Sogna il guerriér le schiere,
Le sel ve il cacciatór;
E sogna il pescatór;
Le reti, e l' amo. Metastatio.
Love knoweth every form of air,
And every shape of earth,
And comes, unbidden, everywhere,
Like thought's mysterious birth.
The moonlight sea and the sunset sky
Are written with Love's words,
And you hear his voice unceasingly,
Like song in the time of birds.
He peeps into the warrior's heart
From the tip of a stooping plume,
And the serried spears, and the many men
May not deny him room.
He'll come to his tent in the weary night,
And be busy in his dream;
And he'll float to his eye in morning light
Like a fay on a silver beam.
He hears the sound of the hunter's gun,
And rides on the echo back,
And sighs in his ear like a stirring leaf,
And flits in his woodland track.
The shade of the wood, and the sheen of the river,
The cloud, and the open sky—
He will haunt them all with his subtle quiver,
Like the light of your very eye.
The fisher hangs over the leaning boat,
And ponders the silver sea,
For Love is under the surface hid,
And a spell of thought has he.
He heaves the wave like a bosom sweet,
And speaks in the ripple low,
Till the bait is gone from the crafty line,
And the hook hangs bare below.
He blurs the print of the scholar's book,
And intrudes in the maiden's prayer.
And profanes the cell of the holy man,
In the shape of a lady fair.
In the darkest night, and the bright daylight,
In earth, and sea, and sky,
In every home of human thought,
Will Love be lurking nigh.
STARLIGHT.
The evening star will twinkle presently.
The last small bird is silent, and the bee
Has gone into his hive, and the shut flowers
Are bending as if sleeping on the stem,
And all sweet living things are slumbering
In the deep hush of nature's resting time.
The faded West looks deep, as if its blue
Were searchable, and even as I look,
The twilight hath stole over it, and made
Its liquid eye apparent, and above
To the far-stretching zenith, and around,
As if they waited on her like a queen,
Have stole out the innumerable stars
To twinkle like intelligence in heaven.
Is it not beautiful, my fair Adel?
Fit for the young affections to come out
And bathe in like an element! How well
The night is made for tenderness—so still
That the low whisper, scarcely audible,
Is heard like music, and so deeply pure
That the fond thought is chastened as it springs
And on the lip made holy. I have won
Thy heart, my gentle girl! but it hath been
When that soft eye was on me, and the love
I told beneath the evening influence
Shall be as constant as its gentle star.