The quiet August noon has come;A slumberous silence fills the sky,The fields are still, the woods are dumb,In glassy sleep the waters lie.And mark yon soft white clouds that restAbove our vale, a moveless throng;The cattle on the mountain's breastEnjoy the grateful shadow long.Oh, how unlike those merry hours,In early June, when Earth laughs out,When the fresh winds make love to flowers,And woodlands sing and waters shout.When in the grass sweet voices talk,And strains of tiny music swellFrom every moss-cup of the rock,From every nameless blossom's bell.But now a joy too deep for sound,A peace no other season knows,Hushes the heavens and wraps the ground,The blessing of supreme repose.Away! I will not be, to-day,The only slave of toil and care,Away from desk and dust! away!I'll be as idle as the air.Beneath the open sky abroad,Among the plants and breathing things,The sinless, peaceful works of God,I'll share the calm the season brings.Come, thou, in whose soft eyes I seeThe gentle meanings of thy heart,One day amid the woods with me,From men and all their cares apart.And where, upon the meadow's breast,The shadow of the thicket lies,The blue wild-flowers thou gatherestShall glow yet deeper near thine eyes.Come, and when mid the calm profound,I turn, those gentle eyes to seek,They, like the lovely landscape round,Of innocence and peace shall speak.Rest here, beneath the unmoving shade,And on the silent valleys gaze,Winding and widening, till they fadeIn yon soft ring of summer haze.The village trees their summits rearStill as its spire, and yonder flockAt rest in those calm fields appearAs chiselled from the lifeless rock.One tranquil mount the scene o'erlooks—There the hushed winds their sabbath keep,While a near hum from bees and brooksComes faintly like the breath of sleep.Well may the gazer deem that when,Worn with the struggle and the strife,And heart-sick at the wrongs of men,The good forsakes the scene of life;Like this deep quiet that, awhile,Lingers the lovely landscape o'er,Shall be the peace whose holy smileWelcomes him to a happier shore.
Cool shades and dews are round my way,And silence of the early day;Mid the dark rocks that watch his bed,Glitters the mighty Hudson spread,Unrippled, save by drops that fallFrom shrubs that fringe his mountain wall;And o'er the clear still water swellsThe music of the Sabbath bells.All, save this little nook of land,Circled with trees, on which I stand;All, save that line of hills which lieSuspended in the mimic sky—Seems a blue void, above, below,Through which the white clouds come and go;And from the green world's farthest steepI gaze into the airy deep.Loveliest of lovely things are they,On earth, that soonest pass away.The rose that lives its little hourIs prized beyond the sculptured flower.Even love, long tried and cherished long,Becomes more tender and more strongAt thought of that insatiate graveFrom which its yearnings cannot save.River! in this still hour thou hastToo much of heaven on earth to last;Nor long may thy still waters lie,An image of the glorious sky.Thy fate and mine are not repose,And ere another evening close,Thou to thy tides shalt turn again,And I to seek the crowd of men.
Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,I know thy breath in the burning sky!And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,For the coming of the hurricane!And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;Silent and slow, and terribly strong,The mighty shadow is borne along,Like the dark eternity to come;While the world below, dismayed and dumb,Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere,Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.They darken fast; and the golden blazeOf the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,And he sends through the shade a funeral ray—A glare that is neither night nor day,A beam that touches, with hues of death,The clouds above and the earth beneath.To its covert glides the silent bird,While the hurricane's distant voice is heardUplifted among the mountains round,And the forests hear and answer the sound.He is come! he is come! do ye not beholdHis ample robes on the wind unrolled?Giant of air! we bid thee hail!—How his gray skirts tops in the whirling gale;How his huge and writhing arms are bentTo clasp the zone of the firmament,And fold at length, in their dark embrace,From mountain to mountain the visible space.Darker—still darker! the whirlwinds bearThe dust of the plains to the middle air:And hark to the crashing, long and loud,Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!You may trace its path by the flashes that startFrom the rapid wheels where'er they dart,As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,And flood the skies with a lurid glow.What roar is that?—'tis the rain that breaksIn torrents away from the airy lakes,Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,And shedding a nameless horror round.Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies,With the very clouds!—ye are lost to my eyes.I seek ye vainly, and see in your placeThe shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,A whirling ocean that fills the wallOf the crystal heaven, and buries allAnd I, cut off from the world, remainAlone with the terrible hurricane.
