That not a breath its azure calm may break;
No leaf of these sere olive trees is stirred,
In the near silence far-off sounds are heard;
The tiny bat is flitting overhead,
The hawthorn doth its richest odours shed
Into the dewy air; and over all
Veil after veil the evening shadows fall,
And one by one withdraw each glimmering height,
The far, and then the nearer, from our sight--
No sign surviving in this tranquil scene;
That strife and savage tumult here have been.
But if the pilgrim to the latest plain
Of carnage, where the blood like summer rain
Fell but the other day; if in his mind
He marvels much and oftentimes to find
With what success has Nature each sad trace
Of man’s red footmarks laboured to efface--
What wonder is it, if this spot appears
Guiltless of strife, when now two thousand years
Of daily reparation have gone by,
Since it resumed its own tranquillity.
This calm has nothing strange, yet not the less
This holy evening’s solemn quietness,
The perfect beauty of this windless lake,
This stillness which no harsher murmurs break
Than the frogs croaking from the distant sedge,
These vineyards drest unto the water’s edge,
This hind that homeward driving the slow steer,
Tells that man’s daily work goes forward here,
Have each a power upon me, while I drink
The influence of the placid time, and think
How gladly that sweet Mother once again
Resumes her sceptre and benignant reign,
But for a few short instants scared away
By the mad game, the cruel impious fray
Of her distempered children--how comes back,
And leads them in the customary track
Of blessing once again; to order brings
Anew the dislocated frame of things,
And covers up, and out of sight conceals
What they have wrought of ill, or gently heals.
VESUVIUS, AS SEEN FROM CAPRI.
A wreath of light blue vapour, pure and rare,
Mounts, scarcely seen against the bluer sky,
In quiet adoration, silently--
Till the faint currents of the upper air
Dislimn it, and it forms, dissolving there,
The dome, as of a palace, hung on high
Over the mountain--underneath it lie
Vineyards and hays and cities white and fair.
Might we not hope this beauty would engage
All living things unto one pure delight?
A vain belief!--for here, our records tell,
Rome’s understanding tyrant from men’s sight
Hid, as within a guilty citadel,
The shame of his dishonourable age.
VESUVIUS.
As when unto a mother, having chid
Her child in anger, there have straight ensued
Repentings for her quick and angry mood,
That she would fain see all its traces hid
Quite out of sight--even so has Nature bid
Fair flowers, that on the scarred earth she has strewed,
To blossom, and called up the taller wood
To cover what she ruined and undid.
Oh! and her mood of anger did not last
More than an instant, but her work of peace,
Restoring and repairing, comforting
The earth, her stricken child, will never cease;
For that was her strange work, and quickly past,
To this her genial toil no end the years shall bring.
THE SAME, CONTINUED.
That her destroying fury was with noise
And sudden uproar--but far otherwise,
With silent and with secret ministries,
Her skill of renovation she employs:
For Nature, only loud when she destroys,
Is silent when she fashions. She will crowd
The work of her destruction, transient, loud,
Into an hour, and then long peace enjoys.
Yea, every power that fashions and upholds
Works silently--all things whose life is sure,
Their life is calm--silent the light that moulds
And colours all things; and without debate
The stars, which are for ever to endure,
Assume their thrones and their unquestioned state.
TO ENGLAND.
WRITTEN AFTER A VISIT TO SORRENTO.
They are but selfish visions at the best,
Which tempt us to desire that we were free
From the dear ties that bind us unto Thee,
That so we might take up our lasting rest,
Where some delightful spot, some hidden nest
In brighter lands has pleased our phantasy:
And might such vows at once accomplished be,
We should not in the accomplishment be blest,
But oh! most miserable, if it be true
Peace only waits upon us, while we do
Heaven’s work and will: for what is it we ask,
When we would fain have leave to linger here,
But to abandon our appointed task,
Our place of duty and our natural sphere?
LINES.
WRITTEN AFTER HEARING SOME BEAUTIFUL
SINGING IN A CONVENT CHURCH AT ROME.
Sweet voices! seldom mortal ear
Strains of such potency might hear;
My soul, that listened, seemed quite gone,
Dissolved in sweetness, and anon
I was borne upward, till I trod
Among the hierarchy of God.
And when they ceased, as time must bring
An end to every sweetest thing,
With what reluctancy came back
My spirits to their wonted track,
And how I loathed the common life,
The daily and recurring strife
With petty sins, the lowly road
And being’s ordinary load.
Why after such a solemn mood
Should any meaner thought intrude?
