"The trees a welcome waved,
And lakes their margin laved,
When thy free mind
To my retreat did wind."
Then comes the Persian dialect of high love:—
"It was a summer eve,—
The air did gently heave,
While yet a low-hung cloud
Thy eastern skies did shroud;
The lightning's silent gleam
Startling my drowsy dream,
Seemed like the flash
Under thy dark eyelash.
. . . .
"I'll be thy Mercury,
Thou, Cytherea to me,—
Distinguished by thy face
The earth shall learn my place.
As near beneath thy light
Will I outwear the night,
With mingled ray
Leading the westward way."
"Let us," said Hafiz, "break up the tiresome roof of heaven into new forms,"—and with as bold a flight did this young poet pass to his "stellar duties." Then dropping to the Concord meadow again, like the tuneful lark, he chose a less celestial path
"Of gentle slope and wide,
As thou wert by my side;
I'll walk with gentle pace,
And choose the smoothest place,
And careful dip the oar,
And shun the winding shore,
And gently steer my boat
Where water-lilies float,
And cardinal flowers
Stand in their sylvan bowers."
A frivolous question has sometimes been raised whether the young Thoreau knew what love was, like the Sicilian shepherd, who found him a native of the rocks, a lion's whelp. With his poet-nature, he early gathered this experience, and passed on; praising afterwards the lion's nature in the universal god:—
"Implacable is Love,—
Foes may be bought or teased
From their hostile intent,—
But he goes unappeased
Who is on kindness bent.
"There's nothing in the world, I know,
That can escape from Love,
For every depth it goes below,
And every height above."