251 TO THE MOUNTAIN WINDS. "There may not long be fetters, Where the white Alps have their towers; It is she! She is come like a dayspring beam, -Poet! the land of thy love is free, TO THE MOUNTAIN WINDS. "How divine The liberty, for frail, for mortal man, WORDSWORTH. MOUNTAIN Winds! oh! whither do ye call me? Oh! the strife of this divided being! Is there peace where ye are borne on high? Whence the footsteps of the loved are gone! Surely music of oblivion sweepeth In the pathway of your wanderings free; There the rushing of the falcon's pinion Mountain winds! oh! is it, is it only Where man's trace hath been that so we pine? Bear me up, to grow in thought less lonely, Even at nature's deepest, loneliest shrine! Wild, and mighty, and mysterious singers! At whose tone my heart within me burns; There to commune with a loftier spirit Where the enduring and the wing'd are met. THE PROCESSION. Hush, proud voices, gentle be your falling! Woman's lot thus chainless may not be; 253 Hush the heart your trumpet sounds are calling, Darkly still may grow-but never free! THE PROCESSION. "The peace which passeth all understanding,' disclosed itself in her looks and movements. It lay on her countenance like a steady unshadowed moonlight." COLERIDGE. THERE were trampling sounds of many feet, There were banners to the winds unroll'd, Borne from their dwellings, green and lone, strown; And wheels that crush'd as they swept along Oh! what doth the violet amidst the throng? I saw where a bright procession pass'd And a king to his crowning place was led, I saw, far gleaming, the long array But a lowlier grave soon won mine eye It was but a dewy greensward bed, For a gentle form stood watching there, Clear, pale and clear, was the tender cheek, That her sad heart's treasure was all above. For alone she seem'd 'midst the throng to be, It faded before me, that masque of pride, THE BROKEN LUTE. 255 But that orphan form, with its willowy grace, THE BROKEN LUTE. "When the lamp is shatter'd, The light in the dust lies dead; When the cloud is scatter'd, The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet sounds are remember'd not; When the words are spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot. As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and lute, The heart's echoes render No song when the spirit is mute." SHE dwelt in proud Venetian halls, SHELLEY. 'Midst forms that breathed from the pictured walls; But a glow of beauty like her own, There had no dream of the painter thrown. Lit from within was her noble brow, As an urn, whence rays from a lamp may flow; Seem'd the bright wakening of Poesy. Even thus it was!-from her childhood's A being of sudden smiles and tears years |