Chains may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee,Tell, of the iron heart! they could not tame!For thou wert of the mountains; they proclaimThe everlasting creed of liberty.That creed is written on the untrampled snow,Thundered by torrents which no power can hold,Save that of God, when He sends forth His cold,And breathed by winds that through the free heaven blow.Thou, while thy prison-walls were dark around,Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught,And to thy brief captivity was broughtA vision of thy Switzerland unbound.The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened theeFor the great work to set thy country free.
Thy bower is finished, fairest!Fit bower for hunter's bride,Where old woods overshadowThe green savanna's side.I've wandered long, and wandered far,And never have I met,In all this lovely Western land,A spot so lovely yet.But I shall think it fairerWhen thou art come to bless,With thy sweet smile and silver voice,Its silent loveliness.For thee the wild-grape glistensOn sunny knoll and tree,The slim papaya ripensIts yellow fruit for thee.For thee the duck, on glassy stream,The prairie-fowl shall die;My rifle for thy feast shall bringThe wild-swan from the sky.The forest's leaping panther,Fierce, beautiful, and fleet,Shall yield his spotted hide to beA carpet for thy feet.I know, for thou hast told me,Thy maiden love of flowers;Ah, those that deck thy gardensAre pale compared with ours.When our wide woods and mighty lawnsBloom to the April skies,The earth has no more gorgeous sightTo show to human eyes.In meadows red with blossoms,All summer long, the beeMurmurs, and loads his yellow thighs,For thee, my love, and me.Or wouldst thou gaze at tokensOf ages long ago—Our old oaks stream with mosses,And sprout with mistletoe;And mighty vines, like serpents, climbThe giant sycamore;And trunks, o'erthrown for centuries,Cumber the forest floor;And in the great savanna,The solitary mound,Built by the elder world, o'erlooksThe loneliness around.Come, thou hast not forgottenThy pledge and promise quite,With many blushes murmured,Beneath the evening light.Come, the young violets crowd my door,Thy earliest look to win,And at my silent window-sillThe jessamine peeps in.All day the red-bird warblesUpon the mulberry near,And the night-sparrow trills her songAll night, with none to hear.
Gone are the glorious Greeks of old,Glorious in mien and mind;Their bones are mingled with the mould,Their dust is on the wind;The forms they hewed from living stoneSurvive the waste of years, alone,And, scattered with their ashes, showWhat greatness perished long ago.Yet fresh the myrtles there; the springsGush brightly as of yore;Flowers blossom from the dust of kings,As many an age before.There Nature moulds as nobly now,As e'er of old, the human brow;And copies still the martial formThat braved Platæa's battle-storm.Boy! thy first looks were taught to seekTheir heaven in Hellas' skies;Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek,Her sunshine lit thine eyes;Thine ears have drunk the woodland strainsHeard by old poets, and thy veinsSwell with the blood of demigods,That slumber in thy country's sods.Now is thy nation free, though late;Thy elder brethren broke—Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight—The intolerable yoke.And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth seeHer youth renewed in such as thee:A shoot of that old vine that madeThe nations silent in its shade.
Thou unrelenting Past!Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,And fetters, sure and fast,Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.Far in thy realm withdrawn,Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,And glorious ages goneLie deep within the shadow of thy womb.Childhood, with all its mirth,Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground,And last, Man's Life on earth,Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.Thou hast my better years;Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind,Yielded to thee with tears—The venerable form, the exalted mind.My spirit yearns to bringThe lost ones back—yearns with desire intense,And struggles hard to wringThy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.In vain; thy gates denyAll passage save to those who hence depart;Nor to the streaming eyeThou giv'st them back—nor to the broken heart.In thy abysses hideBeauty and excellence unknown; to theeEarth's wonder and her prideAre gathered, as the waters to the sea;Labors of good to man,Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,Love, that midst grief began,And grew with years, and faltered not in death.Full many a mighty nameLurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered;With thee are silent fame,Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.Thine for a space are they—Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last:Thy gates shall yet give way,Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!All that of good and fairHas gone into thy womb from earliest time,Shall then come forth to wearThe glory and the beauty of its prime.They have not perished—no!Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet,Smiles, radiant long ago,And features, the great soul's apparent seat.All shall come back; each tieOf pure affection shall be knit again;Alone shall Evil die,And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.And then shall I beholdHim, by whose kind paternal side I sprung,And her, who, still and cold,Fills the next grave—the beautiful and young.
