Poems of Nature, part 3, Reminiscent Poems | Page 2

blending with my joy.
A simple print,--the graceful flow?Of boyhood's soft and wavy hair,?And fresh young lip and cheek, and brow?Unmarked and clear, were there.
Yet through its sweet and calm repose?I saw the inward spirit shine;?It was as if before me rose?The white veil of a shrine.
As if, as Gothland's sage has told,?The hidden life, the man within,?Dissevered from its frame and mould,?By mortal eye were seen.
Was it the lifting of that eye,?The waving of that pictured hand??Loose as a cloud-wreath on the sky,?I saw the walls expand.
The narrow room had vanished,--space,?Broad, luminous, remained alone,?Through which all hues and shapes of grace?And beauty looked or shone.
Around the mighty master came?The marvels which his pencil wrought,?Those miracles of power whose fame?Is wide as human thought.
There drooped thy more than mortal face,?O Mother, beautiful and mild?Enfolding in one dear embrace?Thy Saviour and thy Child!
The rapt brow of the Desert John;?The awful glory of that day?When all the Father's brightness shone?Through manhood's veil of clay.
And, midst gray prophet forms, and wild?Dark visions of the days of old,?How sweetly woman's beauty smiled?Through locks of brown and gold!
There Fornarina's fair young face?Once more upon her lover shone,?Whose model of an angel's grace?He borrowed from her own.
Slow passed that vision from my view,?But not the lesson which it taught;?The soft, calm shadows which it threw?Still rested on my thought:
The truth, that painter, bard, and sage,?Even in Earth's cold and changeful clime,?Plant for their deathless heritage?The fruits and flowers of time.
We shape ourselves the joy or fear?Of which the coming life is made,?And fill our Future's atmosphere?With sunshine or with shade.
The tissue of the Life to be?We weave with colors all our own,?And in the field of Destiny?We reap as we have sown.
Still shall the soul around it call?The shadows which it gathered here,?And, painted on the eternal wall,?The Past shall reappear.
Think ye the notes of holy song?On Milton's tuneful ear have died??Think ye that Raphael's angel throng?Has vanished from his side?
Oh no!--We live our life again;?Or warmly touched, or coldly dim,?The pictures of the Past remain,---?Man's works shall follow him!?1842.
EGO.
WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF A FRIEND.
On page of thine I cannot trace?The cold and heartless commonplace,?A statue's fixed and marble grace.
For ever as these lines I penned,?Still with the thought of thee will blend?That of some loved and common friend,
Who in life's desert track has made?His pilgrim tent with mine, or strayed?Beneath the same remembered shade.
And hence my pen unfettered moves?In freedom which the heart approves,?The negligence which friendship loves.
And wilt thou prize my poor gift less?For simple air and rustic dress,?And sign of haste and carelessness?
Oh, more than specious counterfeit?Of sentiment or studied wit,?A heart like thine should value it.
Yet half I fear my gift will be?Unto thy book, if not to thee,?Of more than doubtful courtesy.
A banished name from Fashion's sphere,?A lay unheard of Beauty's ear,?Forbid, disowned,--what do they here?
Upon my ear not all in vain?Came the sad captive's clanking chain,?The groaning from his bed of pain.
And sadder still, I saw the woe?Which only wounded spirits know?When Pride's strong footsteps o'er them go.
Spurned not alone in walks abroad,?But from the temples of the Lord?Thrust out apart, like things abhorred.
Deep as I felt, and stern and strong,?In words which Prudence smothered long,?My soul spoke out against the wrong;
Not mine alone the task to speak?Of comfort to the poor and weak,?And dry the tear on Sorrow's cheek;
But, mingled in the conflict warm,?To pour the fiery breath of storm?Through the harsh trumpet of Reform;
To brave Opinion's settled frown,?From ermined robe and saintly gown,?While wrestling reverenced Error down.
Founts gushed beside my pilgrim way,?Cool shadows on the greensward lay,?Flowers swung upon the bending spray.
And, broad and bright, on either hand,?Stretched the green slopes of Fairy-land,?With Hope's eternal sunbow spanned;
Whence voices called me like the flow,?Which on the listener's ear will grow,?Of forest streamlets soft and low.
And gentle eyes, which still retain?Their picture on the heart and brain,?Smiled, beckoning from that path of pain.
In vain! nor dream, nor rest, nor pause?Remain for him who round him draws?The battered mail of Freedom's cause.
From youthful hopes, from each green spot?Of young Romance, and gentle Thought,?Where storm and tumult enter not;
From each fair altar, where belong?The offerings Love requires of Song?In homage to her bright-eyed throng;
With soul and strength, with heart and hand,?I turned to Freedom's struggling band,?To the sad Helots of our land.
What marvel then that Fame should turn?Her notes of praise to those of scorn;?Her gifts reclaimed, her smiles withdrawn?
What matters it? a few years more,?Life's surge so restless heretofore?Shall break upon the unknown shore!
In that far land shall disappear?The shadows which we follow here,?The mist-wreaths of our atmosphere!
Before no work of mortal hand,?Of human will or strength expand?The pearl gates of the Better Land;
Alone in that great love which gave?Life to the sleeper of the grave,?Resteth the power to seek and