And told the dreary lengths of years I must drag my weight with me; Or be like a mastless ship stuck fast On a deep, stagnant sea. A man on a dangerous height alone, If suddenly struck blind, Will never his home path find.
When divers plunge for ocean's pearls, And chance to strike a rock, Who plunged with greatest force below Receives the heaviest shock. With nostrils wide and breath drawn in, I rushed resolved on the race; Then, stumbling, fell in the chase.
Yet with time's cycles forests swell Where stretched a desert plain: Time's cycles make the mountains rise Where heaved the restless main: On swamps where moped the lonely stork, In the silent lapse of time Stands a city in its prime.
I thought: then saw the broadening shade Grow slowly over the mound, That reached with one long level slope Down to a rich vineyard ground: The air about lay still and hushed, As if in serious thought: But I scarcely heeded aught,
Till I heard, hard by, a thrush break forth, Shouting with his whole voice, So that he made the distant air And the things around rejoice. My soul gushed, for the sound awoke Memories of early joy: I sobbed like a chidden boy.
Sonnet: Early Aspirations
How many a throb of the young poet-heart, Aspiring to the ideal bliss of Fame, Deems that Time soon may sanctify his claim Among the sons of song to dwell apart.— Time passes—passes! The aspiring flame Of Hope shrinks down; the white flower Poesy Breaks on its stalk, and from its earth-turned eye Drop sleepy tears instead of that sweet dew Rich with inspiring odours, insect wings Drew from its leaves with every changing sky, While its young innocent petals unsunn'd grew. No more in pride to other ears he sings, But with a dying charm himself unto:— For a sad season: then, to active life he springs.
From the Cliffs: Noon
The sea is in its listless chime: Time's lapse it is, made audible,— The murmur of the earth's large shell. In a sad blueness beyond rhyme It ends: sense, without thought, can pass No stadium further. Since time was, This sound hath told the lapse of time.
No stagnance that death wins,—it hath The mournfulness of ancient life, Always enduring at dull strife. As the world's heart of rest and wrath, Its painful pulse is in the sands. Last utterly, the whole sky stands, Grey and not known, along its path.