Why will not heaven hereafter give,
That we for evermore may live
Thus at our spirit’s topmost bent?
This said I in my discontent.
But give me, Lord, a wiser heart;
These seasons come, and they depart,
These seasons, and those higher still,
When we are given to have our fill
Of strength and life and joy with thee,
And brightness of thy face to see.
They come, or we could never guess
Of heaven’s sublimer blessedness;
They come, to be our strength and cheer
In other times, in doubt or fear,
Or should our solitary way
Lie through the desert many a day.
They go, they leave us blank and dead,
That we may learn, when they are fled,
We are but vapours which have won
A moment’s brightness from the sun,
And which it may at pleasure fill
With splendour, or unclothe at will.
Well for us they do not abide,
Or we should lose ourselves in pride,
And be as angels--but as they
Who on the battlements of day
Walked, gazing on their power and might,
Till they grew giddy in their height.
Then welcome every nobler time,
When, out of reach of earth’s dull chime,
’Tis ours to drink with purgèd ears
The music of the solemn spheres,
Or in the desert to have sight
Of those enchanted cities bright,
Which sensual eye can never see:
Thrice welcome may such seasons be.
But welcome too the common way,
The lowly duties of the day,
And all which makes and keeps us low,
Which teaches us ourselves to know,
That we, who do our lineage high
Draw from beyond the starry sky,
Are yet upon the other side
To earth and to its dust allied.
ON A PICTURE OF THE ASSUMPTION BY MURILLO.
With what calm power thou risest on the wind--
Mak’st thou a pinion of those locks unshorn?
Or of that dark blue robe which floats behind
In ample fold? or art thou cloud-upborne?
A crescent moon is bent beneath thy feet,
Above the heavens expand, and tier o’er tier
With heavenly garlands thy advance to greet,
The cloudy throng of cherubim appear.
There is a glory round thee, and mine eyes
Are dazzled, for I know not whence it came,
Since never in the light of western skies
The island clouds burned with so pure a flame:
Nor were those flowers of our dull common mould,
But nurtured on some amaranthine bed,
Nearer the sun, remote from storms and cold,
By purer dews and warmer breezes fed.
Well may we be perplexed and sadly wrought,
That we can guess so ill what dreams were thine,
Ere from the chambers of thy silent thought
That face looked out on thee, Painter divine.
What innocence, what love, what loveliness,
What purity must have familiar been
Unto thy soul, before it could express
The holy beauty in that visage seen.
And so, if we would understand thee right,
And the diviner portion of thine art,
We must exalt our spirits to thine height,
Nor wilt thou else the mystery impart.
AN INCIDENT VERSIFIED.
Far in the south there is a jutting ledge
Of rocks, scarce peering o’er the water’s edge,
Where earliest come the fresh Atlantic gales,
That in their course have filled a thousand sails,
And brushed for leagues and leagues the Atlantic deep,
Till now they make the nimble spirit leap
Beneath their lifeful and renewing breath,
And stir it like the ocean depths beneath.
Two that were strangers to that sunny land,
And to each other, met upon this strand;
One seemed to keep so slight a hold of life,
That when he willed, without the spirit’s strife,
He might let go--a flower upon a ledge
Of verdant meadow by a river’s edge,
Which ever loosens with its treacherous flow
In gradual lapse the moistened soil below;
While to the last in beauty and in bloom
That flower is scattering incense o’er its tomb,
And with the dews upon it, and the breath
Of the fresh morning round it, sinks to death.
They met the following day, and many more
They paced together this low ridge of shore,
Till one fair eve, the other with intent
To lure him out, unto his chamber went;
But straight retired again with noiseless pace,
For with a subtle gauze flung o’er his face
Upon his bed he lay, serene and still
And quiet, even as one who takes his fill
Of a delight he does not fear to lose.
So blest he seemed, the other could not choose
To wake him, but went down the narrow stair;
And when he met an aged attendant there,
She ceased her work to tell him, when he said,
Her patient then on happy slumber fed,
But that anon he would return once more,--
Her inmate had expired an hour before.
------
I know not by what chance he thus was thrown
On a far shore, untended and alone,
To live or die; for, as I after learned,
There were in England many hearts that yearned
To know his safety, and such tears were shed
For him as grace the living and the dead.
ADDRESSED ON LEAVING ROME TO A FRIEND RESIDING IN THAT CITY.
O lately written in the roll of friends,
O written late, not last, three pleasant months
Under the shadow of the Capitol,
A pleasant time, made pleasanter by thee,
It has been mine to pass--three months of spring,
Which pleasant in themselves and for thy sake,
Had yet this higher, that they stirred in the heart
The motions of continual thankfulness
To me, considering by what gracious paths
I had been guided, by what paths of love,
Since I was last a dweller in these gates.
