Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

XXXI.

WHERE lies the Land to which yon Ship must go?
Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day,
Festively she puts forth in trim array;
Is she for tropic suns, or polar snows?

What boots the inquiry? — Neither friend nor foe
She cares for; let her travel where she may,
She finds familiar names, a beaten way

Ever before her, and a wind to blow.

Yet still I ask, what haven is her mark?
And, almost as it was when ships were rare,

(From time to time, like Pilgrims, here and there Crossing the waters,) doubt, and something dark, Of the old Sea some reverential fear,

Is with me at thy farewell, joyous Bark!

XXXII.

WITH Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh, Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed ; Some lying fast at anchor in the road,

Some veering up and down, one knew not why.
A goodly Vessel did I then espy

Come like a giant from a haven broad;
And lustily along the bay she strode,
Her tackling rich, and of apparel high.
This Ship was naught to me, nor I to her,
Yet I pursued her with a Lover's look;
This Ship to all the rest did I prefer :

When will she turn, and whither? She will brook No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir: On went she, and due north her journey took.

XXXIII.

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.

XXXIV.

A VOLANT Tribe of Bards on earth are found,
Who, while the flattering Zephyrs round them play,
On "coignes of vantage" hang their nests of clay;
How quickly from that aery hold unbound,
Dust for oblivion! To the solid ground
Of nature trusts the Mind that builds for aye;
Convinced that there, there only, she can lay

Serre foundations As the year runs round,
Ant de sus within the chosen ring;
Wile the stay shine, or while day's purple eye
As mercy cling with the flowers of Spring;
Where even the motion of an Angel's wing
Would interrupt the intense tranquillity
Of see and more than silent sky.

IIIT.

• WEAK is the w of Man, his judgment blind;
Remembrance persecutes, and Hope betrays;
Heavy is woe:- and joy, for human-kind,
A mournful thing, so transient is the blaze!”
Thus might he paint our lot of mortal days
Who wants the glorious faculty assigned
To elevate the more-than-reasoning Mind,
And color life's dark cloud with orient rays.
Imagination is that sacred power,
Imagination lofty and refined:

"T is hers to pluck the amaranthine flower
Of Faith, and round the Sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.

XXXVI.

TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT.

CALVERT! it must not be unheard by them
Who may respect my name, that I to thee

Owed many years of early liberty.

This care was thine when sickness did condemn

Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem,
That I, if frugal and severe, might stray
Where'er I liked; and finally array
My temples with the Muse's diadem.

Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth;
If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
In my past verse; or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate ;-
It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived Youth!
To think how much of this will be thy praise.

PART II.

I.

SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honors; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glowworm lamp,

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand

The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains, alas! too few.

II.

How sweet it is, when mother Fancy rocks
The wayward brain, to saunter through a wood!
An old place, full of many a lovely brood,

Tall trees, green arbors, and ground-flowers in

flocks;

And wild-rose tiptoe upon hawthorn stocks,
Like a bold Girl, who plays her agile pranks

At Wakes and Fairs with wandering Mounte

banks,

When she stands cresting the Clown's head, and

mocks

The crowd beneath her. Verily I think

Such place to me is sometimes like a dream
Or map of the whole world: thoughts, link by link,
Enter through ears and eyesight, with such gleam
Of all things, that at last in fear I shrink,
And leap at once from the delicious stream.

III.

TO B. R. HAYDON.

HIGH is our calling, Friend! - Creative Art, (Whether the instrument of words she use, Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,)

« НазадПродовжити »