By the finite, prest and pent,-
In the finite, turbulent.
And how we tremble in surprise,
When sometimes, with an awful sound,
God's great plummet strikes the ground!
The champ of the steeds on the silver bit,
As they whirl the rich man's chariot by ;
The beggar's whine as he looks at it,—
But it goes too fast for charity;
The trail, on the street, of the poor man's broom,
That the lady, who walks to her palace-home,
On her silken skirt may catch no dust;
The tread of the business-men, who must
Count their per cents. by the paces they take;
The cry of the babe, unheard of its mother,
Though it lie on her breast, while she thinks of the other Laid yesterday where it will not wake;
The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinks,
Held out in the smoke, like stars by day;
The gin-door's oath, that hollowly chinks
Guilt upon grief, and wrong upon hate;
The cabman's cry to get out of the way;
The dustman's call down the area-grate;
The young maid's jest, and the old wife's scold;
The haggling talk of the boys at a stall;
The fight in the street, which is backed for gold;
The plea of the lawyers in Westminster Hall;
The drop on the stones of the blind man's staff,
As he trades in his own grief's sacredness;
The brothel's shriek, and the Newgate laugh;
The hum upon 'Change, and the organ's grinding,
The grinder's face being nevertheless
Dry and vacant of even woe,
While the children's hearts are leaping so
At the merry music's winding!
The black-plumed funeral's creeping train,
Long and slow (and yet they will go
As fast as Life, though it hurry and strain!)
Creeping the populous houses through,
And nodding their plumes at either side,
At many a house where an infant, new
To the sunshiny world, has just struggled and cried;
At many a house, where sitteth a bride
Trying the morrow's coronals,
With a scarlet blush, to-day.-
Slowly creep the funerals,
As none should hear the noise and say,
The living, the living, must go away
To multiply the dead!
Hark! an upward shout is sent!
In grave strong joy from tower to steeple
The bells ring out—
The trumpets sound, the people shout,
The young Queen goes to her parliament.
She turneth round her large blue eyes,
More bright with childish memories
Than royal hopes, upon the people:
On either side she bows her head
Lowly, with a queenly grace,
And smile most trusting-innocent,
As if she smiled upon her mother!
The thousands press before each other
To bless her to her face:
And booms the deep majestic voice
Through trump and drum,-"May the Queen rejoice In the people's liberties!"
And hear the flow of souls in act and speech,
For pomp or trade, for merrymake or folly:
I hear the confluence and sum of each,
And that is melancholy
Thy voice is a complaint, O crowned city,
The blue sky covering thee, like God's great pity.
O blue sky! it mindeth me
Of places where I used to see
Its vast unbroken circle thrown
From the far pale-peakèd hill
Out to the last verge of ocean-
As by God's arm it were done
Then for the first time, with the emotion
Of that first impulse on it still.
Oh, we spirits fly at will,
Faster than the winged steed
Whereof in old book we read,
With the sunlight foaming back
From him, to a misty wrack,
And his nostril reddening proud
As he breasteth the steep thundercloud!
Smoother than Sabrina's chair
Gliding up from wave to air,
While she smileth debonair
Yet holy, coldly and yet brightly,
Like her own mooned waters nightly,
Through her dripping hair.
Very fast and smooth we fly,
Spirits, though the flesh be by.
All looks feed not from the eye,
Nor all hearings from the ear;
We can hearken and espy
Without either; we can journey,
Bold and gay, as knight to tourney;
And though we wear no visor down
To dark our countenance, the foe
Shall never chafe us as we go.
I am gone from peopled town!
It passeth its street-thunder round
My body, which yet hears no sound;
For now another sound, another
Vision, my soul's senses have.
O'er a hundred valleys deep,
Where the hills' green shadows sleep,
Scarce known, because the valley trees
Cross those upland images-
O'er a hundred hills, each other
Watching, to the western wave-
I have travelled,-I have found
The silent, lone, remembered ground
I have found a grassy niche,
Hollowed in a seaside hill,
As if the ocean-grandeur, which
Is aspectable from the place,
Had struck the hill as with a mace
Sudden and cleaving. You might fill
That little nook with the little cloud
Which sometimes lieth by the moon
To beautify a night of June;
A cavelike nook, which, opening all
To the wide sea, is disallowed
From its own earth's sweet pastoral;
Cavelike, but roofless overhead,
And made of verdant banks instead
Of any rocks, with flowerets spread,
Instead of spar and stalactite
Cowslips and daisies, gold and white,
Such pretty flowers on such green sward,
You think, the sea, they lool: toward
Doth serve them for another sky,
As warm and blue as that on high.
And in this hollow is a seat,
And when you shall have crept to it,
Slipping down the banks, too steep
To be o'erbrowzed by the sheep,-
Do not think-though at your feet
The cliff's disrupt-you shall behold
The line where earth and ocean meet :
You sit too much above to view
The solemn confluence of the two:
You can hear them as they greet ;
You can hear that evermore
Distance-softened noise, more old
Than Nereid's singing, the tide spent
Joining soft issues with the shore
In harmony of discontent,-
And when you hearken to the grave
Lamenting of the underwave,
You must believe in their communion,
Albeit you witness not the union.
Except that sound, the place is full
Of silences, which, when you cull
By any word, it thrills you so
That presently you let them grow
To meditation's fullest length,
Across your soul with a soul's strength:
And as they touch your soul, they borrow
As of its grandeur, so its sorrow,-
That deathly odour which the clay
Leaves on its deathlessness alway.
Alway! alway! must this be?
Rapid Soul from city gone,
Dost thou carry inwardly
What doth make the city's moan?
Must this deep sigh of thine own
Haunt thee with humanity?
Green-visioned banks, that are too steep
To be o'erbrowzed by the sheep,
May all sad thoughts adown you creep
Without a shepherd!-Mighty sea,
Can we dwarf thy magnitude,
And fit it to our straitest mood?—
O fair, fair Nature! are we thus
Impotent and querulous
Among thy workings glorious,
Wealth and sanctities,—that still
Leave us vacant and defiled,
And wailing like a kissed child,
Kissed soft against his will?
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