In Divers Tones | Page 6

more a loving wife?Holds him; now he sees his boys,?Smiles at all their playful strife,?All their childish mirth and noise;?Softly now she strokes his hair.--?Ah, their world is very fair!
--Waking, all your loss shall be?Unforgotten evermore!?Sleep alone holds these for thee.?Sleep then, Brother!--To restore?All your heaven that has died?Heaven and Hell may be too wide!
Sleep, and dream, and be awhile?Happy, Cuthbert, once again!?Soon you'll wake, and cease to smile,?And your heart will sink with pain.?You will hear the merry town,--?And a weight will press you down.
Hungry-hearted, you will see?Only the thin shadows fall?From yon bleak-topped poplar-tree,--?Icy fingers on the wall.?You will watch them come and go,?Telling o'er your count of woe.
--Nay, now, hear me, how I prate!?I, a foolish monk, and old,?Maundering o'er a life and fate?To me unknown, by you untold!?Yet I know you're like to weep?Soon, so, Brother, this night sleep.
IMPULSE.
A hollow on the verge of May.?Thick strewn with drift of leaves. Beneath?The densest drift a thrusting sheath?Of sharp green striving toward the day!?I mused--"So dull Obstruction sets?A bar to even violets,?When these would go their nobler way!"
My feet again, some days gone by.?The self-same spot sought idly. There,?Obstruction foiled, the adoring air?Caressed a blossom woven of sky?And dew, whose misty petals blue,?With bliss of being thrilled athrough,?Dilated like a timorous eye.
Reck well this rede, my soul! The good?The blossom craved was near, tho' hid.?Fret not that thou must doubt, but rid?Thy sky-path of obstructions strewed?By winds of folly. Then, do thou?The Godward impulse room allow?To reach its perfect air and food!
THE ISLES--AN ODE.
I.
Faithful reports of them have reached me oft!?Many their embassage to mortal court,?By golden pomp, and breathless-heard consort
Of music soft--?By fragrances accredited, and dreams.?Many their speeding herald, whose light feet?Make pause at wayside brooks, and fords of streams,?Leaving transfigured by an effluence fleet
Those wayfarers they meet.
II.
No wind from out the solemn wells of night?But hath its burden of strange messages,?Tormenting for interpreter; nor less
The wizard light?That steals from noon-stilled waters, woven in shade,?Beckons somewhither, with cool fingers slim.?No dawn but hath some subtle word conveyed?In rose ineffable at sunrise rim,
Or charactery dim.
III.
One moment throbs the hearing, yearns the sight.?But tho' not far, yet strangely hid--the way,?And our sense slow; nor long for us delay
The guides their flight!?The breath goes by; the word, the light, elude;?And we stay wondering. But there comes an hour?Of fitness perfect and unfettered mood,?When splits her husk the finer sense with power,
And--yon their palm-trees tower!
IV.
Here Homer came, and Milton came, tho' blind.?Omar's deep doubts still found them nigh and nigher,?And learned them fashioned to the heart's desire.
The supreme mind?Of Shakspere took their sovereignty, and smiled.?Those passionate Israelitish lips that poured?The Song of Songs attained them; and the wild?Child-heart of Shelley, here from strife restored,
Remembers not life's sword.
A SERENADE.
Love hath given the day for longing,?And for joy the night.?Dearest, to thy distant chamber?Wings my soul its flight.
Though unfathomed seas divide us,?And the lingering year,?'Tis the hour when absence parts not,--?Memory hath no tear.
O'er the charmed and silent river?Drifts my lonely boat;?From the haunted shores and islands?Tender murmurs float,
Tender breaths of glade and forest,?Breezes of perfume;--?Surely, surely thou canst hear me?In thy quiet room!
Unto shore, and sky, and silence,?Low I pour my song.?All the spell, the summer sweetness,--?These to thee belong.
Thou art love, the trance and rapture?Of the midnight clear!?Sweet, tho' world on world withhold thee,?I can clasp thee here.
OFF PELORUS.
Crimson swims the sunset over far Pelorus;?Burning crimson tops its frowning crest of pine.?Purple sleeps the shore and floats the wave before us,?Eachwhere from the oar-stroke eddying warm like wine.
Soundless foams the creamy violet wake behind us;?We but see the creaking of the labored oar;?We have stopped our ears,--mad were we not to blind us,?Lest our eyes behold our Ithaca no more.
See the purple splendor o'er the island streaming,?O'er the prostrate sails and equal-sided ship!?Windless hangs the vine, and warm the sands lie gleaming;?Droop the great grape-clusters melting for the lip.
Sweet the golden calm, the glowing light elysian.?Sweet were red-mouthed plenty mindless grown of pain.?Sweeter yet behold--a sore-bewildering vision!?Idly took we thought, and stopped our ears in vain.
Idly took we thought, for still our eyes betray us.?Lo, the white-limbed maids, with love-soft eyes aglow,?Gleaming bosoms bare, loosed hair, sweet hands to slay us,?Warm lips wild with song, and softer throats than snow!
See the King! he hearkens,--hears their song,--strains forward,-- As some mountain snake attends the shepherd's reed.?Now with urgent hand he bids us turn us shoreward,--?Bend the groaning oar now; give the King no heed!
Mark the luring music by his eyes' wild yearning,?Eager lips, and mighty straining at the cords!?Well we guess the song, the subtle words and burning,?Sung to him, the subtle king of burning words.
"Much-enduring Wanderer, wondrous-tongued, come nigher!?Sage of princes, bane of Ilion's lofty walls!?Whatsoe'er in all the populous earth befalls?We will teach thee, to thine uttermost desire."
So, we rise