiercely to defy - In spirit, even when action is denied? - Therefore praise waits on thee, not drawn aside - By this strong lure of hell--on thee whose eye - Being formed by love, could every where descry - Love, or some workings unto love allied-- - And benediction on the grace that dealt - So with thy soul--and prayer, more earnest prayer, - Intenser longing than before we felt - For all that in dark places lying are, - For captives in strange lands, for them who pine - In depth of dungeon, or in sunless mine[4]. - - - - - TO THE SAME. - - - Songs of deliverance compassed thee about, - Long ere thy prison doors were backward flung: - When first thy heart to gentle thoughts was strung, - A song arose in heaven, an angel shout - For one delivered from the hideous rout, - That with defiance and fierce mutual hate - Do each the other’s griefs exasperate. - Thou, loving, from thy grief hadst taken out - Its worst--for who is captive or a slave - But He, who from that dungeon and foul grave, - His own dark soul, refuses to come forth - Into the light and liberty above? - Or whom may we call wretched on this earth - Save only him who has left off to love? - - - - - FROM THE SPANISH. - - - Who ever such adventure yet, - Or a like delight has known, - To that which Count Arnaldo met - On the morning of St. John? - - He had gone forth beside the sea, - With his falcon on his hand, - And saw a pinnace fast and free, - That was making to the land. - - And he that by the rudder stood - As he went was singing still, - “My galley, oh my galley good, - Heaven protect thee from all ill; - - “From all the dangers and the woe - That on ocean’s waters wait, - Almeria’s reefs and shallows low, - And Gibraltar’s stormy strait. - - “From Venice and its shallow way, - From the shoals of Flanders’ coast, - And from the gulf of broad Biscay, - Where the dangers are the most.” - - Then Count Arnaldo spoke aloud, - You might hear his accents well-- - “Those words, thou mariner, I would - Unto me that thou wouldst tell.” - - To him that mariner replied - In a courteous tone, but free-- - “I never sing that song,” he cried, - “Save to one who sails with me.” - - - - - LINES. - - - Not thou from us, O Lord, but we - Withdraw ourselves from thee. - - When we are dark and dead, - And Thou art covered with a cloud, - Hanging before Thee, like a shroud, - So that our prayer can find no way, - Oh! teach us that we do not say, - “Where is _thy_ brightness fled?” - - But that we search and try - What in ourselves has wrought this blame; - For thou remainest still the same; - But earth’s own vapours earth may fill - With darkness and thick clouds, while still - The sun is in the sky. - - - - - TO A FRIEND ENTERING THE MINISTRY. - - - I. - - High thoughts at first, and visions high - Are ours of easy victory; - The word we bear seems so divine, - So framed for Adam’s guilty line, - That none, unto ourselves we say, - Of all his sinning suffering race, - Will hear that word, so full of grace, - And coldly turn away. - - - II. - - But soon a sadder mood comes round-- - High hopes have fallen to the ground, - And the ambassadors of peace - Go weeping, that men will not cease - To strive with heaven--they weep and mourn, - That suffering men will not be blest, - That weary men refuse to rest, - And wanderers to return. - - - III. - - Well is it, if has not ensued - Another and a worser mood, - When all unfaithful thoughts have way, - When we hang down our hands, and say, - Alas! it is a weary pain, - To seek with toil and fruitless strife - To chafe the numbed limbs into life, - That will not live again. - - - IV. - - Then if Spring odours on the wind - Float by, they bring into our mind - That it were wiser done, to give - Our hearts to Nature, and to live - For her--or in the student’s bower - To search into her hidden things, - And seek in books the wondrous springs - Of knowledge and of power. - - - V. - - Or if we dare not thus draw back, - Yet oh! to shun the crowded track - And the rude throng of men! to dwell - In hermitage or lonely cell, - Feeding all longings that aspire - Like incense heavenward, and with care - And lonely vigil nursing there - Faith’s solitary pyre. - - - VI. - - Oh! let not us this thought allow-- - The heat, the dust upon our brow, - Signs of the contest, we may wear: - Yet thus we shall appear more fair - In our Almighty Master’s eye, - Than if in fear to lose the bloom, - Or ruffle the soul’s lightest plume, - We from the strife should fly. - - - VII. - - And for the rest, in weariness, - In disappointment, or distress, - When strength decays, or hope grows dim, - We ever may recur to Him, - Who has the golden oil divine, - Wherewith to feed our failing urns, - Who watches every lamp that burns - Before his sacred shrine. - - - - - TO A CHILD, PLAYING. - - - Dear boy, thy momentary laughter rings - Sincerely out, and that spontaneous glee, - Seeming to need no hint from outward things, - Breaks forth in sudden shoutings, loud and free. - - From what hid fountains doth thy joyance flow, - That borrows nothing from the world around? - Its springs must deeper lie than we can know, - A well whose springs lie safely underground. - - So be it ever--and thou happy boy, - When Time, that takes these wild delights away, - Gives thee a measure of sedater joy, - Which, unlike this, shall ever with thee stay;-- - - Then may that joy, like this, to outward things - Owe nothing--but lie safe beneath the sod, - A hidden fountain fed from unseen springs, - From the glad-making river of our God. - - - - - THE HERRING-FISHERS OF LOCHFYNE. - - - Deem not these fishers idle, though by day - You hear the snatches of their lazy song, - And see them listlessly the sunlight long - Strew the curved beach of this indented bay: - So deemed I, till I viewed their trim array - Of boats last night,--a busy armament, - With sails as dark as ever Theseus bent - Upon his fatal rigging, take their way. - Rising betimes, I could not choose but look - For their return, and when along the lake - The morning mists were curling, saw them make - Homeward, returning toward their quiet nook, - With draggled nets down hanging to the tide, - Weary, and leaning o’er their vessels’ side. - - - - - IN THE ISLE OF MULL. - - - The clouds are gathering in their western dome, - Deep-drenched with sunlight, as a fleece with dew, - While I with baffled effort still pursue - And track these waters toward their mountain home, - In vain--though cataract, and mimic foam, - And island-spots, round which the streamlet threw - Its sister arms, which joyed to meet anew, - Have lured me on, and won me still to roam; - Till now, coy nymph, unseen thy waters pass, - Or faintly struggle through the twinkling grass-- - And I, thy founts unvisited, return. - Is it that thou art revelling with thy peers? - Or dost thou feed a solitary urn, - Else unreplenished, with thine own sad tears? - - - - - THE SAME. - - - Sweet Water-nymph, more shy than Arethuse, - Why wilt thou hide from me thy green retreat, - Where duly Thou with silver-sandalled feet, - And every Naiad, her green locks profuse, - Welcome with dance sad evening, or unloose, - To share your revel, an oak-cinctured throng, - Oread and Dryad, who the daylight long - By rock, or cave, or antique forest, use - To shun the Wood-god and his rabble bold? - Such comes not now, or who with impious strife - Would seek to untenant meadow stream and plain - Of that indwelling power, which is the life - And which sustaineth each, which poets old - As god and goddess thus have loved to feign. - - - - - AT SEA. - - - The sea is like a mirror far and near, - And ours a prosperous voyage, safe from harms; - And yet the sense that everlasting arms - Are round us and about us, is as dear - Now when no sight of danger doth appear, - As though our vessel did its blind way urge - ’Mid the long weltering of the dreariest surge, - Through which a perishing bark did ever steer. - Lord of the calm and tempest, be it ours, - Poor mariners! to pay due vows to thee, - Though not a cloud on all the horizon lowers - Of all our life--for even so shall we - Have greater boldness towards thee, when indeed - The storm is up, and there is earnest need. - - - - - AN EVENING IN FRANCE. - - - One star is shining in the crimson eve, - And the thin texture of the faint blue sky - Above is like a veil intensely drawn; - Upon the spirit with a solemn weight - The marvel and the mystery of eve - Is lying, as all holy thoughts and calm, - By the vain stir and tumult of the day - Chased far away, come back on tranquil wing, - Like doves returning to their noted haunts. - It is the solemn even-tide--the hour - Of holy musings, and to us no less - Of sweet refreshment for the bodily frame - Than for the spirit, harassed both and worn - With a long day of travel; and methinks - It must have been an evening such as this, - After a day of toilsome journeyings o’er, - When looking out on Tiber, as we now - Look out on this fair river flowing by, - Together sat the saintly Monica[5], - And with her, given unto her prayers, that son, - The turbid stream of whose tumultuous youth - Now first was running clear and bright and smooth, - And solitary sitting in the niche - Of a deep window held delightful talk-- - Such as they never could have known before, - While a deep chasm, deeper than natural love - Could e’er bridge over, lay betwixt their souls-- - Of what must be the glorious life in heaven. - And looking forth on meadow, stream, and sky, - And on the golden west, that richest glow - Of sunset to the uncreated light, - Which must invest for ever those bright worlds, - Seemed darkness, and the best that earth can give, - Its noblest pleasures, they with one consent - Counted as vile, nor once to be compared-- - Oh! rather say not worthy to be named - With what is to be looked for there; and thus - Leaving behind them all things which are seen, - By many a stately stair they did ascend - Above the earth and all created things, - The sun and starry heavens--yea, and above - The mind of man, until they did attain - Where light no shadow has, and life no death, - Where past or future are not, nor can be, - But an eternal present, and the Lamb - His people feeds from indeficient streams. - Then pausing for a moment, as to taste - That river of delights, at length they cried, - Oh! to be thus for ever, and to hear - Thus in the silence of the lower world, - And in the silence of all thoughts that keep - Vain stir within, unutterable words, - And