O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought; [apparel, Who of thy words, dost make a mock And fittest to unutterable thought The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
Thou faery voyager! that dost float, In such clear water, that thy boat May rather seem
To brood on air than on an earthly stream; Suspended in a stream as clear as sky Where earth and heaven do make one imagery!
O blessed vision! happy child! That art so exquisitely wild,
I think of thee with many fears
For what may be thy lot in future years.
I thought of times when pain might be thy guest,
Lord of thy house and hospitality! And grief, uneasy lover! never rest But when she sate within the touch of thee.
Oh! too industrious folly!
Oh! vain and causeless melancholy ! Nature will either end thee quite ; Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, Preserve for thee, by individual right, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown
And no forewarning gives;
We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures,-the resounding horn, [hare.
But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife The pack loud-bellowing, and the hunted Slips in a moment out of life.
INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS
IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHEN- ING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD
[This extract is reprinted from “The Friend."] WISDOM and Spirit of the universe! Thou soul, that art the eternity of thought! And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion! not in vain, By day or star light, thus from my first dawn Of childhood did'st thou intertwine for me
So through the darkness and the cold we
And not a voice was idle: with the din Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, [west The orange sky of evening died away. Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the
Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay,-or sportively [throng, Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous To cut across the reflex of a star, Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.
LET us quit the leafy arbour, And the torrent murmuring by: Sol has dropped into his harbour, Weary of the open sky.
Evening now unbinds the fetters Fashioned by the glowing light; All that breathe are thankful debtors To the harbinger of night.
Yet by some grave thoughts attended Eve renews her calm career; For the day that now is ended Is the longest of the year.
Laura! sport, as now thou sportest, On this platform, light and free; Take thy bliss, while longest, shortest, Are indifferent to thee!
Who would check the happy feeling That inspires the linnet's song? Who would stop the swallow, wheeling On her pinions swift and strong?
Yet at this impressive season, Words which tenderness can speak From the truths of homely reason, Might exalt the loveliest cheek;
And, while shades to shades succeeding Steal the landscape from the sight, I would urge this moral pleading, Last forerunner of "Good night!"
Summer ebbs ;-each day that follows Is a reflux from on high, Tending to the darksome hollows Where the frosts of winter lię.
He who governs the creation, In his providence, assigned Such a gradual declination To the life of human kind.
Yet we mark it not ;-fruits redden, Fresh flowers blow, as flowers have blown, And the heart is loth to deaden Hopes that she so long hath known.
Be thou wiser, youthful maiden! And when thy decline shall come, Let not flowers, or boughs fruit-laden, Hide the knowledge of thy doom.
Now, even now, ere wrapped in slumber, Fix thine eyes upon the sea
That absorbs time, space, and number; Look towards eternity'
Follow thou the flowing river
On whose breast are thither borne All deceived, and each deceiver, Through the gates of night and morn;
Through the year's successive portals; Through the bounds which many a star Marks, not mindless of frail mortals, When his light returns from far.
Thus when thou with Time hast travelled Towards the mighty gulf of things, And the mazy stream unravelled With thy best imaginings:
Think, if thou on beauty leanest, Think how pitiful that stay, Did not virtue give the meanest Charms superior to decay.
Duty, like a strict preceptor, Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown; Choose her thistle for thy sceptre, While thy brow youth's roses crown.
Grasp it,-if thou shrink and tremble, Fairest damsel of the green, Thou wilt lack the only sym.bol That proclaims a genuine queen;
And insures those palms of honour Which selected spirits wear, Bending low before the donor, Lord of heaven's unchanging year!
Poems Founded on the Affections.
