With bursting buds and birds that sing,
And fast though fitful progress made
To brighter suns and broader shade.
Those brighter suns, that broader shade,
They came, and richly then array'd
Was bough and sward, and all below
Gladdened by summer's equal glow.
What next? a change is slowly seen,
And deepeneth day by day
The darker, soberer, sadder green
Prevenient to decay.
Yet still at times through that green gloom,
As sudden gusts might make them room,
And lift the spray so light,
The berries of the mountain-ash,
Arching the torrent's foam and flash,
Waved gladly into sight.
But rare those short-lived gleamings grew,
And wore the woods a sicklier hue;
Destruction now his phalanx forms
'Mid wailing winds and gathering storms;
And last comes Winter's withering breath,
Keen as desertion, cold-cold as the hand of death!
Is the tale told? too well, alas!
Is pictured here what came to pass.
So long as light affections play'd
Around their path, he loved the maid;
Loved in half gay, half tender mood,
By passion touch'd, but not subdued ;
Laugh'd at the flame he felt or lit;
Replied to tenderness with wit;
Sometimes when passion brightlier burn'd,
Its tokens eagerly return'd,
Then calm, supine, but pleased no less,
Softly sustain'd each soft caress.
She, watching with delight the while
His half-closed eyes and gradual smile,
(Slow pleasure's smile, how far more worth,
More beautiful than smiles of mirth !)
Seem'd to herself when back she cast
A hurried look upon the past,
As changed from what she then had been,
As was the moon, who having run
Her orbit through since this begun,
Now shone apparent Queen.
How dim a world, how blank a waste,
A shadowy orb how faintly traced,
Her crescent fancy first embraced !
How fair an orb, a world how bright,
How fill'd with glory and with light
Had now reveal'd itself to sight!
A glory of her essence grown,
A light incorporate with her own!
Forth from such paradise of bliss
Open the way and easy is,
Like that renown'd of old;
And easier than the most was this,
For they were sorted more amiss
Than outward things foretold. The goddess that with cruel mirth
The daughters and the sons of earth
Mismatches, hath a cunning eye
In twisting of a treacherous tie;
Nor is she backward to perceive
That loftier minds to lower cleave
With ampler love (as that which flows
From a rich source) than these to those;
For still the source, not object, gives
The daily food whereon love lives.
The well-spring of his love was poor
Compared to hers: his gifts were fewer;
The total light that was in him
Before a spark of hers grew
Too high, too grave, too large, too deep,
Her love could neither laugh nor sleep-
And thus it tired him; his desire
Was for a less consuming fire:
He wish'd that she should love him well,
Not wildly; wish'd her passion's spell
To charm her heart, but leave her fancy free;
To quicken converse, not to quell ;
He granted her to sigh, for so could he;
But when she wept, why should it be? 'Twas irksome, for it stole away
The joy of his love-holiday.
Bred of such uncongenial mood
At length would some dim doubt intrude
If what he felt, so far below
Her passion's pitch, were love or no.
With that the common day-light's beam
Broke in upon his morning dream,
And as that common day advanced
His heart was wholly unentranced.
What follow'd was not good to do,
Nor is it good to tell;
The anguish of that worst adieu
Which parts with love and honour too,
Abides not, so far well.
The human heart can not sustain
Prolong'd inalterable pain,
And not till reason cease to reign
Will nature want some moments brief
Of other moods to mix with grief;
Such and so hard to be destroy'd
That vigour which abhors a void,
And in the midst of all distress,
Such nature's need for happiness!
And when she rallied thus, more high
Her spirits ran, she knew not why,
Than was their wont in times than these
Less troubled, with a heart at ease.
So meet extremes; so joy's rebound
Is highest from the hollowest ground;
So vessels with the storm that strive
Pitch higher as they deeplier dive.
Well had it been if she had curb'd
These transports of a mind disturb'd;
For grief is then the worst of foes
When, all intolerant of repose,
It sends the heart abroad to seek
From weak recoils exemptions weak;
After false gods to go astray,
Deck altars vile with garlands gay,
And place a painted form of stone
On Passion's abdicated throne.
Till then her heart was as a mound
Or simple plot of garden ground
Far in a forest wild,
Where many a seedling had been sown,
And many a bright-eyed floweret grown
To please a favourite child.
Delighted was the child to call
The plot of garden-ground her own ;
Delighted was she at the fall
Of evening mild when shadows tall
Cross-barr'd the mound and cottage wall,
To linger there alone.
Nor seem'd the garden flowers less fair,
Nor loved she less to linger there,
When glisten'd in the morning dew
Each lip of red and eye of blue;
And when the sun too brightly burn'd
Towards the forest's verge she turn'd,
Where stretch'd away from glade to glade
A green interminable shade;
And in the skirts thereof a bower
Was built with many a creeping flower,
For shelter at the noon-tide hour;
And from the forest walks was heard
The voice of many a singing bird,
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