Imatges de pàgina
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III.

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever

To sage or poet these responses given — Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost,

and Heaven,

Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells-whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,

From all we hear and all we see,

Doubt, chance, and mutability.

Thy light alone-like mist o'er mountains driven,

Gives

Or music by the night wind sent,
Thro' strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

IV.

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds de

part

And come, for some uncertain moments lent, Man were immortal, and omnipotent,

Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art

Keep with thy glorious train firm state with his heart.

Thou messenger of sympathies,

That wax and wane in lovers' eyes Thou- that to human thought art nouris ment,

Like darkness to a dying flame!

Depart not as thy shadow came,

Depart not lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality.

V.

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sp Thro' many a listening chamber, cave a ruin,

And starlight wood, with fearful steps pu

suing

Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.

I called on poisonous names with which o youth is fed;

I was not heard - I saw them not-
When musing deeply on the lot

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Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming,

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;

I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!

VI.

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine- have I not kept the vow?

With beating heart and streaming eyes, even

now

I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers

Of studious zeal or love's delight

Outwatched with me the envious nightThey know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery,

That thou O awful LOVELINESS,

Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot ex

press.

VII.

The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past-there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,

Which thro' the summer is not heard or see As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the trut Of nature on my passive youth

Descended, to my onward life supply

Its calm to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,

Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind.

Fragment: Home

EAR home, thou scene of earlie

hopes and joys,

The least of which

Memory ever makes

wronge

Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.

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HE everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls

its rapid waves,

Now dark - now glittering —

now reflecting gloom.

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Now lending splendour, where from secret

springs

The source of human thought its tribute brings

Of waters,

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with a sound but half its own,

Such as a feeble brook will oft assume

In the wild woods, among the mountains

lone,

Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,

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