Upon the mountain's distant head,With trackless snows forever white,Where all is still, and cold, and dead,Late shines the day's departing light.But far below those icy rocks,The vales, in summer bloom arrayed,Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks,Are dim with mist and dark with shade.'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts,And eyes where generous meanings burn,Earliest the light of life departs,But lingers with the cold and stern.
Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thouThat cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,And swelling the white sail. I welcome theeTo the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!Nor I alone; a thousand bosoms roundInhale thee in the fulness of delight;And languid forms rise up, and pulses boundLivelier, at coming of the wind of night;And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouseThe wide old wood from his majestic rest,Summoning from the innumerable boughsThe strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast:Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bowsThe shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.The faint old man shall lean his silver headTo feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,And dry the moistened curls that overspreadHis temples, while his breathing grows more deep;And they who stand about the sick man's bed,Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,And softly part his curtains to allowThy visit, grateful to his burning brow.Go—but the circle of eternal change,Which is the life of Nature, shall restore,With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange,Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deemHe hears the rustling leaf and running stream.
When the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam,And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn,And the glow of the sky blazes back from the stream,How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness grow dim!Oh! 'tis sad, in that moment of glory and song,To see, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun,The glittering band that kept watch all night longO'er Love and o'er Slumber, go out one by one:Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast,Scarce glimmers with one of the train that were there;And their leader, the day-star, the brightest and last,Twinkles faintly and fades in that desert of air.Thus, Oblivion, from midst of whose shadow we came,Steals o'er us again when life's twilight is gone;And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven of fame,Grow pale and are quenched as the years hasten on.Let them fade—but we'll pray that the age, in whose flight,Of ourselves and our friends the remembrance shall die,May rise o'er the world, with the gladness and lightOf the morning that withers the stars from the sky.
Innocent child and snow-white flower!Well are ye paired in your opening hour.Thus should the pure and the lovely meet,Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet.White as those leaves, just blown apart;Are the folds of thy own young heart;Guilty passion and cankering careNever have left their traces there.Artless one! though thou gazest nowO'er the white blossom with earnest brow,Soon will it tire thy childish eye;Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by.Throw it aside in thy weary hour,Throw to the ground the fair white flower;Yet, as thy tender years depart,Keep that white and innocent heart.
SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR THE FOOT OF MONT BLANC.
Not from the sands or cloven rocks,Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow;Nor earth, within her bosom, locksThy dark unfathomed wells below.Thy springs are in the cloud, thy streamBegins to move and murmur firstWhere ice-peaks feel the noonday beam,Or rain-storms on the glacier burst.Born where the thunder and the blastAnd morning's earliest light are born,Thou rushest swoln, and loud, and fast,By these low homes, as if in scorn:Yet humbler springs yield purer waves;And brighter, glassier streams than thine,Sent up from earth's unlighted caves,With heaven's own beam and image shine.Yet stay; for here are flowers and trees;Warm rays on cottage-roofs are here;And laugh of girls, and hum of bees,Here linger till thy waves are clear.Thou heedest not—thou hastest on;From steep to steep thy torrent falls;Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone,It rests beneath Geneva's walls.Rush on—but were there one with meThat loved me, I would light my hearthHere, where with God's own majestyAre touched the features of the earth.By these old peaks, white, high, and vast,Still rising as the tempests beat,Here would I dwell, and sleep, at last,Among the blossoms at their feet.
Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies;Yet,Cole! thy heart shall bear to Europe's strandA living image of our own bright land,Such as upon thy glorious canvas lies;Lone lakes—savannas where the bison roves—Rocks rich with summer garlands—solemn streams—Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams—Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves.Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest—fair,But different—everywhere the trace of men,Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glenTo where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air.Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight,But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.
Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,And colored with the heaven's own blue,That openest when the quiet lightSucceeds the keen and frosty night.Thou comest not when violets leanO'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,Or columbines, in purple dressed,Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.Thou waitest late and com'st alone,When woods are bare and birds are flown,And frosts and shortening days portendThe aged year is near his end.Then doth thy sweet and quiet eyeLook through its fringes to the sky,Blue—blue—as if that sky let fallA flower from its cerulean wall.I would that thus, when I shall seeThe hour of death draw near to me,Hope, blossoming within my heart,May look to heaven as I depart.
