SPIRIT of all sweet sounds! who in mid-air
Sittest enthroned, vouchsafe to hear my prayer!
Let all those instruments of music sweet
That in great Nature's hymn bear burden meet
Sing round this mossy pillow, where my head
From the bright noontide sky is sheltered.
Thou southern wind! wave, wave thy od'rous wings;
O'er your smooth channels gush, ye crystal springs !
Ye laughing elves! that through the rustling corn
Run chattering; thou tawny-coated bee,
Who at thy honey-work sing'st drowsily;
And ye, O ye! who greet the dewy morn,
And fragrant eventide, with melody,
Ye wild wood-minstrels, sing my lullaby!
WHENE'ER I recollect the happy time
When you and I held converse dear together,
There come a thousand thoughts of sunny weather,
Of early blossoms, and the fresh year's prime ;
Your memory lives forever in my mind
With all the fragrant beauties of the spring,
With od'rous lime and silver hawthorn twined,
And many a noonday woodland wandering.
There's not a thought of you, but brings along
Some sunny dream of river, field, and sky;
"T is wafted on the blackbird's sunset song,
Or some wild snatch of ancient melody.
And, as I date it still, our love arose
"Twixt the last violet and the earliest rose.
LIKE one who walketh in a plenteous land,
By flowing waters, under shady trees,
Through sunny meadows, where the summer bees
Feed in the thyme and clover; on each hand
Fair gardens lying, where of fruit and flower
The bounteous season hath poured out its dower;
Where saffron skies roof in the earth with light,
And birds sing thankfully towards heaven, while he
With a sad heart walks through this jubilee,
Beholding how, beyond this happy land,
Stretches a thirsty desert of gray sand,
Where all the air is one thick, leaden blight,
Where all things dwarf and dwindle,
Through my rich, present life, to what beyond doth lie.
ON SEEING THE IVORY STATUE OF CHRIST.
THE enthusiast brooding in his cell apart
O'er the sad image of the Crucified,
The drooping head, closed lips, and piercéd side, A holy vision fills his raptured heart;
With heavenly power inspired, his unskilled arm Shapes the rude block to this transcendent form.
O Son of God! thus, ever thus, would I
Dwell on the loveliness enshrined in thee, -
The lofty faith, the sweet humility,
The boundless love, the love that could not die.
And as the sculptor, with thy glory warm,
Gives to this chiselled ivory thy fair form,
So would my spirit in thy thought divine
Grow to a semblance, fair as this, of thine.
THE honey-bee, that wanders all day long
The field, the woodland, and the garden o'er,
To gather in his fragrant winter store,
Humming in calm content his quiet song,
Seeks not alone the rose's glowing breast,
The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips,
But from all rank and noxious weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness closely prest
Within the poison chalice. Thus if we
Seek only to draw forth the hidden sweet
In all the varied human flowers we meet
In the wide garden of humanity,
And, like the bee, if home the spoil we bear,
Hived in our hearts it turns to nectar there.
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