That meditation could not prove to me
But as a spring that ever bubbles up,
Sparkling in the face of heaven, when every day
Reminded me how little gladness then
I gathered from these things, but now how much.
For tho’ not then indifferent to me
Nature or art, yea rather tho’ from these
I drew whatever lightened for a while
The burden of our life and weary load;
Yet seldom could I summon heart enough,
With all their marvels round me, to go forth
In quest of any. But some lonely spot,
Some ridge of ruin fringed with cypresses,
Such as have everywhere loved well to make
Their chosen home above all other trees,
’Mid the fal’n palaces of ancient Rome,
Me did such haunt please better, or I loved,
With others whom the like disquietude,
At the like crisis of their lives, now kept
Restless, with them to question to and fro
And to debate the evil of the world,
As tho’ we bore no portion of that ill,
As tho’ with subtle phrases we could spin
A woof to screen us from its undelight:
Such talk sometimes prolonging into night,
As being loth to separate, and find
Each in his solitude how vain are words,
When that they have opposed to them is more.
I would not live that time again for much,
Full as it was of long and weary days,
Full of rebellious askings, for what end,
And by what power, without our own consent,
We were placed here, to suffer and to sin,
To be in misery and know not why.
But so it was with me, a sojourner,
Five years ago, beneath these mouldering walls
As I am now: and, trusted friend, to thee
I have not doubted to reveal my soul,
For thou hast known, if I may read aright
The pages of thy past existence, thou
Hast known the dreary sickness of the soul,
That falls upon us in our lonely youth,
The fear of all bright visions leaving us,
The sense of emptiness, without the sense
Of an abiding fulness anywhere,
When all the generations of mankind,
With all their purposes, their hopes and fears,
Seem nothing truer than those wandering shapes
Cast by a trick of light upon a wall,
And nothing different from these, except
In their capacity for suffering;
What time we have the sense of sin, and none
Of expiation. Our own life seemed then
But as an arrow flying in the dark
Without an aim, a most unwelcome gift,
Which we might not put by. But now, what God
Intended as a blessing and a boon
We have received as such, and we can say
A solemn yet a joyful thing is life,
Which, being full of duties, is for this
Of gladness full, and full of lofty hopes.
And He has taught us what reply to make,
Or secretly in spirit, or in words,
If there be need, when sorrowing men complain
The fair illusions of their youth depart,
All things are going from them, and to-day
Is emptier of delights than yesterday,
Even as to-morrow will be barer yet;
We have been taught to feel this need not be,
This is not life’s inevitable law,--
But that the gladness we are called to know,
Is an increasing gladness, that the soil
Of the human heart, tilled rightly, will become
Richer and deeper, fitter to bear fruit
Of an immortal growth, from day to day,
Fruit of love life and indeficient joy.
Oh! not for baneful self-complacency,
Not for the setting up our present selves
To triumph o’er our past (worst pride of all),
May we compare this present with that past;
But to provoke renewed acknowledgments,
But to incite unto an earnest hope
For all our brethren. And how should I fear
To own to thee that this is in my heart--
This longing, that it leads me home to-day,
Glad even while I turn my back on Rome,
Yet half unseen--its arts, its memories,
Its glorious fellowship of living men;
Glad in the hope to tread the soil again
Of England, where our place of duty lies:
Not as altho’ we thought we could do much,
Or claimed large sphere of action for ourselves;
Not in this thought--since rather be it ours,
Both thine and mine, to cultivate that frame
Of spirit, when we know and deeply feel
How little we can do, and yet do that.
TASSO’S DUNGEON, FERRARA.
How might the goaded sufferer in this cell,
With nothing upon which his eyes might fall,
Except this vacant court, that dreary wall,
How might he live? I asked. Here doomed to dwell,
I marvel how at all he could repel
Thoughts which to madness and despair would call.
Enter this vault--the bare sight will appal
Thy spirit, even as mine within me fell,
Until I learned that wall not always there
Had stood--’twas something that this iron grate
Once had looked out upon a garden fair.
There must have been then here, to calm his brain,
Green leaves, and flowers, and sunshine--and a weight
Fell from me, and my heart revived again.
SONNET.
