A Boanerges too! Upon my heart
It lay a heavy hour: features like thine
Should glow with other message than the shine
Of the earth-burrowing levin, and the start
That cleaveth horrid gulfs! Awful and swart
A moment stoodest thou, but less divine--
Brawny and clad in ruin--till with mine
Thy heart made answering signals, and apart
Beamed forth thy two rapt eyeballs doubly clear
And twice as strong because thou didst thy duty,
And, though affianced to immortal Beauty,
Hiddest not weakly underneath her veil
The pest of Sin and Death which maketh pale:
Henceforward be thy spirit doubly dear!
_THE LILY OF THE VALLEY_.
There is not any weed but hath its shower,
There is not any pool but hath its star;
And black and muddy though the waters are
We may not miss the glory of a flower,
And winter moons will give them magic power
To spin in cylinders of diamond spar;
And everything hath beauty near and far,
And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour!
And I, when I encounter on my road
A human soul that looketh black and grim,
Shall I more ceremonious be than God?
Shall I refuse to watch one hour with him
Who once beside our deepest woe did bud
A patient watching flower about the brim?
_EVIL INFLUENCE_.
'Tis not the violent hands alone that bring
The curse, the ravage, and the downward doom,
Although to these full oft the yawning tomb
Owes deadly surfeit; but a keener sting,
A more immortal agony will cling
To the half fashioned sin which would assume
Fair Virtue's garb; the eye that sows the gloom
With quiet seeds of Death henceforth to spring
What time the sun of passion burning fierce
Breaks through the kindly cloud of circumstance;
The bitter word, and the unkindly glance,
The crust and canker coming with the years,
Are liker Death than arrows and the lance
Which through the living heart at once doth pierce.
_SPOKEN OF SEVERAL PHILOSOPHERS_.
I pray you, all ye men who put your trust
In moulds and systems and well-tackled gear,
Holding that Nature lives from year to year
In one continual round because she must--
Set me not down, I pray you, in the dust
Of all these centuries, like a pot of beer--
A pewter-pot disconsolately clear,
Which holds a potful, as is right and just!
I will grow clamorous--by the rood, I will,
If thus ye use me like a pewter pot!
Good friend, thou art a toper and a sot--
will not be the lead to hold thy swill,
Nor any lead: I will arise and spill
Thy silly beverage--spill it piping hot!
_NATURE A MORAL POWER_.
Nature, to him no message dost thou bear
Who in thy beauty findeth not the power
To gird himself more strongly for the hour
Of night and darkness. Oh, what colours rare
The woods, the valleys, and the mountains wear
To him who knows thy secret, and, in shower,
And fog, and ice-cloud, hath a secret bower
Where he may rest until the heavens are fair!
Not with the rest of slumber, but the trance
Of onward movement steady and serene,
Where oft, in struggle and in contest keen,
His eyes will opened be, and all the dance
Of life break on him, and a wide expanse
Roll upward through the void, sunny and green.
_TO JUNE_.
Ah, truant, thou art here again, I see!
For in a season of such wretched weather
I thought that thou hadst left us altogether,
Although I could not choose but fancy thee
Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee
Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather
Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether
Thou shouldst be seen in such a company
Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps
Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint
Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps.
But yet I may not chide: fall to thy books--
Fall to immediately without complaint--
There they are lying, hills and vales and brooks.
_SUMMER_.
Summer, sweet Summer, many-fingered Summer!
We hold thee very dear, as well we may:
It is the kernel of the year to-day--
All hail to thee! thou art a welcome comer!
If every insect were a fairy drummer,
And I a fifer that could deftly play,
We'd give the old Earth such a roundelay
That she would cast all thought of labour from her.--
Ah! what is this upon my window-pane?
Some sulky, drooping cloud comes pouting up,
Stamping its glittering feet along the plain!--
Well, I will let that idle fancy drop!
Oh, how the spouts are bubbling with the rain!
And all the earth shines like a silver cup!
_ON A MIDGE_.
Whence do ye come, ye creatures? Each of you
Is perfect as an angel! wings and eyes
Stupendous in their beauty--gorgeous dyes
In feathery fields of purple and of blue!
Would God I saw a moment as ye do!
I would become a molecule in size,
Rest with you, hum with you, or slanting rise
Along your one dear sunbeam, could I view
The pearly secret which each tiny fly--
Each tiny fly that hums and bobs and stirs
Hides in its little breast eternally
From you, ye prickly, grim philosophers
With all your theories that sound so high:
Hark to the buz a moment, my good sirs!
_STEADFAST_.
