The moon gleamed so that earth grew brighter;
Night's sweetest sounds did thee obeisance;
The flowers seemed gladdened with thy presence :
But heaven or earth had nought of beauty
Like thine! -I knelt, as was my duty.
Ay! well I mind those gladsome toyings,
Those hours of love's supreme enjoyings,
When all was trusting, all was holy,
And much love sanctified some folly:
Then passion's pure tongue never faltered,
And we met still with looks unaltered.
Those times are flown!-That tempest sweeping
Is more like May-morn's odorous weeping —
Starred honour more like sordid peasant-
Than those bright hours are like the present.
Proud one! I come from fields where honour
Spread, spite of shot and sword, her banner;
Where, death alike and flight deriding,
All side by side with princes riding,
Thy name, while fire was round me pouring,
As
my best saint, I kept imploring.
And here, with earth beneath me rocking,
Thy love-thy conquering charms invoking,—
I come-say, ladye! wilt thou sever
Such love as mine from thee for ever!
Such love as thine! Alas, the folly!
I deemed it once both high and holy! —
It is enough:- I trusted- tried thee,
And triumphed — and, though mute, defied thee.
This night suits one whose lip, profaning
Love's name, the cup of guilt is draining:
Thou comest, with tempest yoked and fire,
To plead thy worthless love.-Retire!
Green earth owns nought I hold so cheaply —
So sternly loathe, and scorn so deeply.
Of Keats who early died and Shelley's tomb Remembrance cometh with a scene like this, Whose names are wreathed with an Italian bloom, The dead immortal whom in song we miss ;
Of Petrarch, Tasso, Milton,-all who gave
Life that will last to scenes and creatures fair,— Dante, and Byrop, Rogers—names which brave The touch of Time, who both can waste and spare. Who would not, if he might, thy air respire,
Land of ethereal beauty, radiant clime!
For feminine softness and the heart of fire
Renowned throughout all regions and all time;
For fallen grandeur famous,—with a name
In intellectual greatness that is Fame.
Nor by the judging world shalt thou be judged,
Young spirit, bowed by shame and grief and fears:
Thine be the mercy which the world had grudged,
As thine the holiness of contrite tears.-
Why, let them scorn thy meek and mourning face,
The gilded Pharisee and pompous Scribe,
Who shout their greetings in the market-place,
And seek the gates of heaven with a bribe :
Be their's the painted brow and charnel-heart;
Thou, grieving one! hast ta'en the better part.
Thou goest, a mourner, to the mourner's home;
A weeper, where the stricken weep no more;
Weary, to where the weary cease to roam;
Storm-tost, where tempests die against the shore.
In thy heart's anguish is the spell of life,
Like that the angel gathered from the spring,
Who drew out healing, from its very strife,
When all its waves were ruffled by his wing: By thy soul's fount the angel stands revealed; Bathe in its troubled waters and be healed!
THE weary sea is tranquil, and the breeze
Hath sunk to sleep on its slow-heaving breast:
All sounds have passed away, save such as please
The ear of night, which loves that music best
The din of day would drown.-The wanderer's song,
To whose sweet notes the mingled charms belong
Of sadness linked to joy,—the breakers small,
Like pebbled rills, that round the vessel's bow
A dream-like murmur make,—the splash and fall
Of waters crisp, as rolling calm and slow
She laves alternately her shining sides,
The flap of sails that like white garments vast
So idly hang on each gigantic mast,-
The regular tread of him whose skill presides
O'er the night-watch, and whose brief fitful word
The ready helmsman echoes:-these low sounds
Are all that break the stillness that surrounds
Our lonely dwelling on the dusky main.
But yet the visionary soul is stirred,
While fancy hears full many a far-off strain
Float o'er the conscious sea.— The scene and hour
Control the spirit with mysterious power,
And wild unutterable thoughts arise
That make us yearn to pierce the starry skies!
Up this green woodland path we'll softly rove,
And list the Nightingale; she dwelleth here.
Hush! let the wood-gate gently close, for fear
Its noise might scare her from her home of love.
Here I have heard her sing for many a year,
At noon and eve, ay, all the livelong day,
As though she lived on song.—In this same spot,
Just where the old-man's-beard all wildly trails
Its tresses o'er the track and stops the way,
And where that child the fox-glove flowers hath got,
Laughing and creeping through the moss-grown rails,—
Oft have I haunted, like a truant boy
Creeping through thorny brakes with eager joy,
To find her nest and see her feed her young :
And where those crimpled ferns grow rank among
The hazel boughs, I've nestled down full oft,
To watch her warbling on some spray aloft,
With wings all quivering in her ecstasy,
And feathers ruffling up in transport high,
And bill wide open- -to relieve her heart
Of its out-sobbing song!-But with a start,
If I but stirred a branch, she stopt at once;
And, flying off swift as the eye can glance.
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