Piercing with their trellised lines. The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; The dun and bladed grass no less, Pointing from this hoary tower In the windless air; the flower Glimmering at my feet; the line Of the olive-sandalled Apennine In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread High between the clouds and sun; And of living things each one; And my spirit which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song, Interpenetrated lie
Be it love, light, harmony,
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.
Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn's evening meets me soon, Leading the infantine moon, And that one star, which to her Almost seems to minister
Half the crimson light she brings From the sunset's radiant springs: And the soft dreams of the morn, (Which like wingèd winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies 'Mid remembered agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being,) Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, And its ancient pilot, Pain, Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be In the sea of life and agony : Other spirits float and flee
O'er that gulph: even now, perhaps,
And the winds whose wings rain balm On the uplifted soul, and leaves Under which the bright sea heaves; While each breathless interval In their whisperings musical The inspired soul supplies With its own deep melodies,
And the love which heals all strife Circling, like the breath of life, All things in that sweet abode With its own mild brotherhood:
They, not it would change; and soon Every sprite beneath the moon. Would repent its envy vain, And the earth grow young again.
THE awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats tho' unseen amongst us,-visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,- Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening,
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,- Like memory of music fled,—
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form,-where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not for ever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shewn, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth
Such gloom,-why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?
No voice from some sublimer world hath ever
To sage or poet these responses given
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavour,
Frail spells-whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see,
Doubt, chance, and mutability.
Thy light alone-like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night wind sent, Thro' strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent, Man were immortal, and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies,
That wax and wane in lovers' eyes- Thou that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame!
Depart not as thy shadow came,
Depart not-lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Thro' many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed, I was not heard-I saw them not-
When musing deeply on the lot
Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming,- Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!
I vowed that I would dedicate my powers
To thee and thine-have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight
Outwatched with me the envious night- They know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery,
That thou-O awful LOVELINESS, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.
The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past-there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which thro' the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply
Its calm-to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kinu.
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