Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,
What time the amber morn
Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud
Large dowries doth the raptured eye To the young spirit present When first she is wed;
And like a bride of old
In triumph led,
With music and sweet showers Of festal flowers,
Unto the dwelling she must sway. Well hast thou done, great artist Memory, In setting round thy first experiment With royal framework of wrought gold Needs must thou dearly love thy first And foremost in thy various gallery Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls Upon the storied walls;
And newness of thine art so pleased thee, That all which thou hast drawn of fairest Or boldest since, but lightly weighs With thee unto the love thou bearest The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like. Ever retiring thou dost gaze
On the prime labor of thine early days: No matter what the sketch might be; Whether the high field on the bushless Pike, Or even a sand-built ridge
Of heaped hills that mound the sea,
Overblown with murmurs harsh,
Or even a lowly cottage whence we see Stretched wide and wild the waste enormou
Where from the frequent bridge,
Like emblems of infinity,
The trenched waters run from sky to sky;
Or a garden bowered close With plaited alleys of the trailing rose, Long alleys falling down to twilight grots, Or opening upon level plots
Of crowned lilies, standing near Purple-spiked lavender:
Whether in after life retired From brawling storms,
From weary wind,
With youthful fancy reinspired, We may hold converse with all forms Of the many-sided mind,
And those whom passion had not blinded, Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded, My friend, with you to live alone, Were how much better than to own A crown, a sceptre, and a throne. O strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory.
A SPIRIT haunts the year's last hours, Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers: To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh In the walks;
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers:
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.
The air is damp, and hushed, and close, As a sick man's room when be taketh repose An hour before death;
My very heart faints and my whole soul grievo At the noist rich smell of the roting leaves, And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year's last rose.
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily
MYSTERY of mysteries, Faintly smiling Adeline, Scarce of earth nor all divine, Nor unhappy, nor at rest, But beyond expression fair, With thy floating flaxen hair;
Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes
Take the heart from out my breast. Wherefore those dim looks of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?
Whence that aery bloom of thine, Like a lily which the sun Looks through in his sad decline,
And a rose-bush leans upon, Thou that faintly smilest still, As a Naiad in a well, Looking at the set of day, Or a phantom two hours old Of a maiden past away,
Ere the placid lips be cold? Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, Spiritual Adeline ?
What hope or fear or joy is thine? Who talketh with thee, Adeline? For sure thou art not all alone : Do beating hearts of salient springs Keep measure with thine own?
Hast thou heard the butterflies What they say betwixt their wings? Or in stillest evenings
With what voice the violet woos To his heart the silver dews? Or when little airs arise, How the merry bluebell rings
To the mosses underneath?
Hast thou looked upon the breath Of the lilies at sunrise? Wherefore that faint smile of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline ?
Some honey-converse feeds thy mind, Some spirit of a crimson rose In love with thee forgets to close
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs All night long on darkness blind. What aileth thee? whom waitest thou With thy softened, shadowed brow, And those dew-lit eyes of thine, Thou faint smiler, Adeline?
Lovest thou the doleful wind
When thou gazest at the skies?
Doth the low-tongued Orient Wander from the side o' the morn, Dripping with Sabæan spice
On thy pillow, lowly bent
With melodious airs lovelorn,
Breathing light against thy face, While his locks a-dropping twined Round thy neck in subtle ring Make a carcanet of rays And ye talk together still, In the language wherewith Spring Letters cowslips on the hill? Hence that look and smile of thine, Spiritual Adeline.
WITH a half-glance upon the sky At night he said, "The wanderings Of this most intricate Universe Teach me the nothingness of things." Yet could not all creation pierce Beyond the bottom of his eye.
He spake of beauty: that the dull Saw no divinity in grass,
Life in dead stones, or spirit in air; Then looking as 'twere in a glass,
He smoothed his chin and sleeked his hair, And said the earth was beautiful.
He spake of virtue: not the gods
More purely, when they wish to charm
Pallas and Juno sitting by:
And with a sweeping of the arm, And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye,
Devolved his rounded periods.
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