IN THE ISLE OF MULL.
The clouds are gathering in their western dome,
Deep-drenched with sunlight, as a fleece with dew,
While I with baffled effort still pursue
And track these waters toward their mountain home,
In vain—though cataract, and mimic foam,
And island-spots, round which the streamlet threw
Its sister arms, which joyed to meet anew,
Have lured me on, and won me still to roam;
Till now, coy nymph, unseen thy waters pass,
Or faintly struggle through the twinkling grass—
And I, thy founts unvisited, return.
Is it that thou art revelling with thy peers?
Or dost thou feed a solitary urn,
Else unreplenished, with thine own sad tears?
THE SAME.
Sweet Water-nymph, more shy than Arethuse,
Why wilt thou hide from me thy green retreat,
Where duly Thou with silver-sandalled feet,
And every Naiad, her green locks profuse,
Welcome with dance sad evening, or unloose,
To share your revel, an oak-cinctured throng,
Oread and Dryad, who the daylight long
By rock, or cave, or antique forest, use
To shun the Wood-god and his rabble bold?
Such comes not now, or who with impious strife
Would seek to untenant meadow stream and plain
Of that indwelling power, which is the life
And which sustaineth each, which poets old
As god and goddess thus have loved to feign.
AT SEA.
The sea is like a mirror far and near,
And ours a prosperous voyage, safe from harms;
And yet the sense that everlasting arms
Are round us and about us, is as dear
Now when no sight of danger doth appear,
As though our vessel did its blind way urge
’Mid the long weltering of the dreariest surge,
Through which a perishing bark did ever steer.
Lord of the calm and tempest, be it ours,
Poor mariners! to pay due vows to thee,
Though not a cloud on all the horizon lowers
Of all our life—for even so shall we
Have greater boldness towards thee, when indeed
The storm is up, and there is earnest need.