Here stands a giant stone from whose far top
Comes down the sounding water: let me gaze
Till every sense of man and human ways
Is wrecked and quenched for ever, and I drop
Into the whirl of time, and without stop
Pass downward thus! Again my eyes I raise
To thee, dark rock; and through the mist and haze
My strength returns when I behold thy prop
Gleam stern and steady through the wavering wrack.
Surely thy strength is human, and like me
Thou bearest loads of thunder on thy back!
And, lo, a smile upon thy visage black--
A breezy tuft of grass which I can see
Waving serenely from a sunlit crack!
_PROVISION_.
Above my head the great pine-branches tower;
Backwards and forwards each to the other bends,
Beckoning the tempest-cloud which hither wends
Like a slow-laboured thought, heavy with power:
Hark to the patter of the coming shower!
Let me be silent while the Almighty sends
His thunder-word along--but when it ends
I will arise and fashion from the hour
Words of stupendous import, fit to guard
High thoughts and purposes, which I may wave,
When the temptation cometh close and hard,
Like fiery brands betwixt me and the grave
Of meaner things--to which I am a slave,
If evermore I keep not watch and ward.
_FIRST SIGHT OF THE SEA_.
I do remember how, when very young,
I saw the great sea first, and heard its swell
As I drew nearer, caught within the spell
Of its vast size and its mysterious tongue.
How the floor trembled, and the dark boat swung
With a man in it, and a great wave fell
Within a stone's cast! Words may never tell
The passion of the moment, when I flung
All childish records by, and felt arise
A thing that died no more! An awful power
I claimed with trembling hands and eager eyes,
Mine, mine for ever, an immortal dower.--
The noise of waters soundeth to this hour
When I look seaward through the quiet skies.
_ON THE SOURCE OF THE ARVE_.
Hears't thou the dash of water, loud and hoarse,
With its perpetual tidings upward climb,
Struggling against the wind? Oh, how sublime!
For not in vain from its portentous source
Thy heart, wild stream, hath yearned for its full force,
But from thine ice-toothed caverns, dark as time,
At last thou issuest, dancing to the rime
Of thy outvolleying freedom! Lo, thy course
Lies straight before thee as the arrow flies!
Right to the ocean-plains away, away!
Thy parent waits thee, and her sunset dyes
Are ruffled for thy coming, and the gray
Of all her glittering borders flashes high
Against the glittering rocks!--oh, haste, and fly!
_CONFIDENCE_.
Lie down upon the ground, thou hopeless one!
Press thy face in the grass, and do not speak.
Dost feel the green globe whirl? Seven times a week
Climbeth she out of darkness to the sun,
Which is her God; seven times she doth not shun
Awful eclipse, laying her patient cheek
Upon a pillow ghost-beset with shriek
Of voices utterless, which rave and run
Through all the star-penumbra, craving light
And tidings of the dawn from East and West.
Calmly she sleepeth, and her sleep is blest
With heavenly visions, and the joy of Night
Treading aloft with moons; nor hath she fright
Though cloudy tempests beat upon her breast.
_FATE_.
Oft, as I rest in quiet peace, am I
Thrust out at sudden doors, and madly driven
Through desert solitudes, and thunder-riven
Black passages which have not any sky:
The scourge is on me now, with all the cry
Of ancient life that hath with murder striven.
How many an anguish hath gone up to heaven,
How many a hand in prayer been lifted high
When the black fate came onward with the rush
Of whirlwind, avalanche, or fiery spume!
Even at my feet is cleft a shivering tomb
Beneath the waves; or else, with solemn hush
The graveyard opens, and I feel a crush
As if we were all huddled in one doom!
_UNREST_.
Comes there, O Earth, no breathing time for thee,
No pause upon thy many-chequered lands?
Now resting on my bed with listless hands
I mourn thee resting not. Continually
Hear I the plashing borders of the sea
Answer each other from the rocks and sands!
Troop all the rivers seawards; nothing stands,
But with strange noises hasteth terribly!
Loam-eared hyenas go a moaning by;
Howls to each other all the bloody crew
Of Afric's tigers! but, O men, from you
Comes this perpetual sound more loud and high
Than aught that vexes air! I hear the cry
Of infant generations rising too!
_ONE WITH NATURE_.
I have a fellowship with every shade
Of changing nature: with the tempest hour
My soul goes forth to claim her early dower
Of living princedom; and her wings have staid
Amidst the wildest uproar undismayed!
Yet she hath often owned a better power,
And blessed the gentle coming of the shower,
The speechless majesty of love arrayed
In lowly virtue, under which disguise
Full many a princely thing hath passed her by;
And she from homely intercourse of eyes
Hath gathered visions wider than the sky,
And seen the withered heart of man arise
Peaceful as God, and full of majesty.
_MY TWO GENIUSES_.