Poems, first period | Page 8

in the bright looks of the friend is given?A heavenlier mirror even of the heaven!
Sadness casts off its load, and gayly goes?From the intolerant storm to rest awhile,?In love's true heart, sure haven of repose;?Does not pain's veriest transports learn to smile?From that bright eloquence affection gave?To friendly looks?--there, finds not pain a grave?
In all creation did I stand alone,?Still to the rocks my dreams a soul should find,?Mine arms should wreathe themselves around the stone,?My griefs should feel a listener in the wind;?My joy--its echo in the caves should be!?Fool, if ye will--Fool, for sweet sympathy!
We are dead groups of matter when we hate;?But when we love we are as gods!--Unto?The gentle fetters yearning, through each state?And shade of being multiform, and through?All countless spirits (save of all the sire)--?Moves, breathes, and blends, the one divine desire.
Lo! arm in arm, through every upward grade,?From the rude mongrel to the starry Greek,?Who the fine link between the mortal made,?And heaven's last seraph--everywhere we seek?Union and bond--till in one sea sublime?Of love be merged all measure and all time!
Friendless ruled God His solitary sky;?He felt the want, and therefore souls were made,?The blessed mirrors of his bliss!--His eye?No equal in His loftiest works surveyed;?And from the source whence souls are quickened, He?Called His companion forth--ETERNITY!
ELYSIUM.
Past the despairing wail--?And the bright banquets of the Elysian vale?Melt every care away!?Delight, that breathes and moves forever,?Glides through sweet fields like some sweet river!?Elysian life survey!?There, fresh with youth, o'er jocund meads,?His merry west-winds blithely leads?The ever-blooming May!?Through gold-woven dreams goes the dance of the hours, In space without bounds swell the soul and its powers, And truth, with no veil, gives her face to the day.?And joy to-day and joy to-morrow,?But wafts the airy soul aloft;?The very name is lost to sorrow,?And pain is rapture tuned more exquisitely soft.
Here the pilgrim reposes the world-weary limb,?And forgets in the shadow, cool-breathing and dim,?The load he shall bear never more;?Here the mower, his sickle at rest, by the streams,?Lulled with harp-strings, reviews, in the calm of his dreams, The fields, when the harvest is o'er.?Here, he, whose ears drank in the battle roar,?Whose banners streamed upon the startled wind?A thunder-storm,--before whose thunder tread?The mountains trembled,--in soft sleep reclined,?By the sweet brook that o'er its pebbly bed?In silver plays, and murmurs to the shore,?Hears the stern clangor of wild spears no more!?Here the true spouse the lost-beloved regains,?And on the enamelled couch of summer-plains?Mingles sweet kisses with the zephyr's breath.?Here, crowned at last, love never knows decay,?Living through ages its one bridal day,?Safe from the stroke of death!
THE FUGITIVE.
The air is perfumed with the morning's fresh breeze,?From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright, While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees, And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light.
With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain,?The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun,?Who glows in the arms of Aurora again,?And blissfully smiling, his race 'gins to run.
All hail, light of day!
Thy sweet gushing ray
Pours down its soft warmth over pasture and field;
With hues silver-tinged
The meadows are fringed,
And numberless suns in the dewdrop revealed.
Young Nature invades
The whispering shades,
Displaying each ravishing charm;
The soft zephyr blows,
And kisses the rose,
The plain is sweet-scented with balm.
How high from yon city the smoke-clouds ascend!?Their neighing, and snorting, and bellowing blend
The horses and cattle;
The chariot-wheels rattle,
As down to the valley they take their mad way;
And even the forest where life seems to move,?The eagle, and falcon, and hawk soar above,?And flutter their pinions, in heaven's bright ray.
In search of repose
From my heart-rending woes,
Oh, where shall my sad spirit