NATURE POEMS

Work Without Hope

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair--
The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing--
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

Cologne

IN Köhln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fang'd with murderous stones
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks!
Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

The Eolian Harp

MY pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on my arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o'ergrown
With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leav'd Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
Snatch'd from yon bean-field! and the world so hush'd!
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence.
And that simplest Lute,
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caress'd,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untam'd wing!
O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where--
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so fill'd;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-clos'd eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquility;
Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on the subject Lute!
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely fram'd,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intelletual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?
But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily disprais'd
These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that only feels;
Who with his saving mercies healed me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour'd Maid!

Frost at Midnight

THE Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by an wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud--and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought. But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
Fixed with mick study on my swimming book:
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the interspersed vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity, doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether summer clothe the general earth
With greeness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

WHEN Spring Comes Laughing
By vale and hill,

By wind-flower walking
And daffodil,--
Sing stars of morning,
Sing morning skies,
Sing blue of speedwell,--
And my Love's eyes.

When comes the Summer,
Full-leaved and strong,
And gay birds gossip
The orchard long,--
Sing hid, sweet honey
That no bee sips;
Sing red, red roses,--
And my Love's lips.

When Autumn scatters
The leaves again,
And piled sheaves bury
The broad-wheeled wain,--
Sing flutes of harvest
Where men rejoice;
Sing rounds of reapers,--
And my Love's voice.

But when comes Winter
With hail and storm,
And red fire roaring
And ingle warm,--
Sing first sad going
Of friends that part;
Then sing glad meeting,--
And my Love's heart.

For A Copy of Theocritus

O SINGER of the field and fold,
THEOCRITUS! Pan's pipe was thine,--
Thine was the happier Age of Gold.

For thee the scent of new-turned mould,
The bee-hives, and the murmuring pine,
O Singer of the field and fold!

Thou sang'st the simple feasts of old,--
The beechen bowl made glad with wine . . .
Thine was the happier Age of Gold.

Thou bad'st the rustic loves be told,--
Thou bad'st the tuneful reeds combine,
O Singer of the field and fold!

And round thee, ever-laughing, rolled
The blithe and blue Sicilian brine:
Thine was the happier Age of Gold.

Alas for us! Our songs are cold;
Our Northern suns too sadly shine:--
O Singer of the field and fold,
Thine was the happier Age of Gold.

"When This Old World Was New"

WHEN this old world was new,
Before the towns were made,
Love was a shepherd too.

Clear-eyed as flowers men grew,
Of evil unafraid,
When this old world was made.

No skill had they to woo,
Who but their hearts obey'd--
Love was a shepherd too.

What need to feign or sue?
Not thus was life delay'd
When this old world was new.

Under the cloudless blue
They kiss'd their shepherd-maid--
Love was a shepherd too.

They knew but joy; they knew
No pang of Love decay'd:
When this old world was new,
Love was a shepherd too.

The Paradox of Time

"Le temps s'en va, le lemps s'en va, ma dame!
Las! le temps non: mais NOUS nous en allons!"

TIME goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go;
Or else, were this not so,
What need to chain the hours,
For Youth were always ours?
Time goes, you say?--ah no!

Ours is the eyes' deceit
Of men whose flying feet
Lead through some landscape low;
We pass, and think we see
The earth's fixed surface flee:--
Alas, Time stays,--we go!

Once in the days of old,
Your locks were curling gold,
And mine had shamed the crow.
Now, in the self-same stage,
We've reached the silver age;
Time goes, you say?--ah no!

Once, when my voice was strong,
I filled the woods with song
To praise your "rose" and "snow";
My bird, that sang, is dead;
Where are your roses fled?
Alas, Time stays,--we go!

See, in what traversed ways,
What backward Fate delays
The hopes we used to know;
Where are our old desires?--
Ah, where those vanished fires?
Time goes, you say?--ah no!

