LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY.—ODE TO HEAVEN.

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY.

I.

THE Fountains mingle with the River
And the Rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?

II.

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother,

And the sunlight clasps the earth

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:

What is all this sweet work worth

If thou kiss not me?

ODE TO HEAVEN.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS.

First Spirit.

PALACE-ROOF of cloudless nights!

Paradise of golden lights !

Deep, immeasurable, vast,

Which art now, and which wert then

Of the present and the past,

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1819.

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Of the eternal where and when,
Presence-chamber, temple, home,
Ever-canopying dome,

Of acts and ages yet to come!

Glorious shapes have life in thee,
Earth, and all earth's company;
Living globes which ever throng
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses;
And green worlds that glide along;
And swift stars with flashing tresses;
And icy moons most cold and bright,
And mighty suns beyond the night,
Atoms of intensest light.

Even thy name is as a god,
Heaven! for thou art the abode
Of that power which is the glass
Wherein man his nature sees.
Generations as they pass

Worship thee with bended knees.

Their unremaining gods and they
Like a river roll away :

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Thou remainest such alway.

Second Spirit.

Thou art but the mind's first chamber,

Round which its young fancies clamber,
Like weak insects in a cave,

Lighted up by stalactites;

But the portal of the grave,

Where a world of new delights

Will make thy best glories seem
But a dim and noonday gleam
From the shadow of a dream!

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Third Spirit.

Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn
At your presumption, atom-born!

What is heaven? and what are ye
Who its brief expanse inherit?

What are suns and spheres which flee

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With the instinct of that spirit

Of which ye are but a part?

Drops which Nature's mighty heart

Drives through thinnest veins. Depart!

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What is heaven? a globe of dew,

Filling in the morning new

Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken

On an unimagined world:

Constellated suns unshaken,

Orbits measureless, are furled
In that frail and fading sphere,
With ten millions gathered there,
To tremble, gleam, and disappear.
December, 1819.

THE SENSITIVE PLANT.

PART FIRST.

A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

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And the Spring arose on the garden fair,

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Like the Spirit of Love felt every where ;

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast

Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss

In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,

Like a doe in the noon-tide with love's sweet want,
As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snow-drop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,

And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness;

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,

Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,

It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed,

Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,

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Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air

The soul of her beauty and love lay bare :

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,

As a Mænad, its moonlight-coloured cup,

Till the fiery star, which is its eye,

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Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
The sweetest flower for scent that blows;

And all rare blossoms from every clime
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom
Was prankt under boughs of embowering blossom,
With golden and green light, slanting through

Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water lilies lay tremulously,

And starry river-buds glimmered by,

And around them the soft stream did glide and dance With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss,
Which led through the garden along and across,
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,

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Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells
As fair as the fabulous asphodels,

And flowrets which drooping as day drooped too
Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,

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To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.

And from this undefiled Paradise

The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes
Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet

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Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them,

As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,

Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one

Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;

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