Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our

powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping
flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less
forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE

Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men! Whether the whistling rustic tend his plow Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den;

O miserable chieftain! where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou

Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind

Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;

There's not a breathing of the common wind

That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.

ELEGIAC STANZAS

Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont

I was thy neighbor once, thou rugged Pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:

I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was
there;

It trembled, but it never passed away

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;

No mood, which season takes away, or brings:

I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.

Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand,

To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,

The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream;

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house
divine

Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;-
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such Picture would I at that time have made:

And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.

So once it would have been,-'tis so no more;

I have submitted to a new control:
A power is gone, which nothing can restore;
A deep distress hath humanized my Soul.
Not for a moment could I now behold
A smiling sea, and be what I have been:
The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;
This, which I know, I speak with mind

serene.

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend,

If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend;

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

O'tis a passionate Work!-yet wise and well,

Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labors in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,

I love to see the look with which it braves, Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
Housed in a dream, at distance from the
Kind!

Such happiness, wherever it be known,
Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
Such sights, or worse, as are before me
here.-

Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

ODE TO DUTY

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm'st the weary strife of frail
humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth;
Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not:
Oh! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms dread Power!
around them cast.

Serene will be our days and bright And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold Even now, who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed; Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried,
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust:
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred
The task, in smoothe. walks to stray;
But thee I now would serve more strictly,
if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control;
But in the quietness of thought:
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance-desires:
My hopes no more must change their name
I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through

Thee, are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end'
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;

The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy Bondman let
me live!

THE MOUNTAIN ECHO

Yes, it was the mountain Echo, Solitary, clear, profound, Answering to the shouting Cuckoo, Giving to her sound for sound!

Unsolicited reply

To a babbling wanderer sent;
Like her ordinary cry,
Like-but oh, how different!

Hears not also mortal Life?

Hear not we, unthinking Creatures!

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Again that consummation she essayed;
But unsubstantial Form eludes her grasp
As often as that eager grasp was made.
The Phantom parts-but parts to re-unite,
And reassume his place before her sight. 30

"Protesiláus, lo! thy guide is gone!
Confirm, I pray, the vision with thy voice:
This is our palace,-yonder is thy throne;
Speak, and the floor thou tread'st on will
rejoice.

Not to appal me have the gods bestowed 35 This precious boon; and blest a sad abode."

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

pure,

As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress; 25
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

"T is he whose law is reason; who depends Upon that law as on the best of friends; Whence, in a state where men are tempted still

To evil for a guard against worse ill, 30
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He labors good on good to fix, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows;
Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honorable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;

35

« AnteriorContinuar »