It may be that our homeward longings made
That other lands were judged with partial eyes;
But fairer in my sight the mottled skies,
With pleasant interchange of sun and shade,
And more desired the meadow and deep glade
Of sylvan England, green with frequent showers,
Than all the beauty which the vaunted bowers
Of the parched South have in mine eyes displayed;
Fairer and more desired--this well might be:
For let the South have beauty’s utmost dower,
And yet my heart might well have turned to thee,
My home, my country, when a delicate flower
Within thy pleasant borders was for me
Tended, and growing up thro’ sun and shower.
AT BRUNECKEN, IN THE TYROL.
The men who for this earthly life would claim
Well nigh the whole, and if the work of heaven
Be relegated to one day in seven,
Account the other six may without blame,
Unsanctified by one diviner aim,
To self to mammon and the world be given,
These scanty worshippers might nigh be driven,
Were they but here, to profitable shame.
This eve, the closing of no festal day,
This common work-day eve, in the open street
Seen have I groups of happy people meet,
Putting for this their toil and tasks away,
Men, women, boys, at one rude shrine to pray,
And there their fervent litanies repeat.
SONNET.
To leave unseen so many a glorious sight,
To leave so many lands unvisited,
To leave so many worthiest books unread,
Unrealized so many visions bright;--
Oh! wretched yet inevitable spite
Of our short span, and we must yield our breath,
And wrap us in the lazy coil of death,
So much remaining of unproved delight.
But hush, my soul, and, vain regrets, be stilled
Find rest in Him who is the complement
Of whatsoe’er transcends your mortal doom,
Of broken hope and frustrated intent;
In the clear vision and aspèct of whom
All wishes and all longings are fulfilled.
LINES WRITTEN IN AN INN.
A dreary lot is his who roams
“Homeless among a thousand homes;”
A dreary thing it is to stray,
As I have sometimes heard men say,
And of myself have partly known,
A passing stranger and alone
In some great city: harder there,
With life about us everywhere,
Than in the desert to restrain
A sense of solitary pain.
We wander thro’ the busy street,
And think how every one we meet
Has parents sister friend or wife,
With whom to share the load of life.
We wander on, for little care
Have we turn our footsteps there,
Where we are but a nameless guest,
One who may claim no interest
In any heart--a passing face,
That comes and goes, and leaves no trace;
Where service waits us, prompt but cold,
A loveless service, bought and sold.
Yet hard it is not to sustain
A time like this, if there remain
True greetings for us, hand and heart,
Wherein we claim the chiefest part,
Although divided now they be
By many a tract of land and sea.
If we can fly to thoughts like these,
Fall back on such sure sympathies,
This were sufficient to repress
That transient sense of loneliness.
Yet better if, where’er we roam,
Another country, truer home,
Is in our hearts; if there we find
The word of power, that from the mind
All sad and drear thoughts shall repel,
All solitary broodings quell;
If in the joy of heav’n we live,
Nor only on what earth can give,
Tho’ pure and high--so we may learn
Unto the soul’s great good to turn
What things soever best engage
Our thoughts towàrd our pilgrimage,
Which teach us this is not our rest,
That here we are but as a guest.
As doubtless ’twas no other thought
That in his holy bosom wrought,
Who not alone content to win
In life the shelter of an inn,
Was fain to finish the last stage
There of his mortal pilgrimage[7]
We too, if we are wise, may be
Pleased for a season to be free
From the encumbrances which love--
Affection hallowed from above,
But earthly yet, has power to fling
About the spirit’s heav’nward wing;
Pleased if we feel that God is nigh,
Both where we live and where we die,
Whether among true kindred thrown,
Or seeming outwardly alone,
That whether this or that befal,
He watches and has care of all.
TO E ----.
Much have we to support us in our strife
With things which else would crush us, nor alone
Secret refreshings of the inward life,
But many a flower of sweetest scent is strown
Upon our outward and our open way;
None sweeter than are at some seasons known
To them who dwell for many a prosperous day
Under one roof, and have, as they would hope,
One purpose for their lives, one aim, one scope--
To labour upward on the path to heaven.
Full of refreshment these occasions are,
Like seasonable resting-places given
To pilgrim feet; for tho’, alas! too rare,
Yet the sweet memories they supply, will give
The food on which affection’s heart may live
In after times; since it were sad indeed
If all more intimate knowledge did not breed
More trust in one another and more love,
More faith that each is seeking to attain
With humble earnest effort, not in vain,
The happy rest of God. And so they part
On their divided ways with cheerful heart,
Knowing that in all places they will call
On the same God and Father over all;
And part not wholly, since they meet whose prayer
Meets at the throne of grace; one life divine
Through all the branches of the mystical vine
Flows ever, even as the same breath of air
Lifts every leaflet of a mighty grove.
