And let it carry me adown the west.'
But Love, who, pròstrated,
Lay at Grief's foot, his lifted eyes possessed
Of her full image, answered in her stead;
'Now nay, now nay! she shall not give away
What is my wealth, for any Cloud that flieth.
Where Grief makes moan,
And therefore do I lie here night and day,
And eke my life out with the breath she sigheth.'
WITH stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound,
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground!
This song of soul I struggle to outbear
Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,
And utter all myself into the air.
But if I did it,- -as the thunder-roll
Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there, Before that dread apocalypse of soul.
THE seraph sings before the manifest
God-One, and in the burning of the Seven,
And with the full life of consummate Heaven
Heaving beneath him, like a mother's breast
Warm with her first-born's slumber in that nest.
The poet sings upon the earth grave-riven,
Before the naughty world, soon self-forgiven
For wronging him,—and in the darkness prest
From his own soul by worldly weights. Even so
Sing, seraph with the glory! heaven is high.
Sing, poet with the sorrow! earth is low.
The universe's inward voices cry
'Amen' to either song of joy and woe.
Sing, seraph,—poet,—sing on equally!
WHEN Some Belovèds, 'neath whose eyelids lay
The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one
Did leave me dark before the natural sun,
And I astonied fell and could not pray,-
A thought within me to myself did say,
'Is God less God, that thou art left undone?
Rise, worship, bless Him, in this sackcloth spun,
As in that purple !'-But I answered, Nay!
What child his filial heart in words can loose,
If he behold his tender father raise
The hand that chastens sorely? can he choose
But sob in silence with an upward gaze?—
And my great Father, thinking fit to bruise,
Discerns in speechless tears, both prayer and praise.
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,
Supernal Will! I would not fain be one
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 grace,
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.
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