Oh! Soul of balsam calm, sweet rural scene!
Thy spirit hand hath led me back again,
By pebbly paths, to mossy couches green,
And where the glowworm and the moth have lain,
To lie and dream!
Or on some warm and soothing rock,
Supine, to watch the white clouds flee and flock,
On everchanging wings,
Of childhood's sweet imaginings.
Or seeking out some shadowy stream,
Where playful fishes flash and gleam, and vanish,
A wild thing too, dull leaden footed care to banish,
How I would seem!
Along the smoky autumn afternoon,
Where fall the brown leaves, wandring aimlessly,
What song of forest pine, what wild bird's tune,
Hath waked me not to life, but still to be
A spirit wild!
To cut me from the hickory bough,
A whistle piping music sweet enow,
And on the swinging vine,
As free as Bacchus, munch the wine,
From purple festoons undefiled;
Or with the wild winds sport from hill to hill,
As happy as the dewy balm they drink and spill,—
Their nameless child.
Or where the rain falls, patt'ring in the dust,
Of winding lanes, to seek no shelt'ring place,
But bare the soul to greet the coolly gust,
And laugh to feel the cold rain in the face.
What joys are mine,
Of haunted nook, and hidden dingle,
Where life and dimpling mirth, may meet and mingle,
And clear melodious plot,
To pipe sweet ditties of their lot,
Till the sad soul that did repine,
Shall wake to consciousness as sweet and wild,
As some lone promise-mother's dreaming of her child,
And as divine!
Along these paths what amorous gods have pass'd!
What wood nymphs vanished down these shadowy lanes!
What happy olden memories here may last
Of shepherd lassies and great amorous swains,
In jocund dance;
Or fairy Mab, the merry queen,
Hath led her pageantry upon the green,
In delicate rigadoon,
Along the midnight's charmed noon!
But not of these my soul's entrance,
If now the mock bird, warbling wildwood notes,
In rich liquidity of myriad tuneful throats,
Tells his romance.
Or if the red bird preen his richest plume
Upon the dogwood bough; or crested jay,
Hid in some leafy oak's sequestered gloom,
Shall fret and chatter all the live long day.
Perchance to hear
Some music, fainter than a dream,
Range on its pinions till the soul must deem
That it is there and know
It hath been ever singing so.
And thus to grow as fine and clear—
Like wild-wood sound to come, to dream, to die,—
And only pray nought else to charm the spirit's eye,
The spirit's ear. |