Possessing more than mortal power;
Persuasive more than poet's tongue,
Whose lineage in a raptured hour,
From Love, the lord of Nature, sprung:
Does Hope her high possession meet?
Is Joy triumphant ?—Sorrow flown?
Sweet is the trance, the tremor sweet,
When all we love is all our own.
But hush, thou pulse of pleasure dear,
Slow throbbing, cold, I feel thee part;
Lone absence plants a pang severe,
Or death inflicts a keener dart :
Then for a beam of joy to light
In Memory's sad and wakeful eye; Or banish from the noon of night Her dreams of deeper agony.
Shall Song its witching cadence roll,
Yea, even the tenderest air repeat?
That breathed when soul was knit to soul,
And heart to heart responsive beat.
What visions rise to charm, to melt!
The lost, the loved, the dead are near;
Oh, hush that strain, too deeply felt,
And cease that silence too severe.
But thou serenely silent art,
By Heaven and love both taught to lend A milder solace to the heart;
The sacred image of a friend;
All is not lost if yet possess'd
For me that sweet memorial shine,
If close and closer to my breast,
I hold the image all divine.
Or gazing through luxurious tears,
Melt over the departed form,
Till Death's cold bosom half appears
With life, and speech, and spirit warm;
She looks, she lives, this transient hour
Her bright eye seems a purer gem
Than sparkles on the throne of power,
Or Glory's starry diadem.
Yes, Genius, yes! thy mimic aid,
A treasure to my soul has given,
When Beauty's canonised shade
Smiles through the sainted hues of heaven. No spectre form of pleasure fled,
Thy softening sweetening tints restore; For thou canst give us back the dead, Even in the loveliest form she wore.
Then bless'd be Nature's guardian Muse,
Whose hand her polish'd grace redeems;
Whose tablet of a thousand hues
The mirror of creation seems.
From Love began thy high descent;
And lovers, charm'd with gifts of thine,
Shall bless thee, mutely eloquent,
And hail thee brightest of the Nine!
BY MISS LANDON, (L. E. L.)
"I know not which is the most fatal gift,
Genius or Love, for both alike are ruled
By stars of bright aspect and evil influence."
E was a lonely and neglected child:
His cheek was colourless, save when the flush
Of strong emotion master'd its still whiteness:
His dark eyes seem'd all heaviness and gloom,
So rarely were they raised. His mother's love
Was for her other children: they were fair,
And had Health's morning hues and sunny looks.
She had not seen him when he watch'd the sun
Setting at eve, like an idolater,
Until his cheek grew crimson in the light
Of the so radiant heavens, and his eyes
Were eloquently beautiful, all fill'd
With earth's most glorious feelings. And his father,
A warrior and a hunter, one whose grasp
Was ever on the bridle or the brand,
Had no pride in a boy whose joy it was
To sit for hours by a fountain's side
Listening its low and melancholy song;
Or wander through the garden silently,
As if with leaves and flowers alone he held
Aught of companionship. In his first years
They sent him to a convent, for they said
Its solitude would suit with Guido's mood:
And there he dwelt, treasuring those rich thoughts
That are the food on which young genius lives.
He rose to watch the sunlight over Rome
Break from its purple shadows, making glad
Even that desolate city, whose dim towers,
Ruins, and palaces, seem as they look'd
Back on departed time; then in the gloom
Of his own convent's silent burying-ground,
Where o'er the quiet dead the cypress mourn'd,
He pass'd the noon, dreaming those dear day-dreams,
Not so much hopes as fancies; then at eve,
When through the painted windows the red sun
Rainbow'd the marble floor with radiant hues,
Where spread the ancient church's stately arch,
He stay'd, till the deep music of the hymn,
Chanted to the rich organ's rolling notes,
Bade farewell to the day; then to his cell
He went, and through the casement's iron bars
The moon look'd on him, beautiful as Love,
Lighting his slumber. On the church's wall
There hung one lovely portrait, and for hours
Would Guido, in the fulness of his heart,
Kneel watching, till he wept. The subject was
A dying Magdalene: her long black hair
Spread round her like a shroud, one pale thin hand
Pillow'd a cheek as thin and pale, and scarce
The blue light of the eyes was visible
For the death-dampness on the darken’d lids,
As one more effort to look on the cross,
Which seem'd just falling from the fainting arm,
And they would close for ever. In that look
There was a painter's immortality;
And Guido felt it deeply, for a gift
Like his whose work that was, was given him—
A gift of beauty and of power-and soon
He lived but in the beautiful creations
His pencil call'd to life. But as his thoughts
Took wider range, he languish'd to behold
More of a world he thought must be so fair,
So fill'd with glorious shapes. It chanced that he
Whose hand had traced that pale sad loveliness
Came to the convent; with rejoicing wonder,
He mark'd how like an unknown mine, whose gold
Gathers in silence, had young Guido's mind
Increased in lonely richness; every day
New veins of splendid thoughts sprang into life;
And Guido left his convent cell with one
Who, like a génie, bore him into scenes
Of marvel and enchantment; and then first
Did Guido feel how very precious praise
Is to young genius, like sunlight on flowers,
Ripening them into fruit. And time pass'd on—
The lonely and neglected child became
One whom all Rome was proud of, for she gave
At once birth to his fame and to himself.
There was a melancholy beauty shed
Over his pictures, as the element
In which his genius lived was sorrow.
He made most lovely, but yet ever sad;
Passionate partings, such as wring the heart
Till tears are life-blood; meetings, when the cheek
Has lost all hope of health in the long parting;
The grave, with one mourning in solitude;—
These made his fame, and were his excellence—
The painter of deep tears. He had just gain'd
The summer of his glory, and of his days
When his remembering heart was call'd to give
A longer memory to one whose life
Was but a thread. Her history may be told
In one word-love. And what has love e'er been
But misery to woman? Still she wish'd-
It was a dying fancy which betray'd
How much, though known how false its god had been,
Her soul clung to its old idolatry—
To send her pictured semblance to the false one.
She hoped-how love will hope !-it might recall
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