with the splendour of His majesty, - Whose seat is in the middle of the throne, - Thus to be fed for ever--this must be - The beatific vision, the third heaven. - What we have for these passing moments known, - To know the same for ever--this would be - That life whereof even now we held debate. - When will it be? oh when? - - These things they said, - And for a season breathed immortal air, - But then perforce returned to earth again: - For the air on those first summits is too fine - For our long breathing, while we yet have on - Our gross investiture of mortal weeds. - - Yet not for nothing had their spirits flown - To those high regions, bringing back at once - A reconcilement with the mean things here, - And a more earnest longing for what there - Of nobler was by partial glimpses thus - Seen through the crannies of the prison house. - And she, that mother--such entire content - Possessed her bosom, and her Lord had filled - The orb of her desires so round and full, - Had answered all her prayers for her lost son - With such an overmeasure of his grace, - She had no more to ask, and did not know - Why she should tarry any longer here, - Nor what she did on earth. Thus then she felt, - And to these thoughts which overflowed her heart - Gave thankful utterance meet; nor many days - After this vision and foretaste of joy, - Inherited the substance of the things - Which she had seen, and entered into peace. - - - - - SONNET. - - TO MY CHILD--A FELLOW-TRAVELLER. - - - How of a sudden Sleep has laid on thee - His heavy hand--on thee, for ever blest, - Sleeping or waking, stirring or at rest: - But now thou wert exulting merrily, - And in the very middle of thy glee - Thy head thou layedst on thy father’s breast, - There seeming to have found a peacefuller nest - Than one would think might in this loud world be. - There were no need to fear thy worser mood, - Striving in years to come against the good - He would impart, if thou couldst keep in mind - How many times, the while with anxious care - He sought to screen thee from the chilling air, - Upon his bosom thou hast slept reclined. - - - - - THE DESCENT OF THE RHONE. - - - Often when my thought has been - Pondering on what solemn scene, - Which of all the glorious shows - Nature can at will disclose, - Once beholden by the eye, - Ever after would supply - Most unto the musing heart - Of memories which should not depart-- - It has seemed no ampler dower - Of her beauty or her power - We could win, than night and day, - An illimitable way, - To sail down some mighty river, - Sailing as we would sail for ever. - - Lo! my wish is almost won, - Broadly flows the stately Rhone, - And we loosen from the shore - Our light pinnace, long before - The young East in gorgeous state - Has unlocked his ruby gate, - And our voyage is not done - At the sinking of the sun; - But for us the azure Night - Feeds her golden flocks with light: - Ours are all the hues of heaven, - Sights and sounds of morn and even; - In our view the day is born; - First the stars of lustre shorn, - Until Hesper, he who last - Kept his splendour, now fades fast; - A faint bloom over heaven is spread, - And the clouds blush deeper red, - Till from them the stream below - Catches the same roseate glow; - The pale east lightens into gold, - And the west is with the fold - Of the mantle of dim night - Scarcely darkened or less bright-- - Till, his way prepared, at length - Rising up in golden strength, - Tramples the victorious sun - The dying stars out, one by one. - - Fairer scene the opening eye - Of the day can scarce descry-- - Fairer sight he looks not on - Than the pleasant banks of Rhone; - Where in terraces and ranks, - On those undulating banks, - Rise by many a hilly stair - Sloping tiers of vines, where’er - From the steep and stony soil - Has been won by careful toil, - And with long laborious pains - Fenced against the washing rains, - Fenced and anxiously walled round, - A little patch of garden ground. - Higher still some place of power, - Or a solitary tower, - Ruined now, is looking down - On some quiet little town - In a sheltered glen beneath, - Where the smoke’s unbroken wreath, - Mounting in the windless air, - Rests, dissolving slowly there, - O’er the housetops like a cloud, - Or a thinnest vapourous shroud. - - Morn has been, and lo! how soon - Has arrived the middle noon, - And the broad sun’s rays do rest - On some naked mountain’s breast, - Where alone relieve the eye - Massive shadows, as they lie - In the hollows motionless; - Still our boat doth onward press. - Now a peaceful current wide - Bears it on an ample tide, - Now the hills retire, and then - Their broad fronts advance again, - Till the rocks have closed us round, - And would seem our course to bound, - But anon a way appears, - And our vessel onward steers, - Darting swiftly as between - Narrow walls of a ravine. - - Morn has been and noon--and now - Evening falls about our prow: - But the sunken sunset still - Burns behind the western hill; - Lo! the starry troop again - Gather on the ethereal plain; - Even now and there were none, - And a moment since but one; - And anon we lift our head, - And all heaven is overspread - With a still assembling crowd, - With a silent multitude-- - Venus, first and brightest set - In the night’s pale coronet, - Armed Orion’s belted pride, - And the Seven that by the side - Of the Titan nightly weave - Dances in the mystic eve, - Sisters linked in love and light; - ’Twere in truth a solemn sight, - Were we sailing now as they, - Who upon their western way - To the isles of spice and gold, - Nightly watching, might behold - These our constellations dip, - And the great sign of the Ship - Rise upon the other hand, - With the Cross that seems to stand - In the vault of heaven upright, - Marking the middle hour of night-- - Or with them whose keels first prest - The mighty rivers of the west, - Who the first with bold intent - Down the Orellana went,[6] - Or a dangerous progress won - On the mighty Amazon, - By whose ocean-streams they tell - How yet the warrior-maidens dwell. - - But the Fancy may not roam; - Thou wilt keep it nearer home, - Friend, of earthly friends the best, - Who on this fair river’s breast - Sailest with me fleet and fast, - As the unremitting blast - With a steady breath and strong - Urges our light boat along. - We this day have found delight - In each pleasant sound and sight - Of this river bright and fair, - And in things which flowing are - Like a stream, yet without blame - These my passing song may claim, - Or thy hearing may beguile, - If we not forget the while, - That we are from childhood’s morn - On a mightier river borne, - Which is rolling evermore - To a sea without a shore, - Life the river, and the sea - That we seek--eternity. - We may sometimes sport and play, - And in thought keep holiday, - So we ever own a law, - Living in habitual awe, - And beneath the constant stress - Of a solemn thoughtfulness, - Weighing whither this life tends, - For what high and holy ends - It was lent us, whence it flows, - And its current whither goes. - - There is ample matter here - For as much of thought and fear, - As will solemnize our souls-- - Thought of how this river rolls - Over millions wrecked before - They could reach that happy shore, - Where we have not anchored yet; - Of the dangers which beset - Our own way, of hidden shoal, - Waters smoothest where they roll - Over point of sunken rock, - Treacherous calm, and sudden shock - Of the storm, which can assail - No boat than ours more weak or frail-- - Matter not alone of sadness, - But no less of thankful gladness, - That, whichever way we turn, - There are steady lights that burn - On the shore, and lamps of love - In the gloomiest sky above, - Which will guide our bark aright - Through the darkness of our night-- - Many a fixed unblinking star - Unto them that wandering are - Through this blindly-weltering sea. - Themes of high and thoughtful glee, - When we think we are not left, - Of all solaces bereft, - Each to hold, companionless, - Through a watery wilderness, - Unaccompanied our way, - As we can--this I may say, - Whatsoever else betide, - With thee sitting at my side, - And this happy cherub sweet, - Playing, laughing at my feet. - - - - - ON THE PERSEUS AND MEDUSA OF BENVENUTO CELLINI. - - - In what fierce spasms upgathered, on the plain - Medusa’s headless corpse has quivering sunk, - While all the limbs of that undying trunk - To their extremest joint with torture strain; - But the calm visage has resumed again - Its beauty,--the orbed eyelids are let down, - As though a living sleep might once more crown - Their placid circlets, guiltless of all pain. - And Thou--is thine the spirit’s swift recoil, - Which follows every deed of acted wrath, - That holding in thine hand this lovely spoil, - Thou dost not triumph, feeling that the breath - Of life is sacred, whether it inform, - Loathly or beauteous, man or beast or worm? - - - - - LINES. - - WRITTEN AT THE VILLAGE OF PASSIGNANO, ON THE LAKE OF THRASYMENE. - - - The mountains stand about the quiet lake, - That not a breath its azure calm may break; - No leaf of these sere olive trees is stirred, - In the near silence far-off sounds are heard; - The tiny bat is flitting overhead, - The hawthorn doth its richest odours shed - Into the dewy air; and over all - Veil after veil the evening shadows fall, - And one by one withdraw each glimmering height, - The far, and then the nearer, from our sight-- - No sign surviving in this tranquil scene; - That strife and savage tumult here have been. - - But if the pilgrim to the latest plain - Of carnage, where the blood like summer rain - Fell but the other day; if in his mind - He marvels much and oftentimes to find - With what success has Nature each sad trace - Of man’s red footmarks laboured to efface-- - What wonder is it, if this spot appears - Guiltless of strife, when now two thousand years - Of daily reparation have gone by, - Since it resumed its own tranquillity. - This calm has nothing strange, yet not the less - This holy evening’s solemn quietness, - The perfect beauty of this windless lake, - This stillness which no harsher murmurs break - Than the frogs croaking from the distant sedge, - These vineyards drest unto the water’s edge, - This hind that homeward driving the slow steer, - Tells that man’s daily work goes forward here, - Have each a power upon me, while I drink - The influence of the placid time, and think - How gladly that sweet Mother once again - Resumes her sceptre and benignant reign, - But for a few short instants scared away - By the mad game, the cruel impious fray - Of her distempered children--how comes back, - And leads them in the customary track - Of blessing once again; to order brings - Anew the dislocated frame of things, - And covers up, and out of sight conceals - What they have wrought of ill, or gently heals. - - - - - VESUVIUS, AS SEEN FROM CAPRI. - - - A wreath of light blue vapour, pure and rare, - Mounts, scarcely seen against the bluer sky, - In quiet adoration, silently-- - Till the faint currents of the upper air - Dislimn it, and it forms, dissolving there, - The dome, as of a palace, hung on high - Over the mountain--underneath it lie - Vineyards and hays and cities white and fair. - Might we not hope this beauty would engage - All living things unto one pure delight? - A vain belief!