4

But lo! again came the slanting sun-shaft, 25
Close by me pois'd on its wing,
The sweet Bird sang again,
And looking on my tearful Face
Did it not say,
'Love has arisen, 30
True Love makes its summer,
In the Heart'?

1845

C

Notebook No. 29, p. 168.

21 Feb. 1825.

My Dear Friend

I have often amused myself with the thought of a self-conscious Looking-glass, and the various metaphorical applications of such a fancy—and this morning it struck across the Eolian Harp of my Brain that there was something pleasing and emblematic (of what I did not distinctly make out) in two such Looking-glasses fronting, each seeing the other in itself, and itself in the other. Have you ever noticed the Vault or snug little Apartment which the Spider spins and weaves for itself, by spiral threads round and round, and sometimes with strait lines, so that its lurking parlour or withdrawing-room is an oblong square? This too connected itself in my mind with the melancholy truth, that as we grow older, the World (alas! how often it happens that the less we love it, the more we care for it, the less reason we have to value its Shews, the more anxious are we about them—alas! how often do we become more and more loveless, as Love which can outlive all change save a change with regard to itself, and all loss save the loss of its Reflex, is more needed to sooth us and alone is able so to do!) What was I saying? O, I was adverting to the fact that as we advance in years, the World, that spidery Witch, spins its threads narrower and narrower, still closing on us, till at last it shuts us up within four walls, walls of flues and films, windowless—and well if there be sky-lights, and a small opening left for the Light from above. I do not know that I have anything to add, except to remind you, that pheer or phere for Mate, Companion, Counterpart, is a word frequently used by Spencer (sic) and Herbert, and the Poets generally, who wrote before the Restoration (1660), before I say that this premature warm and sunny day, antedating Spring, called forth the following.

Strain in the manner of G. Herbert, which might be entitled The Alone Most Dear: a Complaint of Jacob to Rachel as in the tenth year of her service he saw in her or fancied that he saw symptoms of Alienation. N.B. The Thoughts and Images being modernized and turned into English.

(It was fancy) [Pencil note by Mrs. Gillman.]
All Nature seems at work. Snails Slugs leave their lair;
The Bees are stirring; Birds are on the wing;
And Winter slumb'ring in the open air
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring.
And
But I the while, the sole unbusy thing.
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where[1111:1]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!
? Lip unbrighten'd, wreathless B.
With unmoist Lip and 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.
I speak in figures, inward thoughts and woes
Interpreting by Shapes and outward shews:

Where daily nearer me with magic Ties,
What time and where, (wove close with magic Ties
Line over line, and thickning as they rise)
The World her spidery threads on all sides spin
Side answ'ring side with narrow interspace,
My Faith (say I; I and my Faith are one)
Hung, as a Mirror, there! And face to face
(For nothing else there was between or near)
One Sister Mirror hid the dreary Wall,
But that is broke! And with that

bright compeer
only pheere[1111:2]
I lost my object and my inmost All——
Faith in the Faith of The Alone Most Dear!

Jacob Hodiernus.

Ah! me!!

Call the World spider: and at fancy's touch
Thought becomes image and I see it such.
With viscous masonry of films and threads
Tough as the nets in Indian Forests found
It blends the Waller's and the Weaver's trades
And soon the tent-like Hangings touch the ground
A dusky chamber that excludes the day
But cease the prelude and resume the lay

FOOTNOTES:

[1111:1] Literally rendered is Flower Fadeless, or never-fading, from the Greek a not and marainō to wither.

[1111:2] Mate, Counterpart.