THE BEINGS OF THE MIND. Bright children of the bard! o'er this green dell Pass once again, and light it with your spell! Imogen! fair Fidele! meekly blending In patient grief, "a smiling with a sigh:"1 And thou, Cordelia! faithful daughter, tending That sire, an outcast to the bitter sky; 135 Thou of the soft low voice!-thou art not gone! Still breathes for me its faint and flute-like tone. And come to me!-sing me thy willow-strain, In thy beseeching glance, where still, though vain, Come, bowing thy young head to wrong and scorn, As a frail hyacinth, by showers o'erborne. And thou, too, fair Ophelia! flowers are here That well might win thy footstep to the spotPale cowslips, meet for maiden's early bier, And pansies for sad thoughts,—but needed not! Come with thy wreaths, and all the love and light In that wild eye still tremulously bright. And Juliet, vision of the south! enshrining All gifts that unto its rich heaven belong; The glow, the sweetness, in its rose combining, The soul its nightingales pour forth in song, 1 66 Nobly he yokes A smiling with a sigh." Cymbeline. 2 "Here's pansies for you- that's for thoughts." Hamlet. Thou, making death deep joy!-but could'st thou die? No!-thy young love hath immortality! From earth's bright faces fades the light of morn, THE LYRE'S LAMENT. "A large lyre hung in an opening of the rock, and gave forth its melancholy music to the wind-but no human being was to be seen." A DEEP-TONED lyre hung murmuring "O melancholy wind," it sigh'd, "What would thy breath with me? "Thou can'st not wake the spirit That in me slumbering lies, Thou strikest not forth th' electric fire "Wind of the dark sea-waters! Thou dost but sweep my strings Into wild gusts of mournfulness, With the rushing of thy wings. Salathiel. THE LYRE'S LAMENT. "But the spell-the gift-the lightning Within my frame conceal'd, Must I moulder on the rock away, With their triumphs unreveal'd? "I have power, high power, for freedom I have sounds that through the ancient hills "I have pealing notes of victory That might welcome kings from war; I have rich deep tones to send the wail For a hero's death afar. "I have chords to lift the pæan From the temple to the sky, Full as the forest-unisons When sweeping winds are high. 137 "And love-for love's lone sorrow "Soft-spiritual-mournful Sighs in each note enshrined But who shall call that sweetness forth? Thou canst not, ocean-wind! "I pass without my glory, Forgotten I decay— Where is the touch to give me life? So sigh'd the broken music That in gladness had no partHow like art thou, neglected lyre, To many a human heart! TASSO'S CORONATION.1 A crown of victory! a triumphal song! Let some kind voice, beside his lowly couch, A TRUMPET'S note is in the sky, in the glorious Whose dome hath rung, so many an age, to the voice of victory; There is crowding to the Capitol, the imperial streets ,along, For again a conqueror must be crown'd-a kingly child of song: Yet his chariot lingers, 'Midst the joy of Rome. A thousand thousand laurel boughs are waving wide and far, To shed out their triumphal gleams around his rolling car; 1 Tasso died at Rome on the day before that appointed for his coronation in the Capitol. TASSO'S CORONATION. 139 A thousand haunts of olden gods have given their wealth of flowers, To scatter o'er his path of fame bright hues in gem like showers. Peace! within his chamber Low the mighty lies; With a cloud of dreams on his noble brow, Sing, sing for him, the lord of song, for him, whose rushing strain In mastery o'er the spirit sweeps, like a strong wind o'er the main ! Whose voice lives deep in burning hearts, for ever there to dwell, As full-toned oracles are shrined in a temple's holiest cell. Yes! for him, the victor, The sun, the sun of Italy is pouring o'er his way, Where the old three hundred triumphs moved, a flood of golden day; Streaming through every haughty arch of the Cæsars' past renown Bring forth, in that exulting light, the conqueror for his crown! |