--for here, our records tell, - Rome’s understanding tyrant from men’s sight - Hid, as within a guilty citadel, - The shame of his dishonourable age. - - - - - VESUVIUS. - - - As when unto a mother, having chid - Her child in anger, there have straight ensued - Repentings for her quick and angry mood, - That she would fain see all its traces hid - Quite out of sight--even so has Nature bid - Fair flowers, that on the scarred earth she has strewed, - To blossom, and called up the taller wood - To cover what she ruined and undid. - Oh! and her mood of anger did not last - More than an instant, but her work of peace, - Restoring and repairing, comforting - The earth, her stricken child, will never cease; - For that was her strange work, and quickly past, - To this her genial toil no end the years shall bring. - - - - - THE SAME, CONTINUED. - - - That her destroying fury was with noise - And sudden uproar--but far otherwise, - With silent and with secret ministries, - Her skill of renovation she employs: - For Nature, only loud when she destroys, - Is silent when she fashions. She will crowd - The work of her destruction, transient, loud, - Into an hour, and then long peace enjoys. - Yea, every power that fashions and upholds - Works silently--all things whose life is sure, - Their life is calm--silent the light that moulds - And colours all things; and without debate - The stars, which are for ever to endure, - Assume their thrones and their unquestioned state. - - - - - TO ENGLAND. - - WRITTEN AFTER A VISIT TO SORRENTO. - - - They are but selfish visions at the best, - Which tempt us to desire that we were free - From the dear ties that bind us unto Thee, - That so we might take up our lasting rest, - Where some delightful spot, some hidden nest - In brighter lands has pleased our phantasy: - And might such vows at once accomplished be, - We should not in the accomplishment be blest, - But oh! most miserable, if it be true - Peace only waits upon us, while we do - Heaven’s work and will: for what is it we ask, - When we would fain have leave to linger here, - But to abandon our appointed task, - Our place of duty and our natural sphere? - - - - - LINES. - - WRITTEN AFTER HEARING SOME BEAUTIFUL - SINGING IN A CONVENT CHURCH AT ROME. - - - Sweet voices! seldom mortal ear - Strains of such potency might hear; - My soul, that listened, seemed quite gone, - Dissolved in sweetness, and anon - I was borne upward, till I trod - Among the hierarchy of God. - And when they ceased, as time must bring - An end to every sweetest thing, - With what reluctancy came back - My spirits to their wonted track, - And how I loathed the common life, - The daily and recurring strife - With petty sins, the lowly road - And being’s ordinary load. - Why after such a solemn mood - Should any meaner thought intrude? - Why will not heaven hereafter give, - That we for evermore may live - Thus at our spirit’s topmost bent? - This said I in my discontent. - - But give me, Lord, a wiser heart; - These seasons come, and they depart, - These seasons, and those higher still, - When we are given to have our fill - Of strength and life and joy with thee, - And brightness of thy face to see. - They come, or we could never guess - Of heaven’s sublimer blessedness; - They come, to be our strength and cheer - In other times, in doubt or fear, - Or should our solitary way - Lie through the desert many a day. - They go, they leave us blank and dead, - That we may learn, when they are fled, - We are but vapours which have won - A moment’s brightness from the sun, - And which it may at pleasure fill - With splendour, or unclothe at will. - Well for us they do not abide, - Or we should lose ourselves in pride, - And be as angels--but as they - Who on the battlements of day - Walked, gazing on their power and might, - Till they grew giddy in their height. - - Then welcome every nobler time, - When, out of reach of earth’s dull chime, - ’Tis ours to drink with purgèd ears - The music of the solemn spheres, - Or in the desert to have sight - Of those enchanted cities bright, - Which sensual eye can never see: - Thrice welcome may such seasons be. - But welcome too the common way, - The lowly duties of the day, - And all which makes and keeps us low, - Which teaches us ourselves to know, - That we, who do our lineage high - Draw from beyond the starry sky, - Are yet upon the other side - To earth and to its dust allied. - - - - - ON A PICTURE OF THE ASSUMPTION BY MURILLO. - - - With what calm power thou risest on the wind-- - Mak’st thou a pinion of those locks unshorn? - Or of that dark blue robe which floats behind - In ample fold? or art thou cloud-upborne? - - A crescent moon is bent beneath thy feet, - Above the heavens expand, and tier o’er tier - With heavenly garlands thy advance to greet, - The cloudy throng of cherubim appear. - - There is a glory round thee, and mine eyes - Are dazzled, for I know not whence it came, - Since never in the light of western skies - The island clouds burned with so pure a flame: - - Nor were those flowers of our dull common mould, - But nurtured on some amaranthine bed, - Nearer the sun, remote from storms and cold, - By purer dews and warmer breezes fed. - - Well may we be perplexed and sadly wrought, - That we can guess so ill what dreams were thine, - Ere from the chambers of thy silent thought - That face looked out on thee, Painter divine. - - What innocence, what love, what loveliness, - What purity must have familiar been - Unto thy soul, before it could express - The holy beauty in that visage seen. - - And so, if we would understand thee right, - And the diviner portion of thine art, - We must exalt our spirits to thine height, - Nor wilt thou else the mystery impart. - - - - - AN INCIDENT VERSIFIED. - - - Far in the south there is a jutting ledge - Of rocks, scarce peering o’er the water’s edge, - Where earliest come the fresh Atlantic gales, - That in their course have filled a thousand sails, - And brushed for leagues and leagues the Atlantic deep, - Till now they make the nimble spirit leap - Beneath their lifeful and renewing breath, - And stir it like the ocean depths beneath. - Two that were strangers to that sunny land, - And to each other, met upon this strand; - One seemed to keep so slight a hold of life, - That when he willed, without the spirit’s strife, - He might let go--a flower upon a ledge - Of verdant meadow by a river’s edge, - Which ever loosens with its treacherous flow - In gradual lapse the moistened soil below; - While to the last in beauty and in bloom - That flower is scattering incense o’er its tomb, - And with the dews upon it, and the breath - Of the fresh morning round it, sinks to death. - - They met the following day, and many more - They paced together this low ridge of shore, - Till one fair eve, the other with intent - To lure him out, unto his chamber went; - But straight retired again with noiseless pace, - For with a subtle gauze flung o’er his face - Upon his bed he lay, serene and still - And quiet, even as one who takes his fill - Of a delight he does not fear to lose. - So blest he seemed, the other could not choose - To wake him, but went down the narrow stair; - And when he met an aged attendant there, - She ceased her work to tell him, when he said, - Her patient then on happy slumber fed, - But that anon he would return once more,-- - Her inmate had expired an hour before. - - ------ - - I know not by what chance he thus was thrown - On a far shore, untended and alone, - To live or die; for, as I after learned, - There were in England many hearts that yearned - To know his safety, and such tears were shed - For him as grace the living and the dead. - - - - - ADDRESSED ON LEAVING ROME TO A FRIEND RESIDING IN THAT CITY. - - - O lately written in the roll of friends, - O written late, not last, three pleasant months - Under the shadow of the Capitol, - A pleasant time, made pleasanter by thee, - It has been mine to pass--three months of spring, - Which pleasant in themselves and for thy sake, - Had yet this higher, that they stirred in the heart - The motions of continual thankfulness - To me, considering by what gracious paths - I had been guided, by what paths of love, - Since I was last a dweller in these gates. - That meditation could not prove to me - But as a spring that ever bubbles up, - Sparkling in the face of heaven, when every day - Reminded me how little gladness then - I gathered from these things, but now how much. - - For tho’ not then indifferent to me - Nature or art, yea rather tho’ from these - I drew whatever lightened for a while - The burden of our life and weary load; - Yet seldom could I summon heart enough, - With all their marvels round me, to go forth - In quest of any. But some lonely spot, - Some ridge of ruin fringed with cypresses, - Such as have everywhere loved well to make - Their chosen home above all other trees, - ’Mid the fal’n palaces of ancient Rome, - Me did such haunt please better, or I loved, - With others whom the like disquietude, - At the like crisis of their lives, now kept - Restless, with them to question to and fro - And to debate the evil of the world, - As tho’ we bore no portion of that ill, - As tho’ with subtle phrases we could spin - A woof to screen us from its undelight: - Such talk sometimes prolonging into night, - As being loth to separate, and find - Each in his solitude how vain are words, - When that they have opposed to them is more. - - I would not live that time again for much, - Full as it was of long and weary days, - Full of rebellious askings, for what end, - And by what