i Dark in its bason of rock, and the bare stream Thrilled with thy beauty and love in the wooded Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom ! Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses, Green-haired goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger, Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musi cal murmurs. Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly sadness Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving. Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the sun, the rejoicer, Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget not, Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee! Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation ?) Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamoured! Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess, Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled, Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee! Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning! Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention: Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embracement. Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold instincts, Filled, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang in their channels ; Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swelled upward; Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains, Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches. WRITTEN DURING A TEMPORARY BLINDNESS, IN THE YEAR 1799. WHAT a life is the eye! what a strange and inscrutable essence! Him, that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him; Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother; Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slumber; Even for him it exists! It moves and stirs in its prison ! Lives with a separate life: and-"Is it a spirit!" he murmurs: “Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language!" and blessing, Huge wasteful empires founded and hallowed slow persecution, Soul-withering, but crushed the blasphemous rites of the Pagan And idolatrous Christians.-For veiling the Gospel of Jesus, They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than the vilest. Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca, Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness. Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol ; Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid—the people with mad shouts Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation Flew, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous river Shatters its waters abreast, and in mazy uproar bewildered, Rushes dividuous all-all rushing impetuous onward. CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES.* EAR, my beloved, an old Milesian story!- Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision, Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE, THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE. A SOLILOQUY. NCHANGED within to see all changed with UNCH Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. *See note at the end of the volume. Yet why at others' wanings shouldst thou fret? Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, [heed Return thy radiance or absorb it quite : And though thou notest from thy safe recess A PHANTOM OR FACT? A DIALOGUE IN VERSE. AUTHOR. LOVELY form there sate beside my bed, A tender love so pure from earthly leaven That I unnethe the fancy might control, But ah! the change—It had not stirred, and yet— FRIEND. This riddling tale, to what does it belong? |