Wild was the day; the wintry seaMoaned sadly on New-England's strand,When first the thoughtful and the free,Our fathers, trod the desert land.They little thought how pure a light,With years, should gather round that day;How love should keep their memories bright,How wide a realm their sons should sway.Green are their bays; but greener stillShall round their spreading fame be wreathed,And regions, now untrod, shall thrillWith reverence when their names are breathed.Till where the sun, with softer fires,Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep,The children of the pilgrim siresThis hallowed day like us shall keep.
Not in the solitudeAlone may man commune with Heaven, or see,Only in savage woodAnd sunny vale, the present Deity;Or only hear his voiceWhere the winds whisper and the waves rejoice.Even here do I beholdThy steps, Almighty!—here, amidst the crowdThrough the great city rolled,With everlasting murmur deep and loud—Choking the ways that wind'Mongst the proud piles, the work of human kind.Thy golden sunshine comesFrom the round heaven, and on their dwellings liesAnd lights their inner homes;For them thou fill'st with air the unbounded skies,And givest them the storesOf ocean, and the harvests of its shores.Thy Spirit is around,Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along;And this eternal sound—Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng—Like the resounding sea,Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of Thee.And when the hour of restComes, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine,Hushing its billowy breast—The quiet of that moment too is thine;It breathes of Him who keepsThe vast and helpless city while it sleeps.
These are the gardens of the Desert, theseThe unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,For which the speech of England has no name—The Prairies. I behold them for the first,And my heart swells, while the dilated sightTakes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch,In airy undulations, far away,As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,And motionless forever.—Motionless?—No—they are all unchained again. The cloudsSweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;Dark hollows seem to glide along and chaseThe sunny ridges. Breezes of the South!Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not—ye have playedAmong the palms of Mexico and vinesOf Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooksThat from the fountains of Sonora glideInto the calm Pacific—have ye fannedA nobler or a lovelier scene than this?Man hath no power in all this glorious work:The hand that built the firmament hath heavedAnd smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopesWith herbage, planted them with island groves,And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floorFor this magnificent temple of the sky—With flowers whose glory and whose multitudeRival the constellations! The great heavensSeem to stoop down upon the scene in love,—A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue,Than that which bends above our eastern hills.As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed,Among the high rank grass that sweeps his sidesThe hollow beating of his footstep seemsA sacrilegious sound. I think of thoseUpon whose rest he tramples. Are they here—The dead of other days?—and did the dustOf these fair solitudes once stir with lifeAnd burn with passion? Let the mighty moundsThat overlook the rivers, or that riseIn the dim forest crowded with old oaks,Answer. A race, that long has passed away,Built them;—a disciplined and populous raceHeaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the GreekWas hewing the Pentelicus to formsOf symmetry, and rearing on its rockThe glittering Parthenon. These ample fieldsNourished their harvests, here their herds were fed,When haply by their stalls the bison lowed,And bowed his manèd shoulder to the yoke.All day this desert murmured with their toils,Till twilight blushed, and lovers walked, and wooedIn a forgotten language, and old tunes,From instruments of unremembered form,Gave the soft winds a voice. The red man came—The roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce,And the mound-builders vanished from the earth.The solitude of centuries untoldHas settled where they dwelt. The prairie-wolfHunts in their meadows, and his fresh-dug denYawns by my path. The gopher mines the groundWhere stood their swarming cities. All is gone;All—save the piles of earth that hold their bones,The platforms where they worshipped unknown gods,The barriers which they builded from the soilTo keep the foe at bay—till o'er the wallsThe wild beleaguerers broke, and, one by one,The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heapedWith corpses. The brown vultures of the woodFlocked to those vast uncovered sepulchres,And sat unscared and silent at their feast.Haply some solitary fugitive,Lurking in marsh and forest, till the senseOf desolation and of fear becameBitterer than death, yielded himself to die.Man's better nature triumphed then. Kind wordsWelcomed