power, without our own consent, - We were placed here, to suffer and to sin, - To be in misery and know not why. - But so it was with me, a sojourner, - Five years ago, beneath these mouldering walls - As I am now: and, trusted friend, to thee - I have not doubted to reveal my soul, - For thou hast known, if I may read aright - The pages of thy past existence, thou - Hast known the dreary sickness of the soul, - That falls upon us in our lonely youth, - The fear of all bright visions leaving us, - The sense of emptiness, without the sense - Of an abiding fulness anywhere, - When all the generations of mankind, - With all their purposes, their hopes and fears, - Seem nothing truer than those wandering shapes - Cast by a trick of light upon a wall, - And nothing different from these, except - In their capacity for suffering; - What time we have the sense of sin, and none - Of expiation. Our own life seemed then - But as an arrow flying in the dark - Without an aim, a most unwelcome gift, - Which we might not put by. But now, what God - Intended as a blessing and a boon - We have received as such, and we can say - A solemn yet a joyful thing is life, - Which, being full of duties, is for this - Of gladness full, and full of lofty hopes. - - And He has taught us what reply to make, - Or secretly in spirit, or in words, - If there be need, when sorrowing men complain - The fair illusions of their youth depart, - All things are going from them, and to-day - Is emptier of delights than yesterday, - Even as to-morrow will be barer yet; - We have been taught to feel this need not be, - This is not life’s inevitable law,-- - But that the gladness we are called to know, - Is an increasing gladness, that the soil - Of the human heart, tilled rightly, will become - Richer and deeper, fitter to bear fruit - Of an immortal growth, from day to day, - Fruit of love life and indeficient joy. - - Oh! not for baneful self-complacency, - Not for the setting up our present selves - To triumph o’er our past (worst pride of all), - May we compare this present with that past; - But to provoke renewed acknowledgments, - But to incite unto an earnest hope - For all our brethren. And how should I fear - To own to thee that this is in my heart-- - This longing, that it leads me home to-day, - Glad even while I turn my back on Rome, - Yet half unseen--its arts, its memories, - Its glorious fellowship of living men; - Glad in the hope to tread the soil again - Of England, where our place of duty lies: - Not as altho’ we thought we could do much, - Or claimed large sphere of action for ourselves; - Not in this thought--since rather be it ours, - Both thine and mine, to cultivate that frame - Of spirit, when we know and deeply feel - How little we can do, and yet do that. - - - - - TASSO’S DUNGEON, FERRARA. - - - How might the goaded sufferer in this cell, - With nothing upon which his eyes might fall, - Except this vacant court, that dreary wall, - How might he live? I asked. Here doomed to dwell, - I marvel how at all he could repel - Thoughts which to madness and despair would call. - Enter this vault--the bare sight will appal - Thy spirit, even as mine within me fell, - Until I learned that wall not always there - Had stood--’twas something that this iron grate - Once had looked out upon a garden fair. - There must have been then here, to calm his brain, - Green leaves, and flowers, and sunshine--and a weight - Fell from me, and my heart revived again. - - - - - SONNET. - - - It may be that our homeward longings made - That other lands were judged with partial eyes; - But fairer in my sight the mottled skies, - With pleasant interchange of sun and shade, - And more desired the meadow and deep glade - Of sylvan England, green with frequent showers, - Than all the beauty which the vaunted bowers - Of the parched South have in mine eyes displayed; - Fairer and more desired--this well might be: - For let the South have beauty’s utmost dower, - And yet my heart might well have turned to thee, - My home, my country, when a delicate flower - Within thy pleasant borders was for me - Tended, and growing up thro’ sun and shower. - - - - - AT BRUNECKEN, IN THE TYROL. - - - The men who for this earthly life would claim - Well nigh the whole, and if the work of heaven - Be relegated to one day in seven, - Account the other six may without blame, - Unsanctified by one diviner aim, - To self to mammon and the world be given, - These scanty worshippers might nigh be driven, - Were they but here, to profitable shame. - This eve, the closing of no festal day, - This common work-day eve, in the open street - Seen have I groups of happy people meet, - Putting for this their toil and tasks away, - Men, women, boys, at one rude shrine to pray, - And there their fervent litanies repeat. - - - - - SONNET. - - - To leave unseen so many a glorious sight, - To leave so many lands unvisited, - To leave so many worthiest books unread, - Unrealized so many visions bright;-- - Oh! wretched yet inevitable spite - Of our short span, and we must yield our breath, - And wrap us in the lazy coil of death, - So much remaining of unproved delight. - But hush, my soul, and, vain regrets, be stilled - Find rest in Him who is the complement - Of whatsoe’er transcends your mortal doom, - Of broken hope and frustrated intent; - In the clear vision and aspèct of whom - All wishes and all longings are fulfilled. - - - - - LINES WRITTEN IN AN INN. - - - A dreary lot is his who roams - “Homeless among a thousand homes;” - A dreary thing it is to stray, - As I have sometimes heard men say, - And of myself have partly known, - A passing stranger and alone - In some great city: harder there, - With life about us everywhere, - Than in the desert to restrain - A sense of solitary pain. - We wander thro’ the busy street, - And think how every one we meet - Has parents sister friend or wife, - With whom to share the load of life. - We wander on, for little care - Have we turn our footsteps there, - Where we are but a nameless guest, - One who may claim no interest - In any heart--a passing face, - That comes and goes, and leaves no trace; - Where service waits us, prompt but cold, - A loveless service, bought and sold. - - Yet hard it is not to sustain - A time like this, if there remain - True greetings for us, hand and heart, - Wherein we claim the chiefest part, - Although divided now they be - By many a tract of land and sea. - If we can fly to thoughts like these, - Fall back on such sure sympathies, - This were sufficient to repress - That transient sense of loneliness. - - Yet better if, where’er we roam, - Another country, truer home, - Is in our hearts; if there we find - The word of power, that from the mind - All sad and drear thoughts shall repel, - All solitary broodings quell; - If in the joy of heav’n we live, - Nor only on what earth can give, - Tho’ pure and high--so we may learn - Unto the soul’s great good to turn - What things soever best engage - Our thoughts towàrd our pilgrimage, - Which teach us this is not our rest, - That here we are but as a guest. - As doubtless ’twas no other thought - That in his holy bosom wrought, - Who not alone content to win - In life the shelter of an inn, - Was fain to finish the last stage - There of his mortal pilgrimage[7] - - We too, if we are wise, may be - Pleased for a season to be free - From the encumbrances which love-- - Affection hallowed from above, - But earthly yet, has power to fling - About the spirit’s heav’nward wing; - Pleased if we feel that God is nigh, - Both where we live and where we die, - Whether among true kindred thrown, - Or seeming outwardly alone, - That whether this or that befal, - He watches and has care of all. - - - - - TO E ----. - - - Much have we to support us in our strife - With things which else would crush us, nor alone - Secret refreshings of the inward life, - But many a flower of sweetest scent is strown - Upon our outward and our open way; - None sweeter than are at some seasons known - To them who dwell for many a prosperous day - Under one roof, and have, as they would hope, - One purpose for their lives, one aim, one scope-- - To labour upward on the path to heaven. - Full of refreshment these occasions are, - Like seasonable resting-places given - To pilgrim feet; for tho’, alas! too rare, - Yet the sweet memories they supply, will give - The food on which affection’s heart may live - In after times; since it were sad indeed - If all more intimate knowledge did not breed - More trust in one another and more love, - More faith that each is seeking to attain - With humble earnest effort, not in vain, - The happy rest of God. And so they part - On their divided ways with cheerful heart, - Knowing that in all places they will call - On the same God and Father over all; - And part not wholly, since they meet whose prayer - Meets at the throne of grace; one life divine - Through all the branches of the mystical vine - Flows ever, even as the same breath of air - Lifts every leaflet of a mighty grove. - And from our meeting we shall reap a share - Of a yet higher good, if we have won - Hereby the strengthening of one weak desire, - The fanning of one faint spark to a fire, - The stirring of one prayer, that we may prove - Stedfast and faithful till our work be done, - Until the course appointed us be run. - - We know not whither our frail barks are borne, - To quiet haven, or on stormy shore; - Nor need we seek to know it, while above - The tempest and the waters’ angriest roar - Are heard the voices of Almighty love-- - So we shall find none dreary nor forlorn. - Whither we go we know not, but we know - That if we keep our faces surely set - Towàrd new Zion, we shall reach at last, - When every danger, every woe is past, - The city where the sealèd tribes are met, - Whither the nations of the savèd flow, - The city with its heav’n-descended halls, - The city builded round with diamond walls. - - Then how should we feel sorrow or dim fear - At any parting now, if there to meet; - How should our hearts with sadder pulses beat, - When thou art going where kind hearts will greet - And welcome thy return, and there as here - Thou still wilt find thine own appointed sphere, - To fill the measure up of gentle deeds, - Even as we have learnèd that in these, - That in the holy Christian charities, - And the suppliance of the lowliest needs - Of the most lowly, our true greatness is. - - Therefore we will not seek to win thy stay, - Nor ask but this--that thou shouldst