'Twas one well known to him in former days,
A shepherd-lad;-who ere his sixteenth year
"THESE tourists, Heaven preserve us! Had left that calling, tempted to intrust
A profitable life: some glance along, Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air, And they were butterflies to wheel about Long as the summer lasted: some, as wise, Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag, Pencil in hand and book upon the knee, Will look and scribble, scribble on and look, Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn. But, for that moping son of idleness,
Why can he tarry yonder?-In our church- yard
Is neither epitaph nor monument,
His expectations to the fickle winds And perilous waters, with the mariners A fellow-mariner, and so had fared, Through twenty seasons; but he had been reared
Among the mountains, and he in his heart Was half a shepherd on the stormy seas. Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds Of caves and trees:-and when the regular wind
Between the tropics filled the steady sail, And blew with the same breath through days and weeks,
Tombstone nor name-only the turf we Lengthening invisibly its weary line
Along the cloudless main, he, in those hours
Of tiresome indolence, would often hang Over the vessel's side, and gaze and gaze; And, while the broad green wave and sparkling foam [wrought
Flashed round him images and hues that In union with the employment of his heart, He, thus by feverish passion overcome, Even with the organs of his bodily eye, Below him, in the bosom of the deep, Saw mountains, saw the forms of sheep that grazed [trees,
On verdant hills-with dwellings among And shepherds clad in the same country gray. Which he himself had worn.*
And now, at last, From perils manifold, with some small wealth
Acquired by traffic 'mid the Indian Isles, To his paternal home he is returned, With a determined purpose to resume' The life he had lived there; both for the sake
Of many darling pleasures, and the love Which to an only brother he has borne In all his hardships, since that happy time
When, whether it blew foul or fair, they | And, after greetings interchanged, and
Were brother shepherds on their native hills. They were the last of all their race: and [his heart When Leonard had approached his home, Failed in him; and, not venturing to inquire
Tidings of one whom he so dearly loved, Towards the church-yard he had turned aside;
That, as he knew in what particular spot His family were laid, he thence might learn| If still his brother lived, or to the file Another grave was added. He had found Another grave,-near which a full half-hour He had remained; but, as he gazed, there grew
And welcome gone, they are so like each They cannot be remembered? Scarce a funeral [months;
Comes to this churchyard once in eighteen And yet, some changes must take place among you; [rocks,
And you, who dwell here, even among these Can trace the finger of mortality, And see, that with our threescore years and ten
Such a confusion in his memory, That he began to doubt; and he had hopes We are not all that perish.I remember, That he had seen this heap of turf before-(For many years ago I passed this road) That it was not another grave; but one He had forgotten. He had lost his path, As up the vale, that afternoon, he walked Through fields which once had been well known to him:
And, oh, what joy the recollection now Sent to his heart! He lifted up his eyes," And, looking round, imagined that he saw Strange alteration wrought on every side Among the woods and fields, and that the rocks, Echanged. And everlasting hills themselves were By this the priest, who down the fieid had
Unseen by Leonard, at the church-yard gate Stopped short,—and thence, at leisure, limb by limb
Perused him with a gay complacency. Ay, thought the vicar, smiling to himself, 'Tis one of those who needs must leave the path
Of the world's business to go wild alone: His arms have a perpetual holiday;
The happy man will creep about the fields,
Following his fancies by the hour, to bring Tears down his cheek, or solitary smiles,. Into his face, until the setting sun
Write fool upon his forehead. Planted thus
Beneath a shed that over-arched the gate Of this rude church-yard, till the stars appeared, [with himself, The good man might have communed But that the stranger, who had left the grave, [once,
There was a foot-way all along the fields By the brook-side--'tis gone-and that dark cleft!
To me it does not seem to wear the face Which then it had!
Priest. Nay, sir, for aught I know, That chasm is much the same- Leonard. But, surely, yonder- Priest. Ay, there, indeed, your memory
[tall pike That does not play you false. On that (It is the loneliest place of all these hills) There were two springs which bubbled side by side,
As if they had been made that they might be Companions for each other: the huge crag Was rent with lightning-one hath dis- appeared;
The other, left behind, is flowing still. For accidents and changes such as these, We want not store of them:-a water-spout Will bring down half a mountain; what a feast
For folks that wanderup and down like you, To see an acre's breadth of that wide cliff One roaring cataract!-a sharp May-storm Will come with loads of January snow, And in one night send twenty score of sheep
To feed the ravens; or a shepherd dies By some untoward death among the rocks: The ice breaks up and sweeps away a bridge- [homes! A wood is felled:--and then for our own A child is born or christened, a field ploughed,
Approached; he recognised the priest at A daughter sent to service, a web spun,
« السابقةمتابعة » |