Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. | Page 2

the tree-tops glide;?A flashing edge for the milk-white river,?The beck, a river--with still sleek tide.
Broad and white, and polished as silver,?On she goes under fruit-laden trees;?Sunk in leafage cooeth the culver,?And 'plaineth of love's disloyalties.
Glitters the dew and shines the river,?Up comes the lily and dries her bell;?But two are walking apart forever,?And wave their hands for a mute farewell.
VII.
A braver swell, a swifter sliding;?The river hasteth, her banks recede:?Wing-like sails on her bosom gliding?Bear down the lily and drown the reed.
Stately prows are rising and bowing?(Shouts of mariners winnow the air),?And level sands for banks endowing?The tiny green ribbon that showed so fair.
While, O my heart! as white sails shiver,?And crowds are passing, and banks stretch wide?How hard to follow, with lips that quiver,?That moving speck on the far-off side!
Farther, farther--I see it--know it--?My eyes brim over, it melts away:?Only my heart to my heart shall show it?As I walk desolate day by day.
VII.
And yet I know past all doubting, truly--?A knowledge greater than grief can dim--?I know, as he loved, he will love me duly--?Yea better--e'en better than I love him.
And as I walk by the vast calm river,?The awful river so dread to see,?I say, "Thy breadth and thy depth forever?Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me."
HONORS.--PART I.
(A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)
To strive--and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;?I set mine eyes upon a certain night?To find a certain star--and could not hail
With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:?I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift?Among the winged--I set these feet that halt
To run against the swift.
And yet this man, that loved me so, can write--?That loves me, I would say, can let me see;?Or fain would have me think he counts but light
These Honors lost to me.
(The letter of his friend.)?"What are they? that old house of yours which gave?Such welcome oft to me, the sunbeams fall?Yet, down the squares of blue and white which pave
Its hospitable hall.
"A brave old house! a garden full of bees,?Large dropping poppies, and Queen hollyhocks,?With butterflies for crowns--tree peonies
And pinks and goldilocks.
"Go, when the shadow of your house is long?Upon the garden--when some new-waked bird.?Pecking and fluttering, chirps a sudden song,
And not a leaf is stirred;
"But every one drops dew from either edge?Upon its fellow, while an amber ray?Slants up among the tree-tops like a wedge
Of liquid gold--to play
"Over and under them, and so to fall?Upon that lane of water lying below--?That piece of sky let in, that you do call
A pond, but which I know
"To be a deep and wondrous world; for I?Have seen the trees within it--marvellous things?So thick no bird betwixt their leaves could fly
But she would smite her wings;--
"Go there, I say; stand at the water's brink,?And shoals of spotted barbel you shall see?Basking between the shadows--look, and think
'This beauty is for me;
"'For me this freshness in the morning hours,?For me the water's clear tranquillity;?For me the soft descent of chestnut flowers;
The cushat's cry for me.
"'The lovely laughter of the wind-swayed wheat?The easy slope of yonder pastoral hill;?The sedgy brook whereby the red kine meet
And wade and drink their fill.'
"Then saunter down that terrace whence the sea?All fair with wing-like sails you may discern;?Be glad, and say 'This beauty is for me--
A thing to love and learn.
"'For me the bounding in of tides; for me?The laying bare of sands when they retreat;?The purple flush of calms, the sparkling glee
When waves and sunshine meet.'
"So, after gazing, homeward turn, and mount?To that long chamber in the roof; there tell?Your heart the laid-up lore it holds to count
And prize and ponder well.
"The lookings onward of the race before?It had a past to make it look behind;?Its reverent wonder, and its doubting sore,
Its adoration blind.
"The thunder of its war-songs, and the glow?Of chants to freedom by the old world sung;?The sweet love cadences that long ago
Dropped from the old-world tongue.
"And then this new-world lore that takes account?Of tangled star-dust; maps the triple whirl?Of blue and red and argent worlds that mount
And greet the IRISH EARL;
"Or float across the tube that HERSCHEL sways,?Like pale-rose chaplets, or like sapphire mist;?Or hang or droop along the heavenly ways,
Like scarves of amethyst.
"O strange it is and wide the new-world lore,?For next it treateth of our native dust!?Must dig out buried monsters, and explore
The green earth's fruitful crust;
"Must write the story of her seething youth--?How lizards paddled in her lukewarm seas;?Must show the cones she ripened, and forsooth
Count seasons on her trees;
"Must know her weight, and pry into her age,?Count her old beach lines by their tidal swell;?Her sunken mountains name, her craters gauge,
Her cold volcanoes tell;
"And treat her as a ball, that one might pass?From this hand to the other--such a ball?As he could measure with a blade of grass,
And say