If so Young as thou art, thou canst afford to weep.
Oh! would that I could claim exemption From all the bitterness of that sweet name. I loved, I love, and when I love no more Let joys and grief perish, and leave despair To ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me, The embodied vision of the brightest dream, Which like a dawn heralds the day of life; The shadow of his presence made my world A paradise. All familiar things he touched, All common words he spoke, became to me Like forms and sounds of a diviner world. He was as is the sun in his fierce youth, As terrible and lovely as a tempest; He came, and went, and left me what I am. Alas! Why must I think how oft we two Have sat together near the river springs, Under the green pavilion which the willow Spreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain, Strewn by the nurslings that linger there, Over that islet paved with flowers and moss, While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson snow,
Showered on us, and the dove mourned in the pine, Sad prophetess of sorrows not her own.
Your breath is like soft music, your words are The echoes of a voice which on my heart
Sleeps like a melody of early days. But as you said—
So beautiful in mystery and terror, Calming me as the loveliness of heaven Soothes the unquiet sea :--and yet not so, For he seemed stormy, and would often seem A quenchless sun masked in portentous clouds; For such his thoughts, and even his actions were; But he was not of them, nor they of him, But as they hid his splendour from the earth. Some said he was a man of blood and peril, And steeped in bitter infamy to the lips. More need was there I should be innocent, More need that I should be most true and kind, And much more need that there should be found one To share remorse, and scorn, and solitude, And all the ills that wait on those who do The tasks of ruin in the world of life. He fled, and I have followed him.
BEST and brightest, come away, Fairer far than this fair day, Which like thee to those in sorrow Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough year just awake In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn spring, Through the winter wandering, Found it seems the haleyon morn, To hoar February born; Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, It kissed the forehead of the earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free; And waked to music all their fountains, And breathed upon the frozen mountains, And like a prophetess of May,
Strewed flowers upon the barren way, Making the wintry world appear Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs- To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress
Its music, lest it should not find An echo in another's mind, While the touch of Nature's art Harmonizes heart to heart. I leave this notice on my door For each accustomed visitor :- "I am gone into the fields
To take what this sweet hour yields ;- Reflection, you may come to-morrow, Sit by the fireside of Sorrow.- You with the unpaid bill, Despair, You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care, I will pay you in the grave, Death will listen to your stave.- Expectation too, be off! To-day is for itself enough; Hope in pity mock not woe
With smiles, nor follow where I go; Long having lived on thy sweet food, At length I find one moment good After long pain-with all your love, This you never told me of."
Radiant Sister of the Day, Awake! arise! and come away! To the wild woods and the plains, To the pools where winter rains Image all their roof of leaves, Where the pine its garland weaves Of sapless green, and ivy dun, Round stems that never kiss the sun, Where the lawns and pastures be And the sandhills of the sea, Where the melting hoar-frost wets The daisy-star that never sets, And wind-flowers and violets, Which yet join not scent to hue, Crown the pale year weak and new; When the night is left behind In the deep east, dim and blind, And the blue noon is over us, And the multitudinous Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet, And all things seem only one, In the universal sun.
The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play, And on the bosom of the deep,
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seemed as if the hour were one Sent from beyond the skies, Which scattered from above the sun A light of Paradise.
We paused amid the pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude As serpents interlaced.
And soothed by every azure breath, That under heaven is blown, To harmonies and hues beneath, As tender as its own; Now all the tree tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea, As still as in the silent deep The ocean woods may be.
How calm it was !-the silence there By such a chain was bound, That even the busy wood-pecker Made stiller by her sound The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew. There seemed from the remotest seat Of the wide mountain waste,
To the soft flower beneath our feet, A magic circle traced,
A spirit interfused around
A thrilling silent life,
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature's strife ;And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there,
Was one fair form that filled with love The lifeless atmosphere.
We paused beside the pools that lie Under the forest bough,
Each seemed as 'twere a little sky Gulfed in a world below;
A firmament of purple light,
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day
In which the lovely forests grew,
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water's love Of that fair forest green. And all was interfused beneath With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath, A softer day below.
Eight years are gone, And they seem hours, since in this populous street I trod on grass made green by summer's rain, For the red plague kept state within that palace Where now reigns vanity-in nine years more The roots will be refreshed with civil blood; And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven That sin and wrongs wound as an orphan's cry, The patience of the great Avenger's ear.
THIRD SPEAKER (a youth).
Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see, Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden
By God or man ;-'tis like the bright procession Of skiey visions in a solemn dream
From which men wake as from a paradise, And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. If God be good, wherefore should this be evil? And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw Unseasonable poison from the flowers Which bloom so rarely in this barren world?
Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the
And open-eyed conspiracy, lie sleeping As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts Waken to worship him who giveth joys With his own gift.
How young art thou in this old age of time! How green in this grey world! Canst thou not think Of change in that low scene, in which thou art Not a spectator but an actor?
The day that dawns in fire will die in storms, Even though the noon be calm. My travel's done; Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found My inn of lasting rest, but thou must still Be journeying on in this inclement air.
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