the sun

Was sinking, and the solemn eve came down

With its blue vapour upon field and wood And elm-embosomed spire) once more again I fed on sweet emotion, and my heart With love o'erflowed, or hushed itself in fear

Unearthly, yea celestial. Once again

My heart was hot within me, and, meseemed,

I too had in my body breath to wind
The magic horn of song; I too possessed
Up-welling in my being's depths a fount
Of the true poet-nectar whence to fill
The golden urns of verse..

IN A LECTURE-ROOM
[Composed 1840. Published 1849.]

Save to perplex the head,

And leave the spirit dead.

Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go, While from the secret treasure-depths below,

Fed by the skyey shower,

And clouds that sink and rest on hill-tops high,

Wisdom at once, and Power,

Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly?

Why labour at the dull mechanic oar,
When the fresh breeze is blowing,

And the strong current flowing,

Right onward to the Eternal Shore?

FROM BLANK MISGIVINGS
[Composed 1841. - Published 1849.]

NO. V

HOW OFTEN sit I, poring o'er
My strange distorted youth,
Seeking in vain, in all my store,
One feeling based on truth;

Amid the maze of petty life
A clue whereby to move,
A spot whereon in toil and strife
To dare to rest and love.

So constant as my heart would be,
So fickle as it must,

'Twere well for others as for me
'Twere dry as summer dust.
Excitements come, and act and speech
Flow freely forth; - but no,

Nor they, nor ought beside can reach The buried world below.

I HAVE seen higher, holier things than these,

And therefore must to these refuse my heart.

Yet am I panting for a little ease;
I'll take, and so depart.

Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away,
Her high and cherished visions to forget,
And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay
So vast, so dread a debt?

How will the heart, which now thou trustest, then

Corrupt, yet in corruption mindful yet, Turn with sharp stings upon itself! Again, Bethink thee of the debt!

- Hast thou seen higher, holier things than these,

And therefore must to these thy heart refuse?

With the true best, alack, how ill agrees That best that thou wouldst choose!

The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above;

Do thou, as best thou mayst, thy duty do:

Amid the things allowed thee live and love;

Some day thou shalt it view.

QUA CURSUM VENTUS
[Published 1849.]

AS SHIPS, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day

Are scarce long leagues apart descried;

When fell the night, unsprung the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied, Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas By each was cleaving, side by side:

E'en so- but why the tale reveal

Of those, whom year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew to feel,

Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered
Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,
Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!
To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass
guides

To that, and your own selves, be true. But O blithe breeze; and O great seas, Though ne'er, that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again,

Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!

THE NEW SINAI
[Composed 1845. Published 1869.]
Lo, HERE is God, and there is God!
Believe it not, O Man;

In such vain sort to this and that
The ancient heathen ran:
Though old Religion shake her head,
And say in bitter grief,
The day behold, at first foretold,
Of atheist unbelief:

Take better part, with manly heart,
Thine adult spirit can;
Receive it not, believe it not,
Believe it not, O Man!

As men at dead of night awaked
With cries, The king is here,'

Rush forth and greet whome'er they meet,
Whoe'er shall first appear;

And still repeat, to all the street,
''Tis he, the king is here;'
The long procession moveth on,
Each nobler form they see,
With changeful suit they still salute
And cry, 'Tis he, 'tis he!'

So, even so, when men were young,
And earth and heaven were new,
And His immediate presence He

From human hearts withdrew,
The soul perplexed and daily vexed
With sensuous False and True,

On thousand altars burned: 'They are! They are!'-On Sinai's top Far seen the lightnings shone, The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke,

And God said, 'I am One.'

God spake it out, 'I, God, am One;'
The unheeding ages ran,
And baby-thoughts again, again,

Have dogged the growing man:
And as of old from Sinai's top

God said that God is One,

By Science strict so speaks He now
To tell us, There is None!

Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven's
A Mécanique Céleste!

And heart and mind of human kind

A watch-work as the rest!

Is this a Voice, as was the Voice,
Whose speaking told abroad,

When thunder pealed, and mountain reeled,
The ancient truth of God?

Ah, not the Voice; 'tis but the cloud,
The outer darkness dense,

Where image none, nor e'er was seen
Similitude of sense.

'Tis but the cloudy darkness dense
That wrapt the Mount around;
While in amaze the people stays,
To hear the Coming Sound.

Is there no prophet-soul the while
To dare, sublimely meek,

Within the shroud of blackest cloud
The Deity to seek?

'Midst atheistic systems dark,

And darker hearts' despair,

That soul has heard perchance His word,
And on the dusky air

His skirts, as passed He by, to see
Hath strained on their behalf,
Who on the plain, with dance amain,
Adore the Golden Calf.

'Tis but the cloudy darkness dense;
Though blank the tale it tells,
No God, no Truth! yet He, in sooth,
Is there within it dwells;
Within the sceptic darkness deep
He dwells that none may see,

Till idol forms and idol thoughts

Have passed and ceased to be:

No God, no Truth! ah, though, in sooth
So stand the doctrine's half:
On Egypt's track return not back,
Nor own the Golden Calf.

