Poems, first period | Page 8

Christians men!
FRIENDSHIP.
[From "Letters of Julius to Raphael," an unpublished Novel.]
Friend!--the Great Ruler, easily content,
Needs not the laws it has
laborious been
The task of small professors to invent;
A single
wheel impels the whole machine
Matter and spirit;--yea, that simple
law,
Pervading nature, which our Newton saw.
This taught the spheres, slaves to one golden rein,
Their radiant
labyrinths to weave around
Creation's mighty hearts: this made the
chain,
Which into interwoven systems bound
All spirits streaming
to the spiritual sun
As brooks that ever into ocean run!
Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide
Our hearts to
meet in love's eternal bond?
Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy
side
Might I aspire to reach to souls beyond
Our earth, and bid the
bright ambition go
To that perfection which the angels know!
Happy, O happy--I have found thee--I
Have out of millions found
thee, and embraced;
Thou, out of millions, mine!--Let earth and sky

Return to darkness, and the antique waste--
To chaos shocked, let
warring atoms be,
Still shall each heart unto the other flee!
Do I not find within thy radiant eyes
Fairer reflections of all joys

most fair?
In thee I marvel at myself--the dyes
Of lovely earth seem
lovelier painted there,
And 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.