FANTASIE TO LAURA.
What, Laura, say, the vortex that can draw
Body to body in its strong control;
Beloved Laura, what the charmèd law
That to the soul attracting plucks the soul?
It is the charm that rolls the stars on high,
For ever round the sun's majestic blaze—
When, gay as children round their parent, fly
Their circling dances in delighted maze.
Still, every star that glides its gladsome course,
Thirstily drinks the luminous golden rain;
Drinks the fresh vigour from the fiery source,
As limbs imbibe life's motion from the brain;
With sunny motes, the sunny motes united
Harmonious lustre both receive and give,
Love spheres with spheres still interchange delighted,
Only through love the starry systems live.
Take love from Nature's universe of wonder,
Each jarring each, rushes the mighty All.
See, back to Chaos shock'd, Creation thunder;
Weep, starry Newton—weep the giant fall!
Take from the spiritual scheme that Power away,
And the still'd body shrinks to Death's abode.
Never—love not—would blooms revive for May,
And, love extinct, all life were dead to God.
And what the charm that at my Laura's kiss,
Pours the diviner brightness to the cheek;
Makes the heart bound more swiftly to its bliss,
And bids the rushing blood the magnet seek—
Out from their bounds swell nerve, and pulse, and sense,
The veins in tumult would their shores o'erflow;
Body to body rapt—and charmèd thence,
Soul drawn to soul with intermingled glow.
Mighty alike to sway the flow and ebb
Of the inanimate Matter, or to move
The nerves that weave the Arachnèan web
Of Sentient Life—rules all-pervading Love!
Ev'n in the Moral World, embrace and meet
Emotions—Gladness clasps the extreme of Care;
And Sorrow, at the worst, upon the sweet
Breast of young Hope, is thaw'd from its despair.
Of sister-kin to melancholy Woe,
Voluptuous Pleasure comes, and with the birth
Of her gay children, (golden Wishes,) lo,
Night flies, and sunshine settles on the earth![15]
The same great Law of Sympathy is given
To Evil as to Good, and if we swell
The dark account that life incurs with Heaven,
'Tis that our Vices are thy Wooers, Hell!
In turn those Vices are embraced by Shame
And fell Remorse, the twin Eumenides.
Danger still clings in fond embrace to Fame,
Mounts on her wing, and flies where'er she flees.
Destruction marries its dark self to Pride,
Envy to Fortune: when Desire most charms,
'Tis that her brother Death is by her side,
For him she opens those voluptuous arms.
The very Future to the Past but flies
Upon the wings of Love—as I to thee;
O, long swift Saturn, with unceasing sighs,
Hath sought his distant bride, Eternity!
When—so I heard the oracle declare—
When Saturn once shall clasp that bride sublime,
Wide-blazing worlds shall light his nuptials there—
'Tis thus Eternity shall wed with Time.
In those shall be our nuptials! ours to share
That bridenight, waken'd by no jealous sun;
Since Time, Creation, Nature, but declare
Love—in our love rejoice, Beloved One!