V. TO E. D. G. Dear wandering Ellee, five long nights and days Have dragged their slow and tedious length along, Since last I heard the music of thy tongue, Sad thoughts of fear, and makes my spirit strong. Like the old bard and blind, who sent his song Complaining to the glorious orb of day, E’en in this gloom of loneliness, a lay I wake to thee, my light ! unseen too long, And claim thy swift return, and blame the throng Of circumstance, that keeps thee thus away. Dear as the light to orbs long blind, shall be 1844. VI. TO E. D. G. Ellee! the sky is dark; and cold and drear bough; And thoughtless wassail thinks the hours too fast, He lonely struggles with the stormy blast, Or stumbling, makes the icy ground his bier. Such, Ellee, I, if thou should'st leave my side, The life of life henceforth to me denied, Earth were too poor to yield a spot so blest, VII. WORDSWORTH. 1. Poet of the thoughtful brow! far-sighted seer ! Whose gifted eye, on mountain, peak, and plain, The eternal heavens and never sleeping main, Mysterious writings saw, and read with fear. In the deep silence of the night, thine ear Heard from the earth a still sad music rise, Nor less the anthem caught, that midnight skies Pour through the soul from each rejoicing sphere. But most thou lov'st, with solemn steps, to take Down through the awful chambers of the soul Thy dreadful way, and hear the billows roll Of that deep ocean, whose far thunders break Upon the everlasting shores, and wake Echoes that wiser make whom they control. 1845. VIII. WORDSWORTH. 2. Thy song sublime the tinkling charms disdains And painted trappings of the gaudy muse, And in such dress as truth and nature use, Majestic mounts in high Miltonic strains, And pours its strength along the ethereal plains Solemn and grand, as when the hills reply To the full chorus of a stormy sky, Or ocean round his rock-bound shores complains. Yet not the highest heaven, amid the “ choir Of shouting angels and the empyreal thrones," Nor louder Erebus, nor chaos old, Thy chiefest haunt; but with sublimer tones, Through the dark caverns of the mind are rolled The mighty thunders of thy master lyre. AN INFANT'S EPISTLE. Wee Ellee G. thanks auntie A. snug it fits, how warm and well. Her little head, while round and on it, Rest the soft folds of auntie's bonnet, Warm thoughts shall hold, for many a day, Of the kind gift of auntie A. Die vitæ 22. Anno Domini, 1844. |