and soothed him; the rude conquerorsSeated the captive with their chiefs; he choseA bride among their maidens, and at lengthSeemed to forget—yet ne'er forgot—the wifeOf his first love, and her sweet little ones,Butchered, amid their shrieks, with all his race.Thus change the forms of being. Thus ariseRaces of living things, glorious in strength,And perish, as the quickening breath of GodFills them, or is withdrawn. The red man, too,Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long,And nearer to the Rocky Mountains, soughtA wilder hunting-ground. The beaver buildsNo longer by these streams, but far away,On waters whose blue surface ne'er gave backThe white man's face—among Missouri's springs,And pools whose issues swell the Oregon—He rears his little Venice. In these plainsThe bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leaguesBeyond remotest smoke of hunter's camp,Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shakeThe earth with thundering steps—yet here I meetHis ancient footprints stamped beside the pool.Still this great solitude is quick with life.Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowersThey flutter over, gentle quadrupeds,And birds, that scarce have learned the fear of man,Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground,Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deerBounds to the wood at my approach. The bee,A more adventurous colonist than man,With whom he came across the eastern deep,Fills the savannas with his murmurings,And hides his sweets, as in the golden age,Within the hollow oak. I listen longTo his domestic hum, and think I hearThe sound of that advancing multitudeWhich soon shall fill these deserts. From the groundComes up the laugh of children, the soft voiceOf maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymnOf Sabbath worshippers. The low of herdsBlends with the rustling of the heavy grainOver the dark brown furrows. All at onceA fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream,And I am in the wilderness alone.
Our band is few but true and tried,Our leader frank and bold;The British soldier tremblesWhen Marion's name is told.Our fortress is the good greenwood,Our tent the cypress-tree;We know the forest round us,As seamen know the sea.We know its walls of thorny vines,Its glades of reedy grass,Its safe and silent islandsWithin the dark morass.Woe to the English soldieryThat little dread us near!On them shall light at midnightA strange and sudden fear:When, waking to their tents on fire,They grasp their arms in vain,And they who stand to face usAre beat to earth again;And they who fly in terror deemA mighty host behind,And hear the tramp of thousandsUpon the hollow wind.Then sweet the hour that brings releaseFrom danger and from toil:We talk the battle over,And share the battle's spoil.The woodland rings with laugh and shout,As if a hunt were up,And woodland flowers are gatheredTo crown the soldier's cup.With merry songs we mock the windThat in the pine-top grieves,And slumber long and sweetlyOn beds of oaken leaves.Well knows the fair and friendly moonThe band that Marion leads—The glitter of their rifles,The scampering of their steeds.'Tis life to guide the fiery barbAcross the moonlight plain;'Tis life to feel the night-windThat lifts the tossing mane.A moment in the British camp—A moment—and awayBack to the pathless forest,Before the peep of day.Grave men there are by broad Santee,Grave men with hoary hairs;Their hearts are all with Marion,For Marion are their prayers.And lovely ladies greet our bandWith kindliest welcoming,With smiles like those of summer,And tears like those of spring.For them we wear these trusty arms,And lay them down no moreTill we have driven the Briton,Forever, from our shore.
Gone is the long, long winter night;Look, my belovèd one!How glorious, through his depths of light,Rolls the majestic sun!The willows, waked from winter's death,Give out a fragrance like thy breath—The summer is begun!Ay, 'tis the long bright summer day:Hark to that mighty crash!The loosened ice-ridge breaks away—The smitten waters flash;Seaward the glittering mountain rides,While, down its green translucent sides,The foamy torrents dash.See, love, my boat is moored for theeBy ocean's weedy floor—The petrel does not skim the seaMore swiftly than my oar.We'll go where, on the rocky isles,Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl pilesBeside the pebbly shore.Or, bide thou where the poppy blows,With wind-flowers frail and fair,While I, upon his isle of snow,Seek and defy the bear.Fierce though he be, and huge of frame,This arm his savage strength shall tame,And drag him from his lair.When crimson sky and flamy cloudBespeak the summer o'er,And the dead valleys wear a shroudOf snows that melt no more,I'll build of ice thy winter home,With glistening walls and glassy dome,And spread with skins the floor.The white fox by thy couch shall play;And, from the frozen skies,The meteors of a mimic dayShall flash upon thine eyes.And I—for such thy vow—meanwhileShall hear thy voice and see thy smile.Till that long midnight flies.
