Used to follow me behind,
Then in sudden rush to blind
Both my glad eyes with my hair,
Taken gladly in the snare;
Of the climbing up the rocks,
Of the playing 'neath the oaks
Which retain beneath them now
Only shadow of the bough;
Of the lying on the grass
While the clouds did overpass,
Only they, so lightly driven,
Seeming betwixt me and Heaven;
Of the little prayers serene,
Murmuring of earth and sin;
Of large-leaved philosophy
Leaning from my childish knee;
Of poetic book sublime,
Soul-kissed for the first dear time,
Greek or English, ere I knew
Life was not a poem too :-
Throw them in, by one and one!
I must laugh, at rising sun.
-Of the glorious ambitions
Yet unquenched by their fruitions;
Of the reading out the nights;
Of the straining at mad heights;
Of achievements, less descried
By a dear few than magnified;
Of praises from the many earned
When praise from love was undiscerned :
Of the sweet reflecting gladness
Softened by itself to sadness :-
Throw them in, by one and one!
I must laugh, at rising sun.
What are these? more, more than these
Throw in dearer memories !-
Of voices whereof but to speak
Makes mine own all sunk and weak;
Of smiles the thought of which is sweeping
All my soul to floods of weeping;
Of looks whose absence fain would weigh
My looks to the ground for aye;
Of clasping hands-ah me, I wring
Mine, and in a tremble fling
Downward, downward all this paining!
Partings with the sting remaining,
Meetings with a deeper throe
Since the joy is ruined so,
Changes with a fiery burning,
(Shadows upon all the turning,)
Thoughts of . . with a storm they came,
Them I have not breath to name :
Downward, downward be they cast
In the pit and now at last
My work beneath the moon is done,
And I shall laugh, at rising sun.
But let me pause or ere I cover
All my treasures darkly over :
I will speak not in thine ears,
Only tell my beaded tears
Silently, most silently.
When the last is calmly told,
Let that same moist rosary
With the rest sepúlchred be.
Finished now! The darksome mould
Sealeth up the darksome pit.
I will lay no stone on it,
Grasses I will sow instead,
Fit for Queen Titania's tread ;
Flowers, encoloured with the sun,
And at a written upon none;
Thus, whenever saileth by
The Lady World of dainty eye,
Not a grief shall here remain,
Silken shoon to damp or stain :
And while she lisps, "I have not seen
Any place more smooth and clean"
Here she cometh !-Ha, ha !—who
Laughs as loud as I can do?
MAN AND NATURE.
A SAD man on a summer day
Did look upon the earth and say—
"Purple cloud, the hill-top binding,
Folded hills, the valleys wind in,
Valleys, with fresh streams among you,
Streams, with bosky trees along you,
Trees, with many birds and blossoms,
Birds, with music-trembling bosoms,
Blossoms, dropping dews that wreathe your
To your fellow flowers beneath you,
Flowers, that constellate on earth,
Earth, that shakest to the mirth
Of the merry Titan ocean,
All his shining hair in motion !
Why am I thus the only one
Who can be dark beneath the sun?
But when the summer day was past,
He looked to heaven and smiled at last,
Self-answered so-
Pressing with thy crumpled shroud
Heavily on mountain top,-
Hills, that almost seem to drop
Stricken with a misty death
To the valleys underneath,—
Valleys, sighing with the torrent,-
Waters, streaked with branches horrent,-
Branchless trees, that shake your
Wildly o'er your blossoms spread
Where the common flowers are found,
Flowers, with foreheads to the ground,-
Ground, that shriekest while the sea
With his iron smiteth thee-
I am, besides, the only one
Who can be bright without the sun."
WE walked beside the sea
After a day which perished silently
Of its own glory-like the princess weird
Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared, Uttered with burning breath, "Ho, victory!”
And sank adown, a heap of ashes pale :
So runs the Arab tale.
The sky above us showed
A universal and unmoving cloud
On which the cliffs permitted us to see
Only the outline of their majesty,
As master-minds when gazed at by the crowd:
And shining with a gloom, the water grey
Swang in its moon-taught way.
Nor moon, nor stars were out;
They did not dare to tread so soon about,
Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun :
The light was neither night's nor day's, but one
Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt,
And silence's impassioned breathings round
Seemed wandering into sound.
Of nature! I have knowledge that thou art
Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever;
And, what time they are slackened by him ever,
So to attest his own supernal part,
Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong
The slackened cord along.
For though we never spoke
Of the grey water and the shaded rock,
Dark wave and stone unconsciously were fused
Into the plaintive speaking that we used
Of absent friends and memories unforsook ;
And, had we seen each other's face, we had
Seen haply each was sad.
AN APPREHENSION.
IF all the gentlest-hearted friends I know
Concentred in one heart their gentleness,
That still grew gentler till its pulse was less
For life than pity-I should yet be slow
To bring my own heart nakedly below
The palm of such a friend, that he should press
Motive, condition, means, appliances,
My false ideal joy and fickle woe,
Out full to light and knowledge; I should fear Some plait between the brows, some rougher chime In the free voice. O angels, let your flood
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