bear away - Kind memories of us, and only claim - What of thyself thou wilt be prompt to give, - That in thy heart’s affections he may live, - To whom thou bearest that most holy name - Of spiritual mother. O beloved friend, - It is a cheering thought, if I should be - Where I can no more watch for him nor tend - His infant years--there where I cannot see - What good, what evil wait upon his way, - That yet thy love thy counsel and thy cares - He will not lack, a child of faithful prayers. - - - - - TO ----. - - ON THE MORNING OF HER BAPTISM. - - - This will we name thy better birth-day, child, - O born already to a sin-worn world, - But now unto a kingdom undefiled, - Where over thee love’s banner is unfurled. - - Lo! on the morning of this Sabbath day - I lay aside the weight of human fears, - Which I had for thee, and without dismay - Look through the avenue of coming years. - - I see thee passing without mortal harm - Thro’ ranks of foes against thy safety met; - I see thee passing--thy defence and charm, - The seal of God upon thy forehead set. - - From this time forth thou often shalt hear say - Of what immortal City thou wert given - The rights and full immunities to-day, - And of the hope laid up for thee in heaven. - - From this time forward thou shalt not believe - That thou art earthly, or that aught of earth, - Or aught that hell can threaten, shall receive - Power on the children of the second birth. - - O risen out of death into the day - Of an immortal life, we bid thee hail, - And will not kiss the waterdrops away, - The dew that rests upon thy forehead pale. - - And if the seed of better life lie long, - As in a wintry hiddenness and death, - Then calling back this day, we will be strong - To wait in hope for heaven’s reviving breath; - - To water, if there should be such sad need, - The undiscernèd germ with sorrowing tears, - To wait until from that undying seed - Out of the earth a heavenly plant appears; - - The growth and produce of a fairer land, - And thence transplanted to a barren soil, - It needs the tendance of a careful hand, - Of love, that is not weary with long toil. - - And thou, dear child, whose very helplessness - Is as a bond upon us and a claim, - Mayest thou have this of us, as we no less - Have daily from our Father known the same. - - - - - TO A LADY SINGING. - - - How like a swan, cleaving the azure sky, - The voice upsoars of thy triumphant song, - That whirled awhile resistlessly along - By the great sweep of threatening harmony, - Seemed, overmatched, to struggle helplessly - With that impetuous music, yet ere long - Escaping from the current fierce and strong, - Pierces the clear crystàlline vault on high. - And I too am upborne with thee together - In circles ever narrowing, round and round, - Over the clouds and sunshine--who erewhile, - Like a blest bird of charmèd summer-weather - In the blue shadow of some foamless isle, - Was floating on the billows of sweet sound. - - - - - THE SAME CONTINUED. - - - When the mute voice returns from whence it came, - The silence of a momentary awe, - A brief submission to the eternal law - Of beauty doth to every heart proclaim - A Spirit has been summoned; yea, the same - Whose dwelling is the inmost human heart, - Which will not from that home and haunt depart, - Which nothing can quite vanquish or make tame. - It is the noblest gift beneath the moon, - The power, this awful presence to compel - Out of the lurking places where it lies - Deep-hidden and removed from human eyes: - Oh! reverence thou in fear and cherish well - This privilege of few, this rarest boon. - - - - - THE SAME CONTINUED. - - - Look! for a season (ah, too brief a space), - While yet the spell is strong upon the rout, - With something of still fear all move about, - As though a breath or motion might displace - The Spirit, which had come of heavenly grace - Among them, for a moment to redeem - Their thoughts and passions from the selfish dream - Of earthly life, and its inglorious race. - If we might keep this awe upon us still, - If we might walk for ever in the power - And in the shadow of the mystery, - Which has been spread around us at this hour, - This might suffice to guard us from much ill, - This might go far to keep us pure and free. - - - - - THE SAME CONTINUED. - - - But the spell fails--and of the many here, - Who have been won to brief forgetfulness - Of all that would degrade them and oppress, - Who have been carried out of their dim sphere - Of being, to realms brighter and more clear, - How few to-morrow will retain a trace, - Which the world’s business shall not soon efface, - Of this high mood, this time of reverent fear. - In these high raptures there is nothing sure, - Nothing that we can rest on, to sustain - The spirit long, or arm it to endure - Against temptation weariness or pain, - And if they promise to preserve it pure - From earthly taint, the promise is in vain. - - - - - THE SAME CONTINUED. - - - Yet proof is here of men’s unquenched desire - That the procession of their life might be - More equable majestic pure and free; - That there are times when all would fain aspire, - And gladly use the helps, to lift them higher, - Which music, poesy, or Nature brings, - And think to mount upon these waxen wings, - Not deeming that their strength shall ever tire. - But who indeed shall his high flights sustain, - Who soar aloft and sink not? He alone - Who has laid hold upon that golden chain - Of love, fast linked to God’s eternal throne,-- - The golden chain from heav’n to earth let down, - That we might rise by it, nor fear to sink again. - - - - - SONNET. - - - A counsellor well fitted to advise - In daily life and at whose lips no less - Men may inquire or nations, when distress - Of sudden doubtful danger may arise, - Who, though his head be hidden in the skies, - Plants his firm foot upon our common earth, - Dealing with thoughts which everywhere have birth,-- - This is the poet, true of heart and wise: - No dweller in a baseless world of dream, - Which is not earth nor heav’n: his words have past - Into man’s common thought and week-day phrase; - This is the poet, and his verse will last. - Such was our Shakspeare once, and such doth seem - One who redeems our later gloomier days. - - - - - SONNET. - - - Me rather may to tears unbidden move - The meanest print that on a cottage wall - Some ancient deed heroic doth recal, - Or loving act of His, whose life was love, - Than that my heart should be too proud to prove - Emotions and sweet sympathies, until - The magic of some mighty master’s skill - Called hues and shapes of wonder from above: - Since if we do no idle homage pay - To what in art most beautiful is found, - We shall have learned to feel in that same hour - With man’s most rude and most unskilled essay - To win the beauty that is floating round - Into abiding forms of grace and power. - - - - - SONNET, - - CONNECTED WITH THE FOREGOING. - - - Yes, and not otherwise, if we in deed - And with pure hearts are seeking what is fair - In Nature, then believe we shall not need - Long anxious quests, exploring earth and air - Ere we shall find wherewith our hearts to feed: - The beauty which is scattered everywhere - Will in our souls such deep contentment breed, - We shall not pine for aught remote or rare; - We shall not ask from some transcendant height - To gaze on such rare scenes, as may surpass - Earth’s common shows, ere we will own delight: - We shall not need in quest of these to roam, - While sunshine lies upon our English grass, - And dewdrops glitter on green fields at home. - - - - - DESPONDENCY[8]. - - - I. - - It is a weary hill - Of moving sand that still - Shifts, struggle as we will, - Beneath our tread: - Of those who went before, - And tracked the desert o’er, - The footmarks are no more, - But gone and fled. - - - II. - - We stray to either side, - We wander far and wide, - We fall to sleep and slide - Far down again: - As thro’ the sand we wade, - We do not seek to aid - Our fellows, but upbraid - Each others’ pain. - - - III. - - I gaze on that bright band - Who on the summit stand, - To order and command, - Like stars on high: - Yet with despairing pace - My way I could retrace, - Or on this desert place - Sink down and die. - - - IV. - - As we who toil and weep, - And with our weeping steep - The path o’er which we creep, - They had not striven; - They must have taken flight - To that serenest height, - And won it by the might - Of wings from heaven. - - - V. - - Alack! I have no wing, - My spirit lacks that spring, - And Nature will not bring - Her help to me. - From her I have no aid, - But light-enwoven shade, - And stream and star upbraid - Our misery. - - - - - ODE TO SLEEP. - - - I. - - I cannot veil mine eyelids from the light; - I cannot turn away - From this insulting and importunate day, - That momently grows fiercer and more bright, - And wakes the hideous hum of monstrous flies - In my vexed ear, and beats - On the broad panes, and like a furnace heats - The chamber of my rest, and bids me rise. - - - II. - - I cannot follow thy departing track, - Nor tell in what far meadows, gentle Sleep, - Thou art delaying. I would win thee back, - Were mine some drowsy potion, or dull spell, - Or charmèd girdle, mighty to compel - Thy heavy grace; for I have heard it said, - Thou art no flatterer, that dost only keep - In kingly haunts, leaving unvisited - The poor man’s lowlier shed; - And when the day is joyless, and its task - Unprofitable, I were fain to ask, - Why thou wilt give it such an ample space, - Why thou wilt leave us such a weary scope - For memory, and for that which men call hope, - Nor wind in one embrace - Sad eve and night forlorn - And undelightful morn. - - - III. - - If with the joyous were thine only home, - I would not so far wrong thee, as to ask - This boon, or summon thee from happier task. - But no,--for then thou wouldst too often roam - And find no rest; for me, I cannot tell - What tearless lids there are, where thou mightst dwell. - I know not any, unenthralled of sorrow, - I know not one, to whom this joyous morrow, - So full of living motion new and bright, - Will be a summons to secure delight. - And thus I shall not harm thee, though I claim - Awhile thy presence--O mysterious Sleep. - Some call thee shadow of a mightier Name, - And whisper how that nightly thou dost keep - A roll and count for him.