Oh! ask not, hope not thou too much
Of sympathy below;
Few are the hearts whence one same touch
Bids the sweet fountains flow:
Few—and by still conflicting powers,
Forbidden here to meet;
Such ties would make this life of ours
Too fair for aught so fleet.
It may be that thy brother's eye
Sees not as thine, which turns
In such deep reverence to the sky
Where the rich sunset burns:
It may be that the breath of spring,
Born amidst violets lone,
A rapture o'er thy soul can bring—
A dream, to his unknown.
The tune that speaks of other times—
A sorrowful delight!
The melody of distant chimes,
The sound of waves by night;
The wind that, with so many a tone,
Some chord within can thrill—
These may have language all thine own,
To him a mystery still.
Yet scorn thou not, for this, the true
And steadfast love of years;
The kindly, that from childhood grew,
The faithful to thy tears!
If there be one that o'er the dead
Hath in thy grief borne part,
And watched through sickness by thy bed—
Call his a kindred heart!
But for those bonds all perfect made,
Wherein bright spirits blend;
Like sister-flowers of one sweet shade,
With the same breeze that bend;
For that full bliss of thought allied,
Never to mortals given—
Oh! lay thy lonely dreams aside,
Or lift them unto heaven.
We follow no further the events of her biography. We have here all that reflects a light upon the poems themselves. That Welsh life among the mountains—the little girl with her Shakspeare in the apple-tree—that beauty of fifteen, full of poetry and enthusiasm and love—marriage—disappointment—and the living afterwards, with her children round her, in a condition worse than widowhood;—here is all the comment that her biography affords on her sweet and melancholy verse.
And how vividly the verse reflects the life! How redolent of nature is her poetry! how true her pictures of mountain, and forest, and river, and sky! It requires that the reader should have been himself a long and accurate observer of rural scenes, to follow her imagination, and feel the truth of her rapid and unpretending descriptions. It is singular how, without the least apparent effort, all the persons she brings before us are immediately localised on the green earth—trees wave around them, flowers spring at their feet, as if this were quite natural and unavoidable. How sweet a part does the quiet charm of nature take in the piece called
THE VOICE OF HOME TO THE PRODIGAL.
Oh! when wilt thou return
To thy spirit's early loves?
To the freshness of the morn,
To the stillness of the groves?
The summer birds are calling
The household porch around,
And the merry waters falling
With sweet laughter in their sound.