VERSES WRITTEN AFTER RETURNING FROM AN AUTUMNAL MORNING WALK.
IT is the very carnival of nature,
The loveliest season that the year can show!
When earth, obedient to her great Creator,
Her richest boons delighteth to bestow.
The gently-sighing breezes, as they blow,
Have more than vernal softness; and the sun
Sheds on the landscape round a mellower glow
Than in his summer splendour he has done,
As if he near'd his goal, and knew the race was won.
It is the season when the green delight
Of leafy luxury begins to fade!
When leaves are changing daily to the sight,
Yet seem but lovelier from each deepening shade,
Or tint, by autumn's touch upon them laid;
It is the season when each streamlet's sound,
Flowing through lonely vale, or woody glade,
Assumes a tone more pensive, more profound;
And yet that hoarser voice spreads melody around.
And I have wander'd far, since the bright east
Was glorious with the dawning light of day;
Seeing as that effulgence more increas'd,
The mists of morning slowly melt away:
And, as I pass'd along, from every spray,
With dew-drops glistening, ever more have heard
Some feather'd songster chant his roundelay;
Or bleat of sheep, or lowing of the herd;
Or rustling of fall'n leaf, when morning's breezes stirr'd.
Thus having roam'd, and reach'd my home at last,
Can I do better, while my bosoms glows,
With all the loveliness through which I've pass'd,
Even till enjoyment wishes for repose,
And meditation still with memory grows:
Can I do better than once more to trim
My evening fire, and these my labours close,
Before my feelings chill, or sense wax dim,
With solemn strain of prayer, fit for a parting hymn?
"O God! it is an awful thing indeed
For one who estimates our nature well,
Be what it may his outward sect, or creed,
To name thee, thou Incomprehensible!
Hadst thou not chosen of thyself to tell,
As in thy gospel thou hast done; nor less,
By condescending in our hearts to dwell;
Could man have ever found to thee access,
Or worshipp'd thee aright, in spiritual holiness?
"No! for the utmost that we could have done,
Were to have rais'd, as Paul at Athens saw,
Altars unto the dread and unknown One,
Bending before, we knew not what, with awe;
And even now instructed by a law
Holier than that of Moses, what know we
Of thee, the Highest? Yet thou bidd'st us draw
Near thee in spirit: O then pardon me,
If, in this closing strain, I crave a boon of thee.
"It shall be this: permit me not to place
My soul's affections on the things of earth;
But, conscious of the treasures of thy grace,
To let them, in my inmost heart, give birth
To gratitude proportion'a to their worth:
Teach me to feel that all which thou hast made
Upon this mighty globe's gigantic girth,
Though meant with filial love to be survey'd,
Is nothing to thyself: -the shadow of a shade.
"If thou hast given me, more than unto some,
A feeling sense of nature's beauties fair,
Which sometimes renders admiration dumb,
From consciousness that words cannot declare
The beauty thou hast scatter'd every where;
O grant that this may lead me still, through all
Thy works to thee! nor prove a treacherous snare
Adapted those affections to enthral,
Which should be thine alone, and waken at thy call.
"I would not merely dream my life away
In fancied rapture, or imagin'd joy;
Nor that a perfum'd flower, a dew-gemm'd spray,
A murmuring brook, or any prouder toy,
Should, for its own sake, thought or song employ;
So far alone as nature's charms can lead
To thee, who fram'd them all, and canst destroy,
Or innocent enjoyment serve to feed;
Grant me to gaze and love, and thus thy works to read.
"But while from one extreme thy power may keep
My erring fraility, O preserve me still
From dulness, nor let cold indifference steep
My senses in oblivion: if the thrill
Of early bliss must sober, as it will,
And should, when earthly things to heavenly yield. I would have feelings left, time cannot chill;
That, while I yet can walk through grove or field, I may be conscious there of charms by thee reveal'd.
"And when I shall, as, soon or late, I must,
Becoine infirm: in age, if I grow old;
Or, sooner, if my strength should fail its trust;
When I relinquish haunts where I have stroll'd
At morn or eve, and can no more behold
Thy glorious works: forbid me to repine;
Let memory still their loveliness unfold
Before my mental eye, and let them shine
With borrow'd light from thee, for they are thine!"
ERSES TO THE MEMORY OF A CHILD OF SUPERIOR EN
DOWMENTS AND EXTRAORDINARY
It is not length of years which lends
The brightest loveliness to those,
Whose memory with our being blends,
Whose worth within our bosoms glows.
The age we honor standeth not
In locks of snow, or length of days;
But in a life, which knows no spot,
A heart, which heavenly wisdom sways.
For wisdom, which is taught by truth,
Unlike mere worldly knowledge, finds
Its full maturity in youth,
Its image e'en in infant minds.
Thus was this child made early wise,
Wise as those sages, who, from far,
Beheld, in Bethlehem's cloudless skies,
The Christian church's gathering star.
What more could wisdom do for them,
Than guide them in the path they trod?
And the same star of Bethlehem
Hath led his spirit home to God!
Well may his memory be dear,
Whose loss is still its sole alloy,
Whose happy lot dries every tear
With holy hopes and humble joy.
"The brightest star of morning's host,"
Is that which shines in twilight skies;
"Scarce risen, in brighter beams 't is lost,"
Its loss inspires a brief regret;
Its loveliness is ne'er forgot;
We know full well 'tis shining yet,
Although we may behold it not.
And thus the spirit which is gone,
Is but absorb'd in glory's blaze;
In beaming brightness burning on,
Though lost unto our finite gaze.
There are, who watch'd it to the last;
There are, who can forget it never;
May these when death's dark shade is past,
Partake with joy its light forever!
FIRST FAUN. Canst thou imagine where those spirits live,
Which make such delicate music in the woods?
We haunt within the least frequented caves
And closest coverts, and we know these wilds,
Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft;
Where may they hide themselves?
SECOND FAUN.
'"T is hard to tell:
I have heard those more skilled in spirits say,
The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun
Sucks from the faint water-flowers that pave
The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools,
Are the pavilions where such dwell and float
Under the green and golden atmosphere,
Which noon-tide kindles through the woven leaves;
And when these burst, and the thin fiery air,
The which they breathed within those lucent domes,
Ascends to flow like meteors through the night,
They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed,
And bow their burning crest, and glide in fire
Under the waters of the earth again.
FIRST FAUN. If such live thus, have others other lives,
Under pink blossoms or within the bells
Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep,
Or on their dying odours, when they die,
Or on the sunlight of the sphered dew?
TO A SKYLARK.
HAIL to thee blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest;
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are brightning,
Thou dost loat and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud.
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so briglht to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
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