How far, how far, O Sweet,
The past behind our feet
Lies in the even-glow!
Now, on the forward way,
Let us fold hands, and pray;
Alas, Time stays,--we go!

May-Day

THE Past is like a funeral gone by,
The Future comes like an unwelcome guest,
And some men gaze behind them to find rest
And some urge forward with a stifled sigh;
But soft perennial flowers break forth and die,
And sweet birds pair and twine a woodland nest;
They, sifting all things, find the Present best,
And garnish life with that philosophy.
Like birds, like flowers, oh! let us live To-day,
And leave To-morrow to the Fates' old fingers,
And waste no weeping over Yesterday!
Lo! round about the golden lustre lingers,
The fresh green boughs are full of choral singers,
And all the Dryades keep holiday.

Epithalamium

HIGH in the organ-loft, with lilied hair,
Love plied the pedals with his snowy foot,
Pouring forth music like the scent of fruit,
And stirring all the incense-laden air;
We knelt before the altar's gold rail where
The priest stood robed, with chalice and palm-shoot,
With music-men, who bore citole and lute,
Behind us, and the attendant virgins fair;
And so our red aurora flashed to gold,
Our dawn to sudden sun, and all the while
The high-voiced children trebled clear and cold,
The censer-boys went swinging down the aisle,
And far above, with fingers strong and sure,
Love closed our lives' triumphant overture.

"Wouldst thou not be content to die"

WOULDST thou not be content to die
When low-hung fruit is hardly clinging,
And golden Autumn passes by?

Beneath this delicate rose-gray sky,
While sunset bells are faintly ringing,
Wouldst thou not be content to die?

For wintry webs of mist on high
Out of the muffled earth are springing,
And golden Autumn passes by.

O now when pleasures fade and fly,
And Hope her southward flight is winging,
Wouldst thou not be content to die?

Lest Winter come, with wailing cry
His cruel icy bondage bringing,
When golden Autumn hath passed by.

And thou, with many a tear and sigh,
While life her wasted hands is wringing,
Shalt pray in vain for leave to die
When golden Autumn hath passed by.

A Winter Jingle

THE soft wind blows
Across the snows,
And turns the palest face to rose;
The wind it goes
Where no one knows,
Like water round the world it flows;
The sunlit air is warm and light
Though all the earth be wrapped in white.

But owlets shrill
Shriek round the hill
When twilight fades, and all is still;
The keen gusts fill
The frozen rill
With treacherous snowdrifts deep and chill;
The wanderer findeth small delight
In crossing there at dead of night.

May Morning

BREAK, long wave, below my feet!
Wind and meet,
Sea-streams that the moon hath shaken!
From the shingle white and bare,
All the air
With sonorous cadence waken!

From the distance dim and bright,
Gulphed in light,
To the long spent wave that dashes,
All the sea shines through and through
Fiery blue:
When the wind is up, it flashes.

And the milder heaven above,
Full of love,
Smiles upon the rolling ocean,
Like a woman's heart content
To be spent
And absorbed in sweet devotion.

Surely Venus through the sea
Clear and free,
Rose on such a morn as this is,
Called her doves about her there,
Heard the air
Murmur through their wings like kisses.

Out of cold green depths of foam,
Sea-nymphs' home,
To the live air, red with roses,
Came she, clothed about with light,
Warm and white,
Like a moon the mist encloses.

Like a summer moon whose limbs,
As she swims
Ever up in the pale aether,
Cast their lawny veils aside
Till they hide
Nought from the mad earth beneath her.

Though no more with reverent eyes,
Sadly wise,
Sea and air to us are holy,
Born too late for gods to bless
We profess
To be disenchanted wholly,

Though the nymphs are dead, and we
Cannot see,
Plunging in the gulfs of azure,
Long processions, gods in line,
Half divine,
Blowing horns of mellow leisure,

Yet the old sweet creeds and we
Cannot be
Always so far rent asunder,
Since we feel on such a morn
Life reborn
In the antique world of wonder.

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