How lovely is all nature, separate
From man! There is no whispering of strife
Or sorrow here, naught to inform the soul
Of man's deep wretchedness and sin. No lust
To justify the wretch who binds his soul
In the drear darkness of a murky cell,
Scraping for gold as beasts do in the earth
For carrion, and counting life-time out
By ducats; closing house and heart alike
To the benignant sunshine. If our hearts
Could lave in Lethe's cleansing stream sometimes,
Till evil vanished from its memory,
And left a virgin tablet for the pen
Of Nature, life would be as sweet as love.
What far extremes of woe and blessedness
This earth can yield! The woe create, the joy
Begotten from a never failing womb;
Woe! fashioned out of craft, and guile, and sin,
That hungereth for prey, till, as it were,
The mother eats the babe that sucks her breast;
The joy! inherent and diffused like light
From the eternal glory of the sun,
Gather'd from all things, sight, and sound, and sense,
E'en from the very breeze that whispers us
Of yielded sweetness and unhoarded gifts.
O God! preserve my heart emancipate
From all world feelings that must die with Time,
Like things unworthy of Eternity;
Sow in my spirit seed that may spring up
And bud and increase throughout life, until
It blossom fully in the light of heaven,
Grant that the evil of the world may ne'er
Harden my heart against the sweet impress
Of Beauty, that beholding there, she see
No mirror'd image of her loveliness!
Methinks life were a curse if separate
From loving of the Good and Beautiful!
To gaze upon that azure dome, so blue
And penetrate with sunshine through and through,
As lover's eyes with fondness—the far hills,
And sun-green meadows sloping to the stream
With tints of bosky shadows, yet not feel
A motion in the spirit, like the tide
Of waving woodlands rippled by a breeze;
Better return to dust from which we sprang,
And bid the winds of heaven scatter it!
Spirit.
Love Beauty: let it be an atmosphere
Above thee and around, whence comes the breath
Of life and health and gladness. Yet beware
Thy love be not an ideality,
That, like the smile upon a sculptur'd lip,
Freezes upon the stone nor sheds abroad
The genial influence of a loving heart.
There is an aim still nobler than the love
Of Beauty; to show Beauty forth in act,
And life, that like some fertilizing stream
It glide flower-margined to Eternity.
Beauty quiescent loseth half its charms,
As a blue eye when sleep hath closed its lid;
But in its operation, 'tis a star
That leaves a track of glory on the sky;
Worst miser he who hoards up in his soul
The blessed wealth of Beauty and repels
Unbenison'd the weary at his gate.
There is a way to make life glorious,
And nobler than the heritage of kings,
Though thy