Cupola and column proud,
Structure bright to see,
Gone! except that moonlit cloud
To which I looked with thee.
Let them. Wipe such visionings
From the fancy's cartel.
Love secures some fairer things,
Dowered with his immortal.
The sun may darken, heaven be bowed,
But still unchanged shall be,-
Here, in my soul,—that moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with THEE!
A SABBATH MORNING AT SEA.
THE ship went on with solemn face;
To meet the darkness on the deep,
The solemn ship went onward.
I bowed down weary in the place,
For parting tears and present sleep
Had weighed mine eyelids downward.
Thick sleep which shut all dreams from me, And kept my inner self apart
And quiet from emotion,
Then brake away and left me free,
Made conscious of a human heart
Betwixt the heaven and ocean.
The new sight, the new wondrous sight!
The waters round me, turbulent,-
The skies impassive o'er me,
Calm, in a moonless, sunless light,
Half glorified by that intent
Of holding the day-glory!
Two pale thin clouds did stand upon
The meeting line of sea and sky,
With aspect still and mystic.
I think they did foresee the sun,
And rested on their prophecy
In quietude majestic,
Then flushed to radiance where they stood,
Like statues by the open tomb
Of shining saints half risen.-
The sun!-he came up to be viewed,
And sky and sea made mighty room
To inaugurate the vision.
I oft had seen the dawnlight run,
As red wine, through the hills, and break
Through many a mist's inurning;
But, here, no earth profaned the sun!
Heaven, ocean, did alone partake
The sacrament of morning.
Away with thoughts fantastical!
I would be humble to my worth,
Self-guarded, as self-doubted.
Though here no earthly shadows fall,
I, joying, grieving without earth,
May desecrate without it.
God's sabbath morning sweeps the waves;
I would not praise the pageant high
Yet miss the dedicature.
I, carried toward the sunless graves
By force of natural things,-should I
Exult in only nature?
And could I bear to sit alone
'Mid nature's fixed benignities,
While my warm pulse was moving?
Too dark thou art, O glittering sun,
Too strait ye are, capacious seas,
To satisfy the loving!
It seems a better lot than so,
To sit with friends beneath the beech,
And feel them dear and dearer;
Or follow children as they go
In pretty pairs, with softened speech,
As the church-bells ring nearer.
Love me, sweet friends, this sabbath day!
The sea sings round me while ye roll
Afar the hymn unaltered,
And kneel, where once I knelt to pray,
And bless me deeper in the soul,
Because the voice has faltered.
And though this sabbath comes to me
Without the stolèd minister
Or chanting congregation,
God's Spirit brings communion, He
Who brooded soft on waters drear,
Creator on creation.
Himself, I think, shall draw me higher, Where keep the saints with harp and song
An endless sabbath morning,
And on that sea commixed with fire
Oft drop their eyelids, raised too long
To the full Godhead's burning.
My lonely chamber next the sea,
Is full of many flowers set free
By summer's earliest duty.
Dear friends upon the garden-walk
Might stop amid their fondest talk,
To pull the least in beauty.
A thousand flowers-each seeming one
That learnt by gazing on the sun
To counterfeit his shining;
Within whose leaves the holy dew
That falls from heaven, has won anew
A glory in declining.
Red roses, used to praises long,
Contented with the poet's song,
The nightingale's being over;
And lilies white, prepared to touch
The whitest thought, nor soil it much,
Of dreamer turned to lover.
Deep violets, you liken to
The kindest eyes that look on you,
Without a thought disloyal;
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