Nature

"I know where the timid fawn abides
In the depths of the shaded dell,
Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides,
With its many stems and its tangled sides,
From the eye of the hunter well.

"I know where the young May violet grows,
In its lone and lowly nook,
On the mossy bank, where the larch-tree throws
Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose,
Far over the silent brook.

"And that timid fawn starts not with fear
When I steal to her secret bower;
And that young May violet to me is dear,
And I visit the silent streamlet near,
To look on the lovely flower."

Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks
To the hunting-ground on the hills;
'Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks,
With her bright black eyes and long black locks,

    When chirping crickets fainter cry,
    And pale stars blossom in the sky,
    And twilight's gloom has dimmed the bloom
    And blurred the butterfly:

    When locust-blossoms fleck the walk,
    And up the tiger-lily stalk
    The glow-worm crawls and clings and falls
    And glimmers down the garden-walls:

    When buzzing things, with double wings
    Of crisp and raspish flutterings,
    Go whizzing by so very nigh
    One thinks of fangs and stings: -

    O then, within, is stilled the din
    Of crib she rocks the baby in,
    And heart and gate and latch's weight
    Are lifted - and the lips of Kate.

I

How warm this woodland wild Recess!
Love surely hath been breathing here;
And this sweet bed of heath, my dear!
Swells up, then sinks with faint caress,
As if to have you yet more near.

II

Eight springs have flown, since last I lay
On sea-ward Quantock's heathy hills,
Where quiet sounds from hidden rills
Float hear and there, like things astray,
And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills.

III

No voice as yet had made the air
Be music with your name; yet why
That asking look? that yearning sigh?
That sense of promise every where?
Belovéd! flew your spirit by?

IV

As when a mother doth explore
The rose-mark on her long-lost child,
I met, I loved you, maiden mild!
As whom I long had loved befor...

He. Where thou dwellest, in what grove,
Tell me Fair One, tell me Love;
Where thou thy charming nest dost build,
O thou pride of every field!

She. Yonder stands a lonely tree,
There I live and mourn for thee;
Morning drinks my silent tear,
And evening winds my sorrow bear.

He. O thou summer's harmony,
I have liv'd and mourn'd for thee;
Each day I mourn along the wood,
And night hath heard my sorrows loud.

She. Dost thou truly long for me?
And am I thus sweet to thee?
Sorrow now is at an end,
O my Lover and my Friend!

He. Come, on wings of joy we'll fly
To where my bower hangs on high;
Come, and make thy calm retreat
Among green leaves and blossoms sweet.

I

The eyes of heaven were on her bent,
In a rapture of loving wonderment,
As her song with the nightingale's was blent:
And one yearn'd for a love, and one sigh'd for a soul!

Moonlight and starlight alike seemed cold,
As their silver glanced on her locks of gold;
And the dream on her face was a dream of old,
Whose sorrow no sunrise might smile away.

I read her yearning and weary smile,
As her song rang sadder and sadder the while,
With its weird refrain of a magic isle,
Where some might have rest, but never might she!

She, the darling of Sky and Stream,
She was but as wind, or as wave, or as dream,
To play for a while in life's glory and gleam:
But what would be left at the end of the day?

II

The sun smiles down up...

It is better, O day, that you go to your rest,
For you go like a guest who was loth to remain!
Swing open, ye gates of the east and the west,
And let out the wild shadows the night and the rain.

Ye winds, ye are dead, with your voices attuned,
That thrilled the green life in the sweet-scented sheaves,
When I touched a warm hand which has faded, and swooned
To a trance of the darkness, and blight on the leaves.

I had studied the lore in her maiden-like ways,
And the large-hearted love of my Annie was won,
’Ere Summer had passed into passionate days,
Or Autumn made ready her fruits for the Sun.

So my life was complete, and the hours that went by,
And the moon and the willow-wooed waters around,
Might have known that we rested, my Annie and I,
In hap...

The grasses green of sweet content
That spring, no matter high or low,
Where’er a living thing can grow,
On chilly hills and rocky rent,
And by the lowly streamlet’s side
Oh! why did e’er I turn from these?
The lordly, tall, umbrageous trees,
That stand in high aspiring pride,
With massive bulk on high sustain
A world of boughs with leaf and fruits,
And drive their wide-extending roots
Deep down into the subject plain.
Oh, what with these had I to do?
That germs of things above their kind
May live, pent up and close confined
In humbler forms, it may be true;
Yet great is that which gives our lot;
High laws and powers our will transcend,
And not for this, till time do end,
Shall any be what he is not.
Each in its place, as each was sent,

1.
The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might,
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

2.
I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone, -
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

3.
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace wit...

April. You hearken, my fellow,
Old slumberer down in my heart?
There's a whooping of ice in the rivers;
The sap feels a start.

The snow-melted torrents are brawling;
The hills, orange-misted and blue,
Are touched with the voice of the rainbird
Unsullied and new.

The houses of frost are deserted,
Their slumber is broken and done,
And empty and pale are the portals
Awaiting the sun.

The bands of Arcturus are slackened;
Orion goes forth from his place
On the slopes of the night, leading homeward
His hound from the chase.

The Pleiades weary and follow
The dance of the ghostly dawn;
The revel of silence is over;
Earth's lyric comes on.

A golden flute in the cedars,
A silver pipe in the swales,
And the slow...

Into the rock the road is cut full deep,
    At its low ledges village children play,
From its high rifts fountains of leafage weep,
        And silvery birches sway.

