Could this early bliss but rest

Constant for one single hour!
But e'en now the humid West

Scatters many a vernal shower.
Should the verdure give me joy?

'Tis to it I owe the shade;
Soon will storms its bloom destroy,

Soon will Autumn bid it fade.

Eagerly thy portion seize,

If thou wouldst possess the fruit!
Fast begin to ripen these,

And the rest already shoot.
With each heavy storm of rain

Change comes o'er thy valley fair;
Once, alas! but not again

Can the same stream hold thee e'er.

And thyself, what erst at least

Firm as rocks appear'd to rise,
Walls and palaces thou seest

But with ever-changing eyes.
Fled for ever now the lip

That with kisses used to glo...

Ah, how the Human Mind wearies herself
With her own wand'rings, and, involved in gloom
Impenetrable, speculates amiss!
Measuring, in her folly, things divine
By human, laws inscrib'd on adamant
By laws of Man's device, and counsels fix'd
For ever, by the hours, that pass, and die.
How?--shall the face of Nature then be plow'd
Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last
On the great Parent fix a sterile curse?
Shall even she confess old age, and halt
And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows?
Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought
And famine vex the radiant worlds above?
Shall Time's unsated maw crave and engulf
The very heav'ns that regulate his flight?
And was the Sire of all able to fence
His works, and to uphold the circling worlds,
But throu...

Who includes diversity, and is Nature,
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also,
Who has not look'd forth from the windows, the eyes, for nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing;
Who contains believers and disbelievers - Who is the most majestic lover;
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism, and of the aesthetic, or intellectual,
Who, having consider'd the Body, finds all its organs and parts good;
Who, out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her body, understands by subtle analogies all other theories,
The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of These States;
Who believes not only in our globe, with its sun and moon, but i...

This Lawn, a carpet all alive
With shadows flung from leaves, to strive
In dance, amid a press
Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields
Of Worldlings reveling in the fields
Of strenuous idleness;

Less quick the stir when tide and breeze
Encounter, and to narrow seas
Forbid a moment's rest;
The medley less when boreal Lights
Glance to and fro, like aery Sprites
To feats of arms addrest!

Yet, spite of all this eager strife,
This ceaseless play, the genuine life
That serves the stedfast hours,
Is in the grass beneath, that grows
Unheeded, and the mute repose
Of sweetly-breathing flowers.

The stars are mansions built by Nature's hand,
And, haply, there the spirits of the blest
Dwell, clothed in radiance, their immortal vest;
Huge Ocean shows, within his yellow strand,
A habitation marvelously planned,
For life to occupy in love and rest;
All that we see is dome, or vault, or nest,
Or fortress, reared at Nature's sage command.
Glad thought for every season! but the Spring
Gave it while cares were weighing on my heart,
'Mid song of birds, and insects murmuring;
And while the youthful year's prolific art
Of bud, leaf, blade, and flower, was fashioning
Abodes where self-disturbance hath no part.

Along the avenue I pass
    Huge piles of wood and stone,
And glance at each amorphous mass,
Whose cumbrous weight has crushed the grass,
    With half resentful groan.

Say I: "O labor, to despoil
    Some lovely forest scene,
Or at the granite stratum toil,
And desecrate whole roods of soil,
    Is vandal-like and mean!

"Than ever to disfigure thus
    Our prairie garden-land,
Let me consort with Cerberus,
Be chained to crags precipitous,
    Or seek an alien strand."

But while this pining, pouting Muse
    The interval ignores,
Deft industry, no time to lose,
Contrives and carries, hoists and hews,
    And symmetry restores.

Behold! of rock and pile and board
    A modern miracle,
My neighbor's dwelling, ...

Rome has fallen, ye see it lying
Heaped in undistinguished ruin:
Nature is alone undying.

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave
One scent to hyson and to wall-flower,
One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls,
One aspect to the desert and the lake.
It was her stern necessity: all things
Are of one pattern made; bird, beast and flower,
Song, picture, form, space, thought and character
Deceive us, seeming to be many things,
And are but one. Beheld far off, they part
As God and devil; bring them to the mind,
They dull its edge with their monotony.
To know one element, explore another,
And in the second reappears the first.
The specious panorama of a year
But multiplies the image of a day,--
A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame;
And universal Nature, through her vast
And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet,
Repeats one note.

Man, Earth's poor shadow! talks of Earth's decay:
But hath it nothing of eternal kin?
No majesty that shall not pass away?
No soul of greatness springing up within?
Thought marks without hoar shadows of sublime,
Pictures of power, which if not doomed to win
Eternity, stand laughing at old Time
For ages: in the grand ancestral line
Of things eternal, mounting to divine,
I read Magnificence where ages pay
Worship like conquered foes to the Apennine,
Because they could not conquer. There sits Day
Too high for Night to come at--mountains shine,
Outpeering Time, too lofty for decay.

The more I've viewed this world, the more I've found,
That filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare,
Fancy commands within her own bright round
    A world of scenes and creatures far more fair.
Nor is it that her power can call up there
    A single charm, that's not from Nature won,--
No more than rainbows in their pride can wear
    A single tint unborrowed from the sun;
But 'tis the mental medium; it shines thro',
That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;
As the same light that o'er the level lake
    One dull monotony of lustre flings,
Will, entering in the rounded raindrop, make
Colors as gay as those on angels' wings!