Take better part, with manlier heart,

Thine adult spirit can;

No God, no Truth, receive it ne'er-
Believe it ne'er-O Man!

But turn not then to seek again
What first the ill began;

No God, it saith; ah, wait in faith
God's self-completing plan;
Receive it not, but leave it not,
And wait it out, O Man!

'The Man that went the cloud within
Is gone and vanished quite;
He cometh not,' the people cries,
'Nor bringeth God to sight:
Lo these thy gods, that safety give,
Adore and keep the feast!'
Deluding and deluded cries

The Prophet's brother-Priest:
And Israel all bows down to fall
Before the gilded beast.

Devout, indeed! that priestly creed,
O Man, reject as sin;
The clouded hill attend thou still,
And him that went within.

He yet shall bring some worthy thing
For waiting souls to see:

Some sacred word that he hath heard
Their light and life shall be;

Some lofty part, than which the heart
Adopt no nobler can,

Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe
And thou shalt do, O Man!

What shall avail the knowledge thou hast

sought?

I know not, let me think my thought.
What is the end of strife?

I know not, let me live my life.

How many days or e'er thou mean'st to move?

I know not, let me love my love.
Were not things old once new?-
I know not, let me do as others do.
And when the rest were over past,

I know not, I will do my duty, said the last.

Thy duty do? rejoined the voice,
Ah, do it, do it, and rejoice;

But shalt thou then, when all is done,
Enjoy a love, embrace a beauty

Like these, that may be seen and won
In life, whose course will then be run;
Or wilt thou be where there is none?
I know not, I will do my duty.

And taking up the word around, above, below,

Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low,

We know not, sang they all, nor ever need we know;

We know not, sang they, what avails to know?

Whereat the questioning spirit, some short space,

Though unabashed, stood quiet in his place.
But as the echoing chorus died away
And to their dreams the rest returned
apace,

By the one spirit I saw him kneeling low,
And in a silvery whisper heard him say:
Truly, thou know'st not, and thou need'st
not know;

Hope only, hope thou, and believe alway; I also know not, and I need not know, Only with questionings pass I to and fro, Perplexing these that sleep, and in their folly

Imbreeding doubt and sceptic melancholy; Till that, their dreams deserting, they with

me

Come all to this true ignorance and thee.

BETHESDA

A SEQUEL

[Composed 1849. Published 1862.]

I SAW again the spirits on a day, Where on the earth in mournful case they lay;

Five porches were there, and a pool, and round,

Huddling in blankets, strewn upon the ground,

Tied-up and bandaged, weary, sore, and spent,

The maimed and halt, diseased and impotent.

For a great angel came, 'twas said, and stirred

The pool at certain seasons, and the word Was, with this people of the sick, that they

Who in the waters here their limbs should lay

Before the motion on the surface ceased Should of their torment straightway be released.

So with shrunk bodies and with heads down-dropt,

Stretched on the steps, and at the pillars propt,

Watching by day and listening through the night,

They filled the place, a miserable sight.

And I beheld that on the stony floor
He too, that spoke of duty once before,
No otherwise than others here to-day,
Foredone and sick and sadly muttering

lay.

'I know not, I will do say?

What was that word which once sufficed alone for all,

Which now I seek in vain, and never can recall?'

And then, as weary of in vain renewing His question, thus his mournful thought pursuing,

'I know not, I must do as other men are doing.'

But what the waters of that pool might be,
Of Lethe were they, or Philosophy;
And whether he, long waiting, did attain
Deliverance from the burden of his pain
There with the rest; or whether, yet before,
Some more diviner stranger passed the
door

With his small company into that sad place, And breathing hope into the sick man's face,

Bade him take up his bed, and rise and go,

What the end were, and whether it were

So,

Further than this I saw not, neither know.

FROM THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NAVUOLICH

(PART III, LINES 19-83.)

[Composed 1848. Published 1848.]

THERE is a stream (I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist

Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books),

Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains, Falling two miles through rowan stunted alder, enveloped

and

Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample

Spreads, to convey it, the glen with heathery slopes on both sides:

Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls and narrows;

But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river,

Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite,

Scarce by a channel deep-cut, raging up, and raging onward,

Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step it.

There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden bridge goes.

Carrying a path to the forest; below, three hundred yards, say,

Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats of shingle,

Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley.

But in the interval here the boiling pentup water

Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a basin,

Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury

Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror;

Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under;

Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam uprising

Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness,

Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and

pendent birch boughs,

Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway,

Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection.

You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water,

Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bathing.

Here, the pride of the plunger, you stride

the fall and clear it;

Here, the delight of the bather, you roll in beaded sparklings,

Here into pure green depth drop down from lofty ledges.

Hither, a month agone, they had come, and discovered it; hither

(Long a design, but long unaccountably left unaccomplished).

Leaving the well-known bridge and pathway above to the forest, Turning below from the track of the carts over stone and shingle,