And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strew'd flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, Dear.
Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
Radiant Sister of the Day
Awake! arise ! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
To the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
Round stems that never kiss the sun,
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sand-hills of the sea,
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue
Crown the pale year weak and new ;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dim and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal Sun.
P. B. Shelley
NA beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise !
Up, do thy wonted work ! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,
For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven's brow.
We wander'd to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean's foam; The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home. The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay ;
It seem'd as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scatter'd from above the sun
A light of Paradise !
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,
And soothed by every azure breath
That under heaven is blown
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own :
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean-woods may be.
How calm it was !- the silence there
By such a chain was bound, That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound The inviolable quietness ;
The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seem'd from the remotest seat
Of the wide mountain waste
To the soft flower beneath our feet
A magic circle traced,
A spirit interfused around,
A thrilling silent life;
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature's strife ;
And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there Was one fair Form that fill'd with love
The lifeless atmosphere.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough ;
Each seem'd as 't were a little sky
Gulf'd in a world below;
A firmament of purple light
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night
And purer than the day -
In which the lovely forests grew
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen
Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green :
And all was interfus beneath
With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.
Like one beloved, the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth exprest;
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought
Which from the mind's too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.
— Though Thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind
Than calm in waters seen !
P. B. Shelley
CCLXI
is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea :
Listen ! the mighty being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder - everlastingly.
Dear child ! dear girl ! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouch'd by solemn thought
Thy nature is not therefore less divine :
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year,
And worship’st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
W. Wordsworth
TAR that bringest home the bee,
And sett'st the weary labourer free!
If any star shed peace, 't is Thou
That send'st it from above,
Appearing when Heaven's breath and brow
Are sweet as hers we love.
Come to the luxuriant skies,
Whilst the landscape's odours rise,
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