And gladdest hours for me did glide
In silence at the rose-tree wall:
A thrush made gladness musical
Upon the other side.
Nor he nor I did e'er incline
To peck or pluck the blossoms white-
How should I know but that they might
Lead lives as glad as mine?
To make my hermit-home complete,
I brought clear water from the spring
Praised in its own low murmuring,-
And cresses glossy wet.
And so, I thought my likeness grew
(Without the melancholy tale)
To "gentle hermit of the dale,”
And Angelina too.
For oft I read within my nook
Such minstrel stories! till the breeze
Made sounds poetic in the trees,—
And then I shut the book.
If I shut this wherein I write,
I hear no more the wind athwart
Those trees, nor feel that childish heart
Delighting in delight.
My childhood from my life is parted, My footstep from the moss which drew Its fairy circle round: anew
The garden is deserted.
Another thrush may there rehearse
The madrigals which sweetest are ;
No more for me !—myself afar
Do sing a sadder verse.
Ah me, ah me! when erst I lay
In that child's-nest so greenly wrought, I laughed unto myself and thought,
"The time will pass away."
And still I laughed, and did not fear
But that, whene'er was past away
The childish time, some happier play
My womanhood would cheer.
I knew the time would pass away;
And yet, beside the rose-tree wall,
Dear God, how seldom, if at all,
Did I look up to pray!
The time is past :-and now that grows
The cypress high among the trees,
And I behold white sepulchres
As well as the white rose,
When wiser, meeker thoughts are given,
And I have learnt to lift my face,
Reminded how earth's greenest place
The colour draws from heaven,—
It something saith for earthly pain,
But more for heavenly promise free,
That I who was, would shrink to be
That happy child again.
"O Weisheit! Du red'st wie eine Taube!"-GOETHE.
My little doves have left a nest
Upon an Indian tree,
Whose leaves fantastic take their rest
Or motion from the sea:
For, ever there, the sea-winds go
With sunlit paces, to and fro.
The tropic flowers looked up to it,
The tropic stars looked down,
And there my little doves did sit,
With feathers softly brown,
And glittering eyes that showed their right
To general Nature's deep delight.
And God them taught, at every close
Of murmuring waves beyond,
And green leaves round, to interpose
Their choral voices fond;
Interpreting that love must be
The meaning of the earth and sea.
Fit ministers Of living loves,
Theirs hath the calmest fashion;
Their living voice the likest moves
To lifeless intonation,—
The lovely monotone of springs
And winds and such insensate things.
My little doves were ta'en away
From that glad nest of theirs,
Across an ocean rolling grey,
And tempest-clouded airs.
My little doves !-who lately knew
The sky and wave, by warmth and blue!
And now, within the city prison,
In mist and chillness pent,
With sudden upward look they listen
For sounds of past content-
For lapse of water, swell of breeze,
Or nut-fruit falling from the trees.
The stir without the glow of passion-
The triumph of the mart-
The gold and silver as they clash on
Man's cold metallic heart—
The roar of wheels, the cry for bread,-
These only sounds are heard instead.
Yet still, as on my human hand
Their fearless heads they lean,
And almost seem to understand
What human musings mean-
(Their eyes, with such a plaintive shine,
Are fastened upwardly to mine!)
Soft falls their chant, as on the nest,
Beneath the sunny zone;
For love that stirred it in their breast
Has not aweary grown,
And, 'neath the city's shade, can keep
The well of music clear and deep.
And love that keeps the music, fills
With pastoral memories:
All echoings from out the hills,
All droppings from the skies,
All flowings from the wave and wind,
Remembered in their chant, I find.
So teach ye me the wisest part,
My little doves! to move
Along the city-ways, with heart
Assured by holy love,
And vocal with such songs as own
A fountain to the world unknown.
"Twas hard to sing by Babel's stream--
More hard, in Babel's street!
But if the soulless creatures deem
Their music not unmeet
For sunless walls-let us begin,
Who wear immortal wings, within!
To me, fair memories belong
Of scenes that used to bless;
For no regret, but present song,
And lasting thankfulness;
And very soon to break away,
Like types, in purer things than they.
I will have hopes that cannot fade,
For flowers the valley yields:
I will have humble thoughts, instead
Of silent, dewy fields:
My spirit and my God shall be
My seaward hill, my boundless sea!
NINE years old! The first of any
Seem the happiest years that come :-
Yet when I was nine, I said
No such word!—I thought, instead,
That the Greeks had used as many
In besieging Ilium.
Nine green years had scarcely brought me
To my childhood's haunted spring :-
I had life, like flowers and bees,
In betwixt the country trees;
And the sun, the pleasure, taught me
Which he teacheth every thing.
If the rain fell, there was sorrow ;—
Little head leant on the pane,
Little finger drawing down it
The long trailing drops upon it,-
And the "Rain, rain, come to-morrow,"
Said for charm against the rain.
Such a charm was right Canidian,
Though you meet it with a jeer!
If I said it long enough,
Then the rain hummed dimly off,
And the thrush, with his pure Lydian,
Was left only, to the ear:
And the sun and I together
Went a-rushing out of doors:
We, our tender spirits, drew
Over hill and dale in view,
Glimmering hither, glimmering thither,
In the footsteps of the showers.
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