Nightly, by the sweet spirit of Peace attended, NIGHT STUDY. I AM alone; and yet In the still solitude there is a rush Around me, as were met A crowd of viewless wings; I hear a gush Ye winged Mysteries, Sweeping before my spirit's conscious eye, And go forth from my very self, and fly With you far in the unknown, unseen immense Of worlds beyond our sphere-What are ye? Whence? Ye eloquent voices, Now soft as breathings of a distant flute, The trumpet in the victory and pursuit; My soul to wake from earth's sense and its thrall. I know you now-I see With more than natural light-ye are the good, Are come from heaven to claim your brotherhood Ye hover o'er the page Ye traced in ancient days with glorious thought Ye love to watch the inspiration caught Ye come to nerve the soul Like him who near the Atoner stood, when He, The wrathful potents of Gethsemane, With courage strong: the promise ye have known Still keep! O, keep me near you, Compass me round with your immortal wings: Striking your triumphs from your golden strings, COLUMBUS. (On looking at a print after a picture by Parmeggiano.) FAME, LOVE, AMBITION! what are ye, Whose face gleams on me like a star- A spell-bound loiterer I stand, Before a print-shop in the Strand? Your schemes defeated or fulfilled, To the emotions dread that thrilled When, watching by the lonely mast, How Fancy's boldest glances fail, Sent up the heart's o'erboiling flood B. SIMMONS. His manhood's vigorous noon consumed All shoreless as eternity, Till, from its long-loved star estranged, No-none through that dark watch may trace His Being rose and fell! Yet over doubt, and pride, and pain, O'er all that flashed through breast and brain, He stood his heart on fire to know When morning next illumed the skies, What wonders in its light should glow- Have swayed supreme-Power, conscious Power- And when from off that ocean calm The tropic's dusky curtain cleared, And those green shores and banks of balm, And rosy-tinted hills appeared Silent and bright as Eden, ere Earth's breezes shook one blossom there Against that hour's proud tumult weighed, Love, Fame, Ambition, how ye fade! Thou Luther of the darkened deep! Nor less intrepid, too, than He Whose courage broke Earth's bigot sleep, Against your grim benighted age, Ere from thy pictured looks I part, Along thy bold and wondrous story, May go to deify our kind. ADDRESS TO THE SUN. OSSIAN. My soul has been mournful for Carthon: he fell in the days of his youth; and thou, O Clessámmor! where is thy dwelling in the wind? Has the youth forgot his wound? Flies he on clouds with thee? I feel the sun, O Malvina! leave me to my rest. Perhaps they may come to my dreams: I think I hear a feeble voice! The beam of heaven delights to shine on the grave of Carthon: I feel it warm around. O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light! Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave; but thou thyself movest alone. Who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven: but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder rolls and lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more: whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art, perhaps, like me, for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O Sun, in the strength of thy youth! age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills: the blast of the north is on the plain, the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey. THE POWER OF POETRY. HOLMES. THE SLEEP. Or all the thoughts of God that are Borne inward unto souls afar, Along the Psalmist's music deep, For gift or grace, surpassing this- MRS. BROWNING. |