Burst with a sudden blaze Fain would the calyx hold; Frost, that the rose appalls, IMPROVISATION. Near in the forest Vines are the curtains, Voices of waters Sing evermore. There, when the sunset's Lances of gold Pierce, or the moonlight Is silvery cold, Would that an angel Led thee to me Love should be! Never the breezes Should lisp what we say, Never the waters Our secret betray! Silence and shadow, After, might reign; But the old life be ours Never again! DECEMBER. The beech is bare, and bare the ash, The fir-tree scowls with hoar moustache, The body-guard of veteran pines, A grim battalion, stands; They ground their arms, in ordered lines, For Winter so commands. The waves are dumb along the shore, The north-wind's bugle blows no more Reveillé from the hill. The rustling sift of falling snow, The muffled crush of leaves, These are the sounds suppressed, that show How much the forest grieves; But, as the blind and vacant Day Crawls to his ashy bed, I hear dull echoes far away, Like drums above the dead. Sigh with me, Pine that never changed! Her other loves are all estranged, But thou and I are true! TO THE NILE. My sterious Flood, - that through the silent sands. Art thou the keeper of that eldest lore, Thou guardest temple and vast pyramid, What they refuse to teach. All other streams with human joys and fears What were to thee the Osirian festivals ? Or Memnon's music on the Theban plain? Even then thou wast a God, and shrines were built For thee the incense burned, for thee was spilt The sacrificial blood. And past the bannered pylons that arose Above thy palms, the pageantry and state, HOEKZEMA, Poetry. 4th Ed. 21 Thou givest blessing as a God might give, In thy solemnity, thine awful calm, My soul forgets its pain, and drinks the balm Thy godship is unquestioned still: I bring ON LEAVING CALIFORNIA. O fair young land, the youngest, fairest far Whose guardian planet, Evening's silver star How art thou conquered, tamed in all the pride How brought, O panther of the splendid hide, No more thou sittest on thy tawny hills Or pour'st the crystal of a thousand rills But where the wild-oats wrapped thy knees in gold, And where, through canons deep, thy streams are The miner's arm is bare. rolled, Yet in thy lap, thus rudely rent and torn A nobler seed shall be: Mother of mighty men, thou shalt not mourn Thy lost virginity! Thy human children shall restore the grace The wild, barbaric beauty of thy face And Order, Justice, Social Law shall curb And Art and Science, with their dreams superb, The marble, sleeping in thy mountains now, Thy native oak shall crown the sage's brow, Thy tawny hills shall bleed their purple wine, And Music, with her eloquence divine, Till Hesper, as he trims his silver beam, And Earth shall find her old Arcadian dream NAPOLEON AT GOTHA. We walk amid the currents of actions left undone, |