-- - Then be thou on my spirit like his presence dim. - - - IV. - - Yet if my limbs were heavy with sweet toil, - I had not needed to have wooed thy might, - But till thy timely flight - Had lain securely in thy peaceful coil. - Or if my heart were lighter, long ago - Had crushed the dewy morn upon the sod, - Darkening where I trod, - As was my pleasure once, but now it is not so. - - - V. - - And therefore am I seeking to entwine - A coronal of poppies for my head, - Or wreathe it with a wreath engarlanded - By Lethe’s slumberous waters. Oh! that mine - Were some dim chamber turning to the north, - With latticed casement, bedded deep in leaves, - That opening with sweet murmur might look forth - On quiet fields from broad o’erhanging eaves, - And ever when the Spring her garland weaves, - Were darkened with encroaching ivy-trail - And jaggèd vine-leaves’ shade; - And all its pavement starred with blossoms pale - Of jasmine, when the wind’s least stir was made; - Where the sun-beam were verdurous-cool, before - It wound into that quiet nook, to paint - With interspace of light and colour faint - That tesselated floor. - How pleasant were it there in dim recess, - In some close-curtained haunt of quietness, - To hear no tones of human pain and care, - Our own or others, little heeding there, - If morn or noon or night - Pursued their weary flight, - But musing what an easy thing it were - To mix our opiates in a larger cup, - And drink, and not perceive - Sleep deepening lead his truer kinsman up, - Like undistinguished Night, darkening the skirts of Eve. - - - - - ATLANTIS. - - - I. - - I could loose my boat, - And could bid it float - Where the idlest wind should pilot, - So its glad course lay - From this earth away, - Towards any untrodden islet. - - - II. - - For this earth is old, - And its heart is cold, - And the palsy of age has bound it; - And my spirit frets - For the viewless nets - Which are hourly clinging round it. - - - III. - - And with joyful glee - We have heard of thee, - Thou Isle in mid ocean sleeping; - And thy records old, - Which the Sage has told, - How the Memphian tombs are keeping. - - - IV. - - But we know not where, - ’Neath the desert air, - To look for the pleasant places - Of the youth of Time, - Whose austerer prime - The haunts of his childhood effaces. - - - V. - - Like the golden flowers - Of the western bowers, - Have waned their immortal shadows; - And no harp may tell - Where the asphodel - Clad in light those Elysian meadows. - - - VI. - - And thou, fairest Isle - In the daylight’s smile, - Hast thou sunk in the boiling ocean, - While beyond thy strand - Rose a mightier land - From the wave in alternate motion? - - - VII. - - Are the isles that stud - The Atlantic flood, - But the peaks of thy tallest mountains, - While repose below - The great water’s flow - Thy towns and thy towers and fountains? - - - VIII. - - Have the Ocean powers - Made their quiet bowers, - In thy fanes and thy dim recesses? - Or in haunts of thine - Do the sea-maids twine - Coral wreaths for their dewy tresses? - - - IX. - - Or does foot not fall - In deserted hall, - Choked with wrecks that ne’er won their haven, - By the ebb trailed o’er - Thy untrampled floor, - Which their sunken wealth has paven? - - - X. - - Oh, appear! appear! - Not as when thy spear - Ruled as far as the broad Egean, - But in Love’s own might, - And in Freedom’s right, - Till the nations uplift their Pæan, - - - XI. - - Who now watch and weep, - And their vigil keep, - Till they faint for expectation; - Till their dim eyes shape - Temple tower and cape - From the cloud and the exhalation. - - - - - SAIS. - - - An awful statue, by a veil half-hid, - At Sais stands. One came, to whom was known - All lore committed to Etruscan stone, - And all sweet voices, that dull time has chid - To silence now, by antique Pyramid, - Skirting the desert, heard; and what the deep - May in its dimly-lighted chambers keep, - Where Genii groan beneath the seal-bound lid. - He dared to raise that yet unlifted veil - With hands not pure, but never might unfold - What there he saw--madness, the shadow, fell - On his few days, ere yet he went to dwell - With night’s eternal people, and his tale - Has thus remained, and will remain, untold. - - - - - SONNET. - - - I stood beside a pool, from whence ascended, - Mounting the platforms of the cloudy wind, - A stately hern--its soaring I attended, - Till it grew dim, and I with watching blind-- - When, lo! a shaft of arrowy light descended - Upon its darkness and its dim attire: - It straightway kindled then, and was afire, - And with the unconsuming radiance blended. - A bird, a cloud, flecking the sunny air, - It had its golden dwelling mid the lightning - Of those empyreal domes, and it might there - Have dwelt for ever, glorified and brightning, - But that its wings were weak--so it became - A dusky speck again, that _was_ a wingèd flame. - - - - - RECOLLECTIONS OF BURGOS. - - - Most like some agèd king it seemed to me, - Who had survived his old regality, - Poor and deposed, but keeping still his state, - In all he had before of truly great; - With no vain wishes and no vain regret, - But his enforcèd leisure soothing yet - With meditation calm and books and prayer; - For all was sober and majestic there-- - The old Castilian, with close finger tips - Pressing his folded mantle to his lips; - The dim cathedral’s cross-surmounted pile, - With carved recess, and cool and shadowy aisle, - And had not from dark hoods peered darker eyes, - All fitted well for meditation wise-- - The walks of poplar by the river’s side, - That wound by many a straggling channel wide; - And seats of stone, where one might sit and weave - Visions, till well-nigh tempted to believe - That life had few things better to be done, - And many worse, than resting in the sun - To lose the hours, and wilfully to dim - Our half-shut eyes, and veil them till might swim - The pageant by us, smoothly as the stream - And unremembered pageant of a dream. - - A castle crowned a neighbouring hillock’s crest, - But now the moat was level with the rest; - And all was fallen of this place of power, - All heaped with formless stone, save one round tower, - And here and there a gateway low and old, - Figured with antique shape of warrior bold. - And then behind this eminence the sun - Would drop serenely, long ere day was done; - And one who climbed that height might see again - A second setting o’er the fertile plain - Beyond the town, and glittering in his beam, - Wind far away that poplar-skirted stream. - - - - - TO A FRIEND. - - - Thou that hast travelled far away, - In lands beyond the sea, - Wilt understand me, when I say - What there has come to me. - - In chambers dim thou wilt have wrought, - With no one by, to cheer, - And trod the downward paths of thought, - In solitude and fear; - - Nor till the weary day was o’er, - Into the air have fled - From thought which could delight no more, - From books whose power was dead; - - What time perchance the drooping day - With burning vapour fills - The deep recesses far away - Of all the golden hills: - - Or later, when the twilight blends - All hues, or when the moon - Into the ocean depths descends, - A wavering column, down. - - Then hast not thou in spirit leapt, - Emerging from thy gloom, - Like one who unawares o’erstept - The barriers of a tomb. - - And in thine exultation cried-- - Of gladness having fill, - And in it being glorified-- - “The world is beauteous still!” - - - - - TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL EXILES OF 1823. - -[WRITTEN IN 1829.] - - - Wise are ye in a wisdom vainly sought - Thro’ all the records of the historic page; - It is not to be learned by lengthened age, - Scarce by deep musings of unaided thought: - By suffering and endurance ye have bought - A knowledge of the thousand links that bind - The highest with the lowest of our kind, - And how the indissoluble chain is wrought. - Ye fell by your own mercy once--beware, - When your lots leap again from fortune’s urn, - An heavier error--to be pardoned less. - Yours be it to the nations to declare - That years of pain and disappointment turn - Weak hearts to gall, but wise to gentleness. - - - - - TO THE SAME. - - - Like nightly watchers from a palace tower, - In hope and faith and patience strong to wait - The beacons on the hills, which should relate - How some fenced city of deceit and power - Had fallen--ye have stood for many an hour, - Till your first hope’s high movements must be dead, - And if with new ye have not cheered and fed - Your bosoms, dim despair may be your dower. - Yet not for all--tho’ yet no fire may crest - The mountains, or light up their beacons sere-- - Your eminent commission so far wrong, - Or so much flatter the oppressors’ rest, - As to give o’er your watching, for so long - As ye shall hope, ’tis reason they must fear. - - - - - SONNET. - - - The moments that we rescue and redeem - From the bare desert and the waste of years, - To fertilize, it may be with our tears, - Yet so that for time after they shall teem - With better than rank weeds, and wear a gleam - Of visionary light, and on the wind - Fling odours from the fields long left behind, - These and their fruit to us can never seem - Indifferent things, and therefore do I look - Not without gentle sadness upon thee, - And liken thy outgoing, O my book, - To the impatience of a little brook, - Which might with flowers have lingered pleasantly, - Yet toils to perish in the mighty sea. - - - - - ON AN EARLY DEATH. - - - I. - - Ah me! of them from whom the good have hope, - Of them whom virtue for her liegemen claims, - How many the world tames, - That with its evil they quite cease to cope, - And their first fealty sworn to beauty and truth - Break early; and amid their sinful youth - Make shipwreck of all high and glorious aims. - How few the fierce and fiery trial stand, - To be as weapons tempered and approved - For an almighty hand. - - How few of all the streamlets that were moved, - Do ever unto clearness run again, - And therefore is it marvellous to us, - When of these weapons one is broken thus, - When of these fountains one would seem in vain - Renewed in clearness, and is staunched before - It has had leave to spread fresh streams the desert o’er. - - - II. - - Ah me! that by so frail and feeble thread - Our life is holden--that not life alone, - But all that life has won - May in an hour be gathered to the dead; - The slow additions that build up the mind, - The skill that by temptation we have bought - And suffering, and whatever has been taught - By lengthened years and