All nature was a treasury which their hearts
Rifled and coin'd in passion; the soft grass,
The bee's blue palace in the violet's bell;
The sighing leaves which, as the day departs,
The light breeze stirreth with a gentle swell;
The stiller boughs blent in one emerald mass,
Whence, rarely floating liquid Eve along,
Some unseen linnet sent its vesper song;
All furnish'd them with images and words,
And thoughts which spoke not, but lay hush'd like prayer;
Their love made life one melody, like birds,
And circled earth with its own rosy air.
What in that lovely climate doth the breast
Interpret not into some sound of love?
Canst thou ev'n gaze upon the hues that rest,
Like the god's smile, upon the pictured dream
Limn'd on mute canvas by the golden Claude,
Nor feel thy pulses as to music move?—
Nor feel thy soul by some sweet presence awed?
Nor know that presence by its light,—and deem
The Landscape breathing with a Voice Divine,
"Love, for the land on which ye gaze is mine?"
III.
But all round them was life—the living scene,
The real sky, and earth, and wave, and air:
The turf on which Egeria's steps had been,
The shade, stream, grotto, which had known her care.
Still o'er them floated an inspiring breath—
The fragrance and the melody of song—
The legend—glory—verse—that vanquish'd death
Still through the orange glades were borne along,
And sunk into their souls to swell the hoard
Of those rich thoughts the miser Passion stored!
IV.
But they required no fuel to the flame
Which burn'd within them, all undyingly;
No scene to steep their passion in romance,
No spell from outward nature to enhance
The nature at their bosoms: all the same
Their love had been if cast upon a rock,
And frown'd on from the Arctic's haggard sky.
Nay, ev'n the vices and the cares, which move
Like waves o'er that foul ocean of dull life,
That rolls through cities in a sullen strife
With heaven, had raged on them, nor in the shock
Crumbled one atom from their base of love.
And, like still waters, poesy lay deep
Within the hush'd yet haunted soul of each;
And the fair moon, and all the stars that steep
Heaven's silence and its spirit in delight,
Had with that tide a sympathy and speech!
For them there was a glory in the night,
A whisper in the forest, and the air;
Love is the priest of Nature, and can teach
A world of mystery to the few that share,
With self-devoted faith, the wingèd Flamen's care.
V.
In each lay poesy—for Woman's heart
Nurses the stream, unsought, and oft unseen;
And if it flow not through the tide of art,
Nor woo the glittering daylight—you may ween
It slumbers, but not ceases; and, if check'd
The egress of rich words, it flows in thought,
And in its silent mirror doth reflect
Whate'er Affection to its banks has brought.
This makes her love so glowing and so tender,
Dyeing it in such deep and dreamlike hues;
Earth—Heaven—creative Genius—all that render,
In man, their wealth and homage to the muse;
Do but, in her, enrich the heart, and throng
To centre there what men disperse in song.
O treasure! which awhile the world outweighs
That blessèd human heart Youth calls its own!
Measure the space some envied Cæsar sways
With that which stretches from the heavenly throne
Into the Infinite;—and then compare
All after-conquests in the dim and dull
Bounds of the Real, with the realms that were
Youth's, when its reign was o'er the Beautiful!
He who loves nobly and is nobly loved
Is lord of the Ideal. Could it last!
It doth—it doth! lasts mournful but unmoved,
In the still Ghost-land that reflects the Past.
Age will forget its wintry yesterday,
But not one sunbeam that rejoiced its May;
Showing, perchance, that all which we resume
Of this hard life, beyond the Funeral River,
Are the fair blossoms of the age of bloom;
And hearts mourn most the things that live for ever.
VI.
Twice glided through her course the wandering Queen
Who rules the stars and deeps, since first they met.
'Tis eve once more, that earliest hour, serene
With the last light, before the sun hath set;
And Zoe waits her lover on the hill,
Waits, looking forth afar:—The parting ray
Of the reluctant Day-god linger'd still;
Aslant it glinted through the pinewood boughs,
Broadly to rest upon the ruins grey,
That at her feet in desolate glory lay.
Through chasm and chink, the myrtle's glossy green,
Votive of old to Cytheræa's brows—
Rose over wrecks, and smiled: And there, like Grief
Close-neighbouring Love, the aloe forced between
Myrtle with myrtle clasp'd—its barbèd leaf.
Where Zoe stands, the Cæsar's Palace stood,
And from that lofty terrace ye survey,
Naked within their thunder-riven tomb,
The bones of that dead Titaness call'd Rome.
Beyond, the Tiber, through the Latian Plain
With many a lesser sepulchre bestrew'd,
Mourn'd songless onward to the Tyrrhene main;
Around, in amphitheatre afar
The hills lay basking in the purple sky;
Till all grew grey, and Maro's shepherd-star
Look'd through the silence with a loving eye.
And soft from silver clouds stole forth the Moon,
Hush'd as if still she watch'd Endymion.
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