And I know that at last my message
Has pass'd through the golden gate ;
So my heart is no longer restless,
And I am content to wait.
MILD Splendour of the various-vested Night!
Mother of wildly working visions! hail!
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil,
And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
Behind the gather'd blackness lost on high;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
Thy placid lightning o'er th' awaken'd sky,
Ah such is Hope! as changeful and as fair!
Now dimly peering on the wistful sight;
Now hid behind the dragon-wing'd Despair:
But soon emerging in her radiant might
She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care
Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.
It seem'd as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scatter'd from above the sun
A light of Paradise!
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced.
Now, all the tree-tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.
How calm it was! the silence there
By such a chain was bound That even the busy woodpecker Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seem'd from the remotest seat
Of the wide mountain waste,
To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A spirit interfused around,
A thrilling silent life;
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature's strife ;
And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there,
Was one fair form that fill'd with love
The lifeless atmosphere.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough:
Each seem'd as 'twere a little sky,
Gulf'd in a world below;—
A firmament of purple light,
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day—
There lay far glades and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green crowd
THE WINTER WALK AT NOON.
THERE is in souls a sympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet! now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on.
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospect the journey seems,
It seem'd not always short; the rugged path,
And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn,
Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length.
Yet feeling present evils, while the past
Faintly impress the mind, or not at all,
How readily we wish time spent revoked,
That we might try the ground again, where once
(Through inexperience, as we now perceive)
We miss'd that happiness, we might have found!
Some friend is gone, perhaps his son's best friend,
A father, whose authority, in show
When most severe, and mustering all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love.
Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a blessing in its darkest frown,
Threatening at once and nourishing the plant.
We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand
That rear'd us. At a thoughtless age allured
By every gilded folly, we renounced
His sheltering side, and wilfully forewent
That converse which we now in vain regret.
How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy's neglected sire! a mother too,
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death.
Sorrow has, since they went, subdued and tamed
The playful humour; he could now endure,
(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears)
And feel a parent's presence no restraint.
But not to understand a treasure's worth
Till time has stolen away the slighted good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it is.
The night was winter in his roughest mood,
The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon 55
Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles resigning all its rage
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud, and white without a speck
The dazzling splendour of the scene below.
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale, And through the trees I view the embattled tower, Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in soft musings as I tread
The walk still verdant under oaks and elms,
Whose outspread branches over-arch the glade.
The roof, though moveable through all its length,
As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed,
And intercepting in their silent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought.
The red-breast warbles still, but is content
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