The tear whose source I could not guess, And now, unforced by time to part And venture on your praise. What though some busy foes to good, To taint the health which ye infuse ; How oft from you, derided Powers ! And teach us to beware. The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift, That no philosophy can lift, Shall vanish, if ye please, Like morning mist: and, where it lay, The spirits at your bidding play In gayety and ease. Star-guided contemplations move Through space, though calm, not raised above Prognostics that ye rule; The naked Indian of the wild, And haply, too, the cradled Child, But who can fathom your intents, A subtle smell that Spring unbinds, The laughter of the Christmas hearth And exercise of love. When some great change gives boundless scope To an exulting Nation's hope, Oft, startled and made wise By your low-breathed interpretings, Of bitter contraries. Ye daunt the proud array of war, As sail hath been unfurled; For dancers in the festive hall What ghastly partners hath your call 'Tis said, that warnings ye dispense, Emboldened by a keener sense; That men have lived for whom, With dread precision, ye made clear The hour that in a distant year Should knell them to the tomb. Unwelcome insight! Yet there are While on that isthmus which commands God, who instructs the brutes to scent Whose wisdom fixed the scale 1830. XLV. VERNAL ODE. Rerum Natura tota est nusquam magis quam in minimis. PLIN. NAT. HIST. I. BENEATH the concave of an April sky, When all the fields with freshest green were dight, Whose countenance bore resemblance to the sun, When it reveals, in evening majesty, Features half lost amid their own pure light. Poised like a weary cloud, in middle air He hung, then floated with angelic ease (Softening that bright effulgence by degrees) Till he had reached a summit sharp and bare, Where oft the venturous heifer drinks the noontide breeze. Upon the apex of that lofty cone Alighted, there the Stranger stood alone; Suddenly raised by some enchanter's power, Where nothing was; and firm as some old tower Of Britain's realm, whose leafy crest Waves high, embellished by a gleaming shower! II. Beneath the shadow of his purple wings Poured through the echoing hills around, He sang: : "No wintry desolations, Scorching blight or noxious dew, Buried in glory, far beyond the scope And in the aspect of each radiant orb; Some fixed, some wandering with no timid curb; But wandering star and fixed, to mortal eye, Blended in absolute serenity, And free from semblance of decline; Fresh as if Evening brought their natal hour, Her darkness splendor gave, her silence power, To testify of Love and Grace divine. III. "What if those bright fires Shine subject to decay, Sons haply of extinguished sires, Themselves to lose their light, or pass away Like clouds before the wind, Be thanks poured out to Him whose hand bestows, Nightly, on human kind |