Beneath the waning moon I walk at night,And muse on human life—for all aroundAre dim uncertain shapes that cheat the sight,And pitfalls lurk in shade along the ground,And broken gleams of brightness, here and there,Glance through, and leave unwarmed the death-like air.The trampled earth returns a sound of fear—A hollow sound, as if I walked on tombs;And lights, that tell of cheerful homes, appearFar off, and die like hope amid the glooms.A mournful wind across the landscape flies,And the wide atmosphere is full of sighs.And I, with faltering footsteps, journey on,Watching the stars that roll the hours away,Till the faint light that guides me now is gone,And, like another life, the glorious dayShall open o'er me from the empyreal height,With warmth, and certainty, and boundless light.
The night winds howled, the billows dashedAgainst the tossing chest,As Danaë to her broken heartHer slumbering infant pressed."My little child"—in tears she said—"To wake and weep is mine,But thou canst sleep—thou dost not knowThy mother's lot, and thine."The moon is up, the moonbeams smile—They tremble on the main;But dark, within my floating cell,To me they smile in vain."Thy folded mantle wraps thee warm,Thy clustering locks are dry;Thou dost not hear the shrieking gust,Nor breakers booming high."As o'er thy sweet unconscious faceA mournful watch I keep,I think, didst thou but know thy fate,How thou wouldst also weep."Yet, dear one, sleep, and sleep, ye winds,That vex the restless brine—When shall these eyes, my babe, be sealedAs peacefully as thine!"
'Tis sweet, in the green Spring,To gaze upon the wakening fields around;Birds in the thicket sing,Winds whisper, waters prattle from the ground.A thousand odors rise,Breathed up from blossoms of a thousand dyes.Shadowy, and close, and cool,The pine and poplar keep their quiet nook;Forever fresh and full,Shines, at their feet, the thirst-inviting brook;And the soft herbage seemsSpread for a place of banquets and of dreams.Thou, who alone art fair,And whom alone I love, art far away.Unless thy smile be there,It makes me sad to see the earth so gay;I care not if the trainOf leaves, and flowers, and zephyrs go again.
FROM THE SPANISH OF BARTOLOME LEONARDO DE ARGENSOLA.
Blessed, yet sinful one, and broken-hearted!The crowd are pointing at the thing forlorn,In wonder and in scorn!Thou weepest days of innocence departed;Thou weepest, and thy tears have power to moveThe Lord to pity and love.The greatest of thy follies is forgiven,Even for the least of all the tears that shineOn that pale cheek of thine.Thou didst kneel down, to Him who came from heaven,Evil and ignorant, and thou shalt riseHoly, and pure, and wise.It is not much that to the fragrant blossomThe ragged brier should change, the bitter firDistil Arabian myrrh;Nor that, upon the wintry desert's bosom,The harvest should rise plenteous, and the swainBear home the abundant grain.But come and see the bleak and barren mountainsThick to their tops with roses; come and seeLeaves on the dry dead tree.The perished plant, set out by lining fountains,Grows fruitful, and its beauteous branches rise,Forever, toward the skies.
FROM THE SPANISH OF LUIS PONCE DE LEON.
Region of life and light!Land of the good whose earthly toils are o'er!Nor frost nor heat may blightThy vernal beauty, fertile shore,Yielding thy blessed fruits for evermore.There, without crook or sling,Walks the good shepherd; blossoms white and redRound his meek temples cling;And to sweet pastures led,The flock he loves beneath his eye is fed.He guides, and near him theyFollow delighted, for he makes them goWhere dwells eternal May,And heavenly roses blow,Deathless, and gathered but again to grow.He leads them to the heightNamed of the infinite and long-sought Good,And fountains of delight;And where his feet have stoodSprings up, along the way, their tender food.And when, in the mid skies,The climbing sun has reached his highest bound,Reposing as he lies,With all his flock around,He witches the still air with numerous sound.From his sweet lute flow forthImmortal harmonies, of power to stillAll passions born of earth,And draw the ardent willIts destiny of goodness to fulfil.Might but a little part,A wandering breath of that high melody,Descend into my heart,And change it till it beTransformed and swallowed up, oh love, in thee!Ah! then my soul should know,Beloved! where thou liest at noon of day,And from this place of woeReleased, should take its wayTo mingle with thy flock and never stray.