ALL are not taken; there are left behind
Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring,
And make the daylight still a happy thing,
And tender voices, to make soft the wind.
But if it were not so-if I could find
No love in all the world for comforting,
Nor any path but hollowly did ring,
Where dust to dust' the love from life disjoined,
And, if, before those sepulchres unmoving,
I stood alone, (as some forsaken lamb
Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth)
Crying Where are ye, O my loved and loving?'..
I know a Voice would sound, Daughter, I AM.
Can I suffice for HEAVEN, and not for earth?'
WHAT time I lay these rhymes anear thy feet,
Benignant friend, I will not proudly say
As better poets use, 'These flowers I lay,'
Because I would not wrong thy roses sweet,
Blaspheming so their name. And yet, repeat,
Thou, overleaning them this springtime day,
With heart as open to love as theirs to May,
-Low-rooted verse may reach some heavenly heat,
Even like my blossoms, if as nature-true,
Though not as precious.' Thou art unperplext,
Dear friend, in whose dear writings drops the dew
And blow the natural airs,—thou, who art next
To nature's self in cheering the world's view,—
To preach a sermon on so known a text!
ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH
WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind
Then break against the rock, and show behind
The lowland valleys floating up to crowd
The sense with beauty. He with forehead bowed
And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined
Before the sovran thought of his own mind,
And very meek with inspirations proud,
Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest
By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer
To the higher Heavens. A noble vision free
Our Haydon's hand has flung out from the mist!
No portrait this, with Academic air!
This is the poet and his poetry.
My future will not copy fair my past
On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done,
Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast
Upon the fulness of the heart, at last
Says no grace after meat. My wine has run
Indeed out of my cup, and there is none
To gather up the bread of my repast
Scattered and trampled,-yet I find some good
In earth's green herbs, and streams that bubble up
Clear from the darkling ground,-content until
I sit with angels before better food.
Dear Christ! when thy new vintage fills my cup,
This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill.
I HAVE been in the meadows all the day
And gathered there the nosegay that you see,
Singing within myself as a bird or bee
When such do field-work on a morn of May.
But now I look upon my flowers, decay
Has met them in my hands more fatally
Because more warmly clasped,-and sobs are free
To come instead of songs. What do you say,
Sweet counsellors, dear friends? that I should go
Back straightway to the fields, and gather more?
Another, sooth, may do it,-but not I! -
My heart is very tired, my strength is low,
My hands are full of blossoms plucked before,
Held dead within them till myself shall die.
THANK God, bless God, all ye who suffer not More grief than ye can weep for. That is well— That is light grieving! lighter, none befel,
Since Adam forfeited the primal lot.
Tears! what are tears? The babe weeps in its cot,
The mother singing,-at her marriage-bell
The bride weeps,-and before the oracle
Of high-faned hills, the poet has forgot
Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for
Ye who weep only! If, as some have done,
Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place
And touch but tombs,-look up! those tears will run Soon in long rivers down the lifted face,
And leave the vision clear for stars and sun.
I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death:-
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe,
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it: the marble eyelids are not wet.
If it could weep, it could arise and go.
WHEN Some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new-
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship's sigh,
Not reason's subtle count. Not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew.
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales,
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees
To the clear moon! nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet All hails,
Met in the smile of God. Nay, none of these.
Speak THOU, availing Christ!--and fill this pause.
SPEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low,
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so
Who art not missed by any that entreat.
Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet!
And if no precious gums my hands bestow,
Let my tears drop like amber, while I go
In reach of thy divinest voice complete
In humanest affection-thus, in sooth
To lose the sense of losing. As a child,
Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore,
Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth,
Till, sinking on her breast, love reconciled,
He sleeps the faster that he wept before.
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO E. J.
EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand,
Whence harmonies we cannot understand,
Of God's will in his worlds, the strain unfolds
In sad, perplexed minor. Deathly colds
Fall on us while we hear and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fancy-land
With nightingales in visionary wolds.
We murmur,—'Where is any certain tune
Or measured music, in such notes as these?'-
But angels, leaning from the golden seat,
Art not so minded; their fine ear hath won
The issue of completed cadences,
And, smiling down the stars, they whisper--Sweet.
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