Though many at my feet have bowed,
And asked my love through pain and pleasure,
Fate never yet the youth has showed
Meet to receive so great a treasure.
Although sometimes my heart, deceived,
Would love because it sighed to feel,
Yet soon I changed, and sometimes grieved
Because my fancied wound would heal.
MEDITATIONS.
Sunday, May 12, 1833.
The clouds are marshalling across the sky,
Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range
Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly,
Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards
Now in their fullest blossom send, in thanks
For this refreshing shower. The birds pour forth
In heightened melody the notes of praise
They had suspended while God's voice was speaking,
And his eye flashing down upon his world.
I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living,
And, taking in this freshened beauty, tells
Its pleasure to the mind. The mind replies,
And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeating
Poetic sentiments from many a record
Which other souls have left, when stirred and satisfied
By scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heart
Sends back a hollow echo to the call
Of outward things,—and its once bright companion,
Who erst would have been answered by a stream
Of life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned,—
Can now rouse nothing better than this echo;
Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents.
Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind!
My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the things
Of Time they shall be oped no more. Too long,
Too often were they poured forth: part have sunk
Into the desert; part profaned and swollen
By bitter waters, mixed by those who feigned
They asked them for refreshment, which, turned back,
Have broken and o'erflowed their former urns.
So when ye talk of pleasure, lonely world,
And busy mind, ye ne'er again shall move me
To answer ye, though still your calls have power
To jar me through, and cause dull aching here.
Not so the voice which hailed me from the depths
Of yon dark-bosomed cloud, now vanishing
Before the sun ye greet. It touched my centre,
The voice of the Eternal, calling me
To feel his other worlds; to feel that if
I could deserve a home, I still might find it
In other spheres,—and bade me not despair,
Though "want of harmony" and "aching void"
Are terms invented by the men of this,
Which I may not forget.
In former times
I loved to see the lightnings flash athwart
The stooping heavens; I loved to hear the thunder
Call to the seas and mountains; for I thought
'Tis thus man's flashing fancy doth enkindle
The firmament of mind; 'tis thus his eloquence
Calls unto the soul's depths and heights; and still
I deified the creature, nor remembered
The Creator in his works.
Ah now how different!
The proud delight of that keen sympathy
Is gone; no longer riding on the wave,
But whelmed beneath it: my own plans and works,
Or, as the Scriptures phrase it, my "inventions"
No longer interpose 'twixt me and Heaven.
To-day, for the first time, I felt the Deity,
And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. This
Must be thy will,—for finer, higher spirits
Have gone through this same process,—yet I think
There was religion in that strong delight,
Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True,
I did not say, "He is the Lord thy God,"
But I had feeling of his essence. But
"'Twas pride by which the angels fell." So be it!
But O, might I but see a little onward!
Father, I cannot be a spirit of power;
May I be active as a spirit of love,
Since thou hast ta'en me from that path which Nature
Seemed to appoint, O, deign to ope another,
Where I may walk with thought and hope assured;
"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!"
Had I but faith like that which fired Novalis,
I too could bear that the heart "fall in ashes,"
While the freed spirit rises from beneath them,
With heavenward-look, and Phœnix-plumes upsoaring!
RICHTER.
Poet of Nature, gentlest of the wise,
Most airy of the fanciful, most keen
Of satirists, thy thoughts, like butterflies,
Still near the sweetest scented flowers have been:
With Titian's colors, thou canst sunset paint;
With Raphael's dignity, celestial love;
With Hogarth's pencil, each deceit and feint
Of meanness and hypocrisy reprove;
Canst to Devotion's highest flight sublime
Exalt the mind; by tenderest pathos' art
Dissolve in purifying tears the heart,
Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime;
The fond illusions of the youth and maid,
At which so many world-formed sages sneer,
When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed,
Our natural religion must appear.
All things in thee tend to one polar star;
Magnetic all thy influences are;
A labyrinth; a flowery wilderness.
Some in thy "slip-boxes" and honeymoons
Complain of—want of order, I confess,
But not of system in its highest sense.
Who asks a guiding clew through this wide mind,
In love of nature such will surely find,
In tropic climes, live like the tropic bird,
Whene'er a spice-fraught grove may tempt thy stray;
Nor be by cares of colder climes disturbed:
No frost the summer's bloom shall drive away;
Nature's wide temple and the azure dome
Have plan enough for the free spirit's home.
THE THANKFUL AND THE THANKLESS.
With equal sweetness the commissioned hours
Shed light and dew upon both weeds and flowers.
The weeds unthankful raise their vile heads high,
Flaunting back insult to the gracious sky;
While the dear flowers, with fond humility,
Uplift the eyelids of a starry eye
In speechless homage, and, from grateful hearts,
Perfume that homage all around imparts.