Thou art confused, my beloved, at, seeing the thousandfold union

Shown in this flowery troop, over the garden dispers'd;
any a name dost thou hear assign'd; one after another

Falls on thy list'ning ear, with a barbarian sound.
None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;

Therefore, a mystical law is by the chorus proclaim'd;
Yes, a sacred enigma! Oh, dearest friend, could I only

Happily teach thee the word, which may the mystery solve!
Closely observe how the plant, by little and little progressing,

Step by step guided on, changeth to blossom and fruit!
First from the seed it unravels itself, as soon as the silent

Fruit-bearing womb of the earth kindly allows Its escape,
And to the charms of the light, the holy, the ever-in-mot...

They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
    And the birds the most happy of all,
But the sparrow, pursued by the sparrowhawk,
    Savors more of the wormwood and gall.

They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
    But the groan may dissemble the laugh;
E'en now from the meadow is wafted the sound
    Of a bovine bewailing her calf.

They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
    But the moss often covers the rock;
Every animal form is beset by a foe,
    For the wolf always follows the flock.

For the animal holds all inferior flesh
    As its just and legitimate prey;
Every scream of the eagle a panic creates
    As the weaker things scamper away.

They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
    But the smiles are all need...

All things give token of thee!
As soon as the bright sun is shining,
Thou too wilt follow, I trust.

When in the garden thou walk'st,
Thou then art the rose of all roses,
Lily of lilies as well.

When thou dost move in the dance,
Then each constellation moves also;
With thee and round thee they move.

Night! oh, what bliss were the night!
For then thou o'ershadow'st the lustre,
Dazzling and fair, of the moon.

Dazzling and beauteous art thou,
And flowers, and moon, and the planets
Homage pay, Sun, but to thee.

Sun! to me also be thou
Creator of days bright and glorious;
Life and Eternity this!

Beautiful landscape! I could look on thee
For hours, unmindful of the storm and strife,
And mingled murmurs of tumultuous life.
Here, all is still as fair; the stream, the tree,
The wood, the sunshine on the bank: no tear,
No thought of Time's swift wing, or closing night,
That comes to steal away the long sweet light
No sighs of sad humanity are here.
Here is no tint of mortal change; the day,
Beneath whose light the dog and peasant-boy
Gambol, with look, and almost bark, of joy,
Still seems, though centuries have passed, to stay.
Then gaze again, that shadowed scenes may teach
Lessons of peace and love, beyond all speech.

("Dans les vieilles forêts.")

[X., April 20, 1837.]


Through ancient forests - where like flowing tide
The rising sap shoots vigor far and wide,
Mounting the column of the alder dark
And silv'ring o'er the birch's shining bark -
Hast thou not often, Albert Dürer, strayed
Pond'ring, awe-stricken - through the half-lit glade,
Pallid and trembling - glancing not behind
From mystic fear that did thy senses bind,
Yet made thee hasten with unsteady pace?
Oh, Master grave! whose musings lone we trace
Throughout thy works we look on reverently.
Amidst the gloomy umbrage thy mind's eye
Saw clearly, 'mong the shadows soft yet deep,
The web-toed faun, and Pan the green-eyed peep,
Who deck'd with flowers the cave where thou might'st rest,
Leaf...

Tell me, ye Zephyrs! that unfold,
While fluttering o'er this gay Recess,
Pinions that fanned the teeming mould
Of Eden's blissful wilderness,
Did only softly-stealing hours
There close the peaceful lives of flowers?

Say, when the 'moving' creatures saw
All kinds commingled without fear,
Prevailed a like indulgent law
For the still growths that prosper here?
Did wanton fawn and kid forbear
The half-blown rose, the lily spare?

Or peeped they often from their beds
And prematurely disappeared,
Devoured like pleasure ere it spreads
A bosom to the sun endeared?
If such their harsh untimely doom,
It falls not 'here' on bud or bloom.

All summer long the happy Eve
Of this fair Spot her flowers may bind,
Nor e'er, with ruffled fancy...

"Great nature spoke, observant man obey'd."
Pope.


    Let other heroes boast their scars,
        The marks of sturt and strife;
    And other poets sing of wars,
        The plagues of human life;
    Shame fa' the fun; wi' sword and gun
        To slap mankind like lumber!
    I sing his name, and nobler fame,
        Wha multiplies our number.

    Great Nature spoke with air benign,
        "Go on, ye human race!
    This lower world I you resign;
        Be fruitful and increase.
    The liquid fire of strong desire
        I've pour'd it in each bosom;
    Here, in this hand, does mankind stand,
        And there, is beauty's blossom."

    The hero of these artless strains,
        A lowly bard was he,
    Who s...

How few there are who know the pure delight,
The chaste influence, and the solace sweet,
Of walking forth to see the glorious sight,
When nature rises, with respect, to greet
The lord of day on his majestic seat,
Like some great personage of high degree,
Who cometh forth his subjects all to meet,
Like him, but yet more glorious far than he,
He comes with splendor bright, to shed o'er land and sea.

With stately, slow and solemn march he comes,
And gradually pours forth his brilliant rays,
Unheralded by sounding brass or drums,
His blazing glory on our planet plays,
And sendeth healing light thro' darken'd ways.
His undimm'd splendor maketh mortals quail,
And e'en, at times, it fiercely strikes and slays;
But then it brighteneth the cheek so pale,
Rev...