converse with our kind, - That all may cease together--and the tree - Reared to its height by many a slow degree, - And by the dews the sunshine and the showers - Of many springs, an instant may lay low, - With all its living towers, - And all the fruit mature of growth and slow, - Which on the trees of wisdom leisurely must grow. - - - III. - - Alas! it is another thing to wail, - That when the foremost runners sink and fail, - They cannot pass their torch or forward place - To them that are behind them in their race, - But their extinguished torches must be laid - Together with them in the dust of death: - That when the wise and the true-hearted fade, - So little of themselves they can bequeath - To us, who yet are in the race of life, - For labour and for toil, for weariness and strife. - - - IV. - - But from behind the veil, - Where they are entered who have gone before, - A solemn voice arrests my feeble wail-- - “And has thy life such worthier aims, O man, - That thou shouldst grudge to give its little span - To truth and knowledge, and faith’s holy lore, - Because the places for the exercise - Of these may be withdrawn from mortal eyes. - Win truth, win goodness--for which man was made, - And fear not thou of these to be bereft, - Fear not that these shall in the dust be laid, - Or in corruption left, - Or be the grave-worm’s food. - Nothing is left or lost--nothing of good, - Or lovely; but whatever its first springs - Has drawn from God, returns to him again; - That only which ’twere misery to retain - Is taken from you, which to keep were loss; - Only the scum the refuse and the dross - Are borne away unto the grave of things, - Meanwhile whatever gifts from heav’n descend - Thither again have flowed, - To the receptacle of all things good, - From whom they come and unto whom they tend, - Who is the First and Last, the Author and the End. - - - V. - - And fear to sorrow with increase of grief, - When they who go before - Go furnished--or because their span was brief, - When in the acquist of what is life’s true gage, - Truth, knowledge, and that other worthiest lore, - They had fulfilled already a long age. - For doubt not but that in the worlds above - There must be other offices of love, - That other tasks and ministries there are, - Since it is promised that His servants, there - Shall serve him still. Therefore be strong, be strong, - Ye that remain, nor fruitlessly revolve, - Darkling, the riddles which ye cannot solve, - But do the works that unto you belong, - Believing that for every mystery, - For all the death the darkness and the curse - Of this dim universe, - Needs a solution full of love must be: - And that the way whereby ye may attain - Nearest to this, is not thro’ broodings vain - And half-rebellious--questionings of God, - But by a patient seeking to fulfil - The purpose of his everlasting will, - Treading the way which lowly men have trod. - Since it is ever they who are too proud - For this, that are the foremost and most loud - To judge his hidden judgments, these are still - The most perplexed and mazed at his mysterious will.” - - - - - SONNET. - - - When I have sometimes read of precious things, - The precious things of earth, which yet are vile, - Together heaped into the graves of kings, - Or wasted with them on their funeral pile, - Steeds arms and costly vestments and the dross - Which men call gold, feeding one ravenous pyre, - I have been little moved at all the loss - Of all the treasure which fond men admire. - But when I hear of some too early doom, - Snatching wit wisdom valour grace away, - Or our own loss has taught me what the tomb - May cover from us, then I feel and say - That earth has things whereon the grave may feed, - And feeding may make poor the world indeed. - - - - - SONNET. - - - What is the greatness of a fallen king? - This--that his fall avails not to abate - His spirit to a level with his fate, - Or inward fall along with it to bring; - That he disdains to stoop his former wing, - But keeps in exile and in want the law - Of kingship yet, and counts it scorn to draw - Comfort indign from any meaner thing. - Soul, that art fallen from thine ancient place, - Mayest thou in this mean world find nothing great, - Nor aught that shall the memories efface - Of that true greatness which was once thine own, - As knowing thou must keep thy kingly state, - If thou wouldst reascend thy kingly throne. - - - - - NEW YEAR’S EVE. - - - The strong in spiritual action need not look - Upon the new-found year as on a scroll, - The which their hands lack cunning to unroll, - But in it read, as in an open book, - All they are seeking--high resolve unshook - By circumstance’s unforeseen control, - Successful striving, and whate’er the soul - Has recognised for duty, not forsook. - But they whom many failures have made tame, - Question the future with that reverent fear, - Which best their need of heav’nly aid may shew. - Will it have purer thought, and loftier aim - Pursued more loftily? That a man might know - What thou wilt bring him, thou advancing year! - - - - - TO MY CHILD. - - - Thy gladness makes me thankful every way, - To look upon thy gladness makes me glad; - While yet in part it well might render sad - Us thinking that we too might sport and play, - And keep like thee continual holiday, - If we retained the things which once we had, - If we like happy Neophytes were clad - Still in baptismal stoles of white array. - And yet the gladness of the innocent child - Has not more matter for our thankful glee - Than the dim sorrows of the man defiled; - Since both in sealing one blest truth agree-- - Joy is of God, but heaviness and care - Of our own hearts and what has harboured there. - - - - - SONNET. - - - An open wound that has been healed anew; - A stream dried up, that once again is fed - With waters making green its grassy bed; - A tree that withered was, but to the dew - Puts forth young leaves and blossoms fresh of hue, - Even from the branches which had seemed most dead; - A sea which having been disquieted, - Now stretches like a mirror calm and blue,-- - Our hearts to each of these were likened well. - But Thou wert the physician and the balm; - Thou, Lord, the fountain, whence anew was filled - Their parchèd channel; Thou the dew that fell - On their dead branches; ’twas thy voice that stilled - The storm within--Thou didst command the calm. - - - - - SONNET. - - IN A PASS OF BAVARIA BETWEEN THE WALCHEN AND THE WALDENSEE. - -“His voice was as the sound of many waters.” - - - A sound of many waters--now I know - To what was likened the large utterance sent - By Him who ’mid the golden lampads went: - Innumerable streams, above, below, - Some seen, some heard alone, with headlong flow - Come rushing; some with smooth and sheer descent, - Some dashed to foam and whiteness, but all blent - Into one mighty music. As I go, - The tumult of a boundless gladness fills - My bosom, and my spirit leaps and sings: - Sounds and sights are there of the ancient hills, - The eagle’s cry, or when the mountain flings - Mists from its brow, but none of all these things - Like the one voice of multitudinous rills. - - - - - SONNET. - - - What is thy worship but a vain pretence, - Spirit of Beauty, and a servile trade, - A poor and an unworthy traffic made - With the most sacred gifts of soul and sense; - If they who tend thine altars, gathering thence - No strength, no purity, may still remain - Selfish and dark, and from Life’s sordid stain - Find in their ministrations no defence? - Thus many times I ask, when aught of mean - Or sensual has been brought unto mine ear, - Of them whose calling high is to insphere - Eternal Beauty in forms of human art-- - Vexed that my soul should ever moved have been - By that which has such feigning at the heart. - - - - - SONNET. - - - Thou cam’st not to thy place by accident, - It is the very place God meant for thee; - And shouldst thou there small scope for action see, - Do not for this give room to discontent; - Nor let the time thou owest to God be spent - In idly dreaming how thou mightest be, - In what concerns thy spiritual life, more free - From outward hindrance or impediment. - For presently this hindrance thou shalt find - That without which all goodness were a task - So slight, that Virtue never could grow strong: - And wouldst thou do one duty to His mind, - The Imposer’s--over-burdened thou shalt ask, - And own thy need of grace to help, ere long. - - - - - TO MY GOD-CHILD, - - ON THE DAY OF HIS BAPTISM. - - - No harsh transitions Nature knows, - No dreary spaces intervene; - Her work in silence forward goes, - And rather felt than seen. - - For where the watcher, that with eye - Turned eastward, yet could ever say - When the faint glooming in the sky - First lightened into day? - - Or maiden, by an opening flower - That many a summer morn has stood, - Could fix upon the very hour - It ceased to be a bud? - - The rainbow colours mix and blend - Each with the other, until none - Can tell where fainter hues had end, - And deeper tints begun. - - But only doth this much appear-- - That the pale hues are deeper grown; - The day has broken bright and clear; - The bud is fully blown. - - Dear child, and happy shalt thou be, - If from this hour, with just increase - All good things shall grow up in thee, - By such unmarked degrees. - - If there shall be no dreary space - Between thy present self and past, - No dreary miserable place - With spectral shapes aghast; - - But the full graces of thy prime - Shall, in their weak beginnings, be - Lost in an unremembered time - Of holy infancy. - - This blessing is the first and best; - Yet has not prayer been made in vain - For them, tho’ not so amply blest, - The lost and found again. - - And shouldest thou, alas! forbear - To choose the better, nobler lot, - Yet may we not esteem our prayer - Unheard or heeded not; - - If after many a wandering, - And many a devious pathway trod; - If having known that bitter thing, - To leave the Lord thy God, - - It yet shall be, that thou at last, - Altho’ thy noon be lost, return - To bind life’s eve in union fast - To this, its blessed morn. - - - - - THE MONK AND BIRD. - - - I. - - As he who finds one flower sharp thorns among, - Plucks it, and highly prizes, though before - Careless regard on thousands he has flung, - As fair as this or more; - - - II. - - Not otherwise perhaps this argument - Won from me, where I found it, such regard, - That I esteemed no labour thereon spent - As wearisome or