The boldest climbers have its face forsworn,
    Sheer as a wall it doth all daring flout;
But benchlike at its base, and weather-worn,
        A narrow ledge leans out.

There do they set forth feasts in dishes rude
    Wrought of the rush - wild strawberries on the bed
Left into August, apples brown and crude,
        Cress from the cold well-head.

Shy gamesome girls, small daring imps of boys,
    But gentle, almost silent at their play -
Their fledgling daws, for food, make far more noise
        Ranged on the ledge than they.

The children and the purple martins share

A ring of gold and a milk-white dove
Are goodly gifts for thee,
And a hempen rope for your own love
To hang upon a tree.

For you a House of Ivory,
(Roses are white in the rose-bower)!
A narrow bed for me to lie,
(White, O white, is the hemlock flower)!

Myrtle and jessamine for you,
(O the red rose is fair to see)!
For me the cypress and the rue,
(Finest of all is rosemary)!

For you three lovers of your hand,
(Green grass where a man lies dead)!
For me three paces on the sand,
(Plant lilies at my head)!

Music in Italy.--Disappointed by it.--Recollections or other Times and Friends.--Dalton.--Sir John Stevenson.--His Daughter.--Musical Evenings together.


If it be true that Music reigns,
    Supreme, in ITALY'S soft shades,
'Tis like that Harmony so famous,
Among the spheres, which He of SAMOS
Declared had such transcendent merit
That not a soul on earth could hear it;
For, far as I have come--from Lakes,
Whose sleep the Tramontana breaks,
Thro' MILAN and that land which gave
The Hero of the rainbow vest[1]--
By MINCIO'S banks, and by that wave,
Which made VERONA'S bard so blest--
Places that (like the Attic shore,
Which rung back music when the sea
Struck on its marge) should be all o'er
Thrilling alive with melody--
I've hea...

"There!" said a Stripling, pointing with meet pride
Towards a low roof with green trees half concealed,
"Is Mosgiel Farm; and that's the very field
Where Burns ploughed up the Daisy." Far and wide
A plain below stretched seaward, while, descried
Above sea-clouds, the Peaks of Arran rose;
And, by that simple notice, the repose
Of earth, sky, sea, and air, was vivified.
Beneath "the random 'bield' of clod or stone"
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the One
That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.

Inmate of a mountain-dwelling,
Thou hast clomb aloft, and gazed
From the watch-towers of Helvellyn;
Awed, delighted, and amazed!

Potent was the spell that bound thee
Not unwilling to obey;
For blue Ether's arms, flung round thee,
Stilled the pantings of dismay.

Lo! the dwindled woods and meadows;
What a vast abyss is there!
Lo! the clouds, the solemn shadows,
And the glistenings heavenly fair!

And a record of commotion
Which a thousand ridges yield;
Ridge, and gulf, and distant ocean
Gleaming like a silver shield!

Maiden! now take flight; inherit
Alps or Andes they are thine!
With the morning's roseate Spirit,
Sweep their length of snowy line;

Or survey their bright dominions
In the gorgeous colours drest<...

My mind has thunderstorms,
That brood for heavy hours:
Until they rain me words,
My thoughts are drooping flowers
And sulking, silent birds.

Yet come, dark thunderstorms,
And brood your heavy hours;
For when you rain me words,
My thoughts are dancing flowers
And joyful singing birds.

    Whose is the speech
That moves the voices of this lonely beech?
Out of the long West did this wild wind come--
Oh strong and silent! And the tree was dumb,
    Ready and dumb, until
The dumb gale struck it on the darkened hill.

    Two memories,
Two powers, two promises, two silences
Closed in this cry, closed in these thousand leaves
Articulate. This sudden hour retrieves
    The purpose of the past,
Separate, apart--embraced, embraced at last.

    "Whose is the word?
Is it I that spake? Is it thou? Is it I that heard?"
"Thine earth was solitary; yet I found thee!"
"Thy sky was pathless, but I caught, I bound thee,
    Thou visitant divine."
"O thou my Voice, the word was thine."
    "Was thine."

Yes, I love the homestead. There
In the spring the lilacs blew
Plenteous perfume everywhere;
There in summer gladioles grew
Parallels of scarlet glare.

And the moon-hued primrose cool
Satin-soft and redolent;
Honeysuckles beautiful,
Filling all the air with scent;
Roses red or white as wool.

Roses, glorious and lush,
Rich in tender-tinted dyes,
Like the gay tempestuous rush
Of unnumbered butterflies,
Clustering o'er each bending bush.

Here japonica and box,
And the wayward violets;
Clumps of star-enamelled phlox,
And the myriad flowery jets
Of the twilight four-o'-clocks.

Ah, the beauty of the place!
When the June made one great rose,
Full of musk and mellow grace,
In the garden's humming close,
O...

I.

    I'll tell you a Fairy Tale that's new:
How the merry Elves o'er the ocean flew
From the Emerald isle to this far-off shore,
As they were wont in the days of yore;
And played their pranks one moonlit night,
Where the zephyrs alone could see the sight.


II.

    Ere the Old world yet had found the New,
The fairies oft in their frolics flew
To the fragrant isles of the Caribbee--
Bright bosom-gems of a golden sea.
Too dark was the film of the Indian's eye,
These gossamer sprites to suspect or spy,--
So they danced 'mid the spicy groves unseen,
And mad were their merry pranks, I ween;
For the fairies, like other discreet little elves,
Are freest and fondest when all by themselves.
No thought had they that in after time,
...