And from our meeting we shall reap a share
Of a yet higher good, if we have won
Hereby the strengthening of one weak desire,
The fanning of one faint spark to a fire,
The stirring of one prayer, that we may prove
Stedfast and faithful till our work be done,
Until the course appointed us be run.
We know not whither our frail barks are borne,
To quiet haven, or on stormy shore;
Nor need we seek to know it, while above
The tempest and the waters’ angriest roar
Are heard the voices of Almighty love--
So we shall find none dreary nor forlorn.
Whither we go we know not, but we know
That if we keep our faces surely set
Towàrd new Zion, we shall reach at last,
When every danger, every woe is past,
The city where the sealèd tribes are met,
Whither the nations of the savèd flow,
The city with its heav’n-descended halls,
The city builded round with diamond walls.
Then how should we feel sorrow or dim fear
At any parting now, if there to meet;
How should our hearts with sadder pulses beat,
When thou art going where kind hearts will greet
And welcome thy return, and there as here
Thou still wilt find thine own appointed sphere,
To fill the measure up of gentle deeds,
Even as we have learnèd that in these,
That in the holy Christian charities,
And the suppliance of the lowliest needs
Of the most lowly, our true greatness is.
Therefore we will not seek to win thy stay,
Nor ask but this--that thou shouldst bear away
Kind memories of us, and only claim
What of thyself thou wilt be prompt to give,
That in thy heart’s affections he may live,
To whom thou bearest that most holy name
Of spiritual mother. O beloved friend,
It is a cheering thought, if I should be
Where I can no more watch for him nor tend
His infant years--there where I cannot see
What good, what evil wait upon his way,
That yet thy love thy counsel and thy cares
He will not lack, a child of faithful prayers.
TO ----.
ON THE MORNING OF HER BAPTISM.
This will we name thy better birth-day, child,
O born already to a sin-worn world,
But now unto a kingdom undefiled,
Where over thee love’s banner is unfurled.
Lo! on the morning of this Sabbath day
I lay aside the weight of human fears,
Which I had for thee, and without dismay
Look through the avenue of coming years.
I see thee passing without mortal harm
Thro’ ranks of foes against thy safety met;
I see thee passing--thy defence and charm,
The seal of God upon thy forehead set.
From this time forth thou often shalt hear say
Of what immortal City thou wert given
The rights and full immunities to-day,
And of the hope laid up for thee in heaven.
From this time forward thou shalt not believe
That thou art earthly, or that aught of earth,
Or aught that hell can threaten, shall receive
Power on the children of the second birth.
O risen out of death into the day
Of an immortal life, we bid thee hail,
And will not kiss the waterdrops away,
The dew that rests upon thy forehead pale.
And if the seed of better life lie long,
As in a wintry hiddenness and death,
Then calling back this day, we will be strong
To wait in hope for heaven’s reviving breath;
To water, if there should be such sad need,
The undiscernèd germ with sorrowing tears,
To wait until from that undying seed
Out of the earth a heavenly plant appears;
The growth and produce of a fairer land,
And thence transplanted to a barren soil,
It needs the tendance of a careful hand,
Of love, that is not weary with long toil.
And thou, dear child, whose very helplessness
Is as a bond upon us and a claim,
Mayest thou have this of us, as we no less
Have daily from our Father known the same.
TO A LADY SINGING.
How like a swan, cleaving the azure sky,
The voice upsoars of thy triumphant song,
That whirled awhile resistlessly along
By the great sweep of threatening harmony,
Seemed, overmatched, to struggle helplessly
With that impetuous music, yet ere long
Escaping from the current fierce and strong,
Pierces the clear crystàlline vault on high.
And I too am upborne with thee together
In circles ever narrowing, round and round,
Over the clouds and sunshine--who erewhile,
Like a blest bird of charmèd summer-weather
In the blue shadow of some foamless isle,
Was floating on the billows of sweet sound.
THE SAME CONTINUED.
When the mute voice returns from whence it came,
The silence of a momentary awe,
A brief submission to the eternal law
Of beauty doth to every heart proclaim
A Spirit has been summoned; yea, the same
Whose dwelling is the inmost human heart,
Which will not from that home and haunt depart,
Which nothing can quite vanquish or make tame.
It is the noblest gift beneath the moon,
The power, this awful presence to compel
Out of the lurking places where it lies
Deep-hidden and removed from human eyes:
Oh! reverence thou in fear and cherish well
This privilege of few, this rarest boon.
THE SAME CONTINUED.