hard. - - - III. - - In huge and antique volume did it lie, - That by two solemn clasps was duly bound, - As neither to be opened or laid by - But with due thought profound. - - - IV. - - There fixèd thought to questions did I lend, - Which hover on the bounds of mortal ken, - And have perplexed, and will unto the end - Perplex the brains of men; - - - V. - - Of what is time, and what eternity, - Of all that seems and is not--forms of things-- - Till my tired spirit followed painfully - On flagging weary wings. - - - VI. - - So that I welcomed this one resting-place, - Pleased as a bird, that when its forces fail, - Lights panting in the ocean’s middle space - Upon a sunny sail. - - - VII. - - And now the grace of fiction, which has power - To render things impossible believed, - And win them with the credence of an hour - To be for truths received-- - - - VIII. - - That grace must help me, as it only can, - Winning such transient credence, while I tell - What to a cloistered solitary man - In ancient times befel. - - - IX. - - Him little might our earthly grandeur feed, - Who to the uttermost was vowed to be - A follower of his Master’s barest need, - In holy poverty. - - - X. - - Nor might he know the gentle mutual strife - Of home affections, which can more or less - Temper with sweet the bitter of our life, - And lighten its distress. - - - XI. - - Yet we should err to deem that he was left - To bear alone our being’s lonely weight, - Or that his soul was vacant and bereft - Of pomp and inward state: - - - XII. - - Morn, when before the sun his orb unshrouds, - Swift as a beacon torch the light has sped, - Kindling the dusky summits of the clouds - Each to a fiery red-- - - - XIII. - - The slanted columns of the noonday light, - Let down into the bosom of the hills, - Or sunset, that with golden vapour bright - The purple mountains fills-- - - - XIV. - - These made him say,--if God has so arrayed - A fading world that quickly passes by, - Such rich provision of delight was made - For every human eye, - - - XV. - - What shall the eyes that wait for him survey, - Where his own presence gloriously appears - In worlds that were not founded for a day, - But for eternal years? - - - XVI. - - And if at seasons this world’s undelight - Oppressed him, or the hollow at its heart, - One glance at those enduring mansions bright - Made gloomier thoughts depart; - - - XVII. - - Till many times the sweetness of the thought - Of an eternal country--where it lies - Removed from care and mortal anguish, brought - Sweet tears into his eyes. - - - XVIII. - - Thus, not unsolaced, he longwhile abode, - Filling all dreary melancholy time, - And empty spaces of the heart with God, - And with this hope sublime: - - - XIX. - - Even thus he lived, with little joy or pain, - Drawn thro’ the channels by which men receive-- - Most men receive the things which for the main - Make them rejoice or grieve. - - - XX. - - But for delight--on spiritual gladness fed, - And obvious to temptations of like kind; - One such, from out his very gladness bred, - It was his lot to find. - - - XXI. - - When first it came, he lightly put it by, - But it returned again to him ere long, - And ever having got some new ally, - And every time more strong-- - - - XXII. - - A little worm that gnawed the life away - Of a tall plant, the canker of its root, - Or like as when, from some small speck, decay - Spreads o’er a beauteous fruit. - - - XXIII. - - For still the doubt came back--can God provide - For the large heart of man what shall not pall, - Nor thro’ eternal ages’ endless tide - On tired spirits fall. - - - XXIV. - - Here but one look tow’rd heavèn will repress - The crushing weight of undelightful care; - But what were there beyond, if weariness - Should ever enter there? - - - XXV. - - Yet do not sweetest things here soonest cloy? - Satiety the life of joy would kill, - If sweet with bitter, pleasure with annoy - Were not attempered still. - - - XXVI. - - This mood endured, till every act of love, - Vigils of praise and prayer, and midnight choir, - All shadows of the service done above, - And which, while his desire, - - - XXVII. - - And while his hope was heav’nward, he had loved, - As helps to disengage him from the chain - That fastens unto earth--all these now proved - Most burdensome and vain. - - - XXVIII. - - What must have been the issue of that mood - It were a thing to fear--but that one day, - Upon the limits of an ancient wood, - His thoughts him led astray. - - - XXIX. - - Darkling he went, nor once applied his ear, - On a loud sea of agitations thrown, - Nature’s low tones and harmonies to hear, - Heard by the calm alone. - - - XXX. - - The merry chirrup of the grasshopper, - Sporting among the roots of withered grass, - The dry leaf rustling to the wind’s light stir - Did each unnoted pass: - - - XXXI. - - He, walking in a trance of selfish care, - Not once observed the beauty shed around, - The blue above, the music in the air, - The flowers upon the ground; - - - XXXII. - - Till from the centre of that forest dim - Came to him such sweet singing of a bird, - As sweet in very truth, then seemed to him - The sweetest ever heard. - - - XXXIII. - - That lodestar drew him onward inward still, - Deeper than where the village children stray, - Deeper than where the woodman’s glittering bill - Lops the large boughs away-- - - - XXXIV. - - Into a central space of glimmering shade, - Where hardly might the struggling sunbeams pass, - Which a faint lattice-work of light had made - Upon the long lank grass. - - - XXXV. - - He did not sit, but stood and listened there, - And to him listening the time seemed not long, - While that sweet bird above him filled the air - With its melodious song. - - - XXXVI. - - He heard not, saw not, felt not aught beside, - Through the wide worlds of pleasure and of pain, - Save the full flowing and the ample tide - Of that celestial strain. - - - XXXVII. - - As tho’ a bird of Paradise should light - A moment on a twig of this bleak earth, - And singing songs of Paradise invite - All hearts to holy mirth, - - - XXXVIII. - - And then take wing to Paradise again, - Leaving all listening spirits raised above - The toil of earth the trouble and the pain, - And melted all in love: - - - XXXIX. - - Such spiritual might, such power was in the sound, - But when it ceased sweet music to unlock, - The spell that held him sense and spirit-bound - Dissolved with a slight shock. - - - XL. - - All things around were as they were before-- - The trees and the blue sky, and sunshine bright, - Painting the pale and leafstrewn forest-floor - With patches of faint light. - - - XLI. - - But as when music doth no longer thrill, - Light shudderings yet along the chords will run, - Or the heart vibrates tremulously still, - After its prayer be done, - - - XLII. - - So his heart fluttered all the way he went, - Listening each moment for the vesper bell; - For a long hour he deemed he must have spent - In that untrodden dell. - - - XLIII. - - And once it seemed that something new or strange - Had passed upon the flowers the trees the ground, - Some slight but unintelligible change - On every thing around: - - - XLIV. - - Such change, where all things undisturbed remain, - As only to the eye of him appears, - Who absent long, at length returns again-- - The silent work of years. - - - XLV. - - And ever grew upon him more and more - Fresh marvel--for, unrecognised of all, - He stood a stranger at the convent door-- - New faces filled the hall. - - - XLVI. - - Yet was it long ere he received the whole - Of that strange wonder--how, while he had stood - Lost in deep gladness of his inmost soul, - Far hidden in that wood, - - - XLVII. - - A generation had gone down unseen - Under the thin partition which is spread-- - The thin partition of thin earth--between - The living and the dead. - - - XLVIII. - - Nor did he many days to earth belong, - For like a pent-up stream, released again, - The years arrested by the strength of song, - Came down on him amain; - - - XLIX. - - Sudden as a dissolving thaw in spring; - Gentle as when upon the first warm day, - Which sunny April in its train may bring, - The snow melts all away. - - - L. - - They placed him in his former cell, and there - Watched him departing; what few words he said - Were of calm peace and gladness, with one care - Mingled--one only dread-- - - - LI. - - Lest an eternity should not suffice - To take the measure and the breadth and height - Of what there is reserved in Paradise-- - Its ever-new delight. - - - LONDON: - BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. - - - FOOTNOTES: - - [1] See Gen. xxvi. 18. - - [2] - - Qual es la niña - Que coge las flores - Si no tiene amores? - SPANISH BALLAD. - - - [3] Eusebius thus speaks of the Antichristian power:--Τον θεο μαχου - ... τας πρας τον Υψιστου τοις αγγελοις παραδοθεισας των εθνων - ‘οροθεσιας και συγχειν απειλουντος. - - [4] Some of the old Litanies specially included these last:--’Pro - navigantibus, iter agentibus, in carceribus, in vinculis, _in - metallis_, in exiliis constitutis, precamur Te. - - [5] See Augustine’s Confessions, B. 9, C. 10. - - [6] See Garcilasso’s Conquest of Peru. - - [7] “He [Archbishop Leighton] used often to say, that if he were - to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn; it looks like a - pilgrim’s going home, to whom this world was all as an inn, and - who was weary of the noise and confusion in it. He added that the - officious care and tenderness of friends was an entanglement to a - dying man, and that the unconcerned attendance of those that could be - procured in such a place would give less disturbance, and he obtained - what he desired.”--_Burnet’s History of his own Time._ - - [8] The poems which follow, from this page to p. 153 inclusive, as - also some scattered in other parts of the volume, were written many - years ago. I mention this here, and indeed only mention it at all, - because some of those that follow are the expression of states of - mind, in which I would not now ask others to sympathise, and from - which I am thankful myself to have been delivered. - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Justin Martyr, and Other -Poems, by Richard Chenevix Trench - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF JUSTIN MARTYR *** - -***** This file should be named 55507-0.txt or 55507-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/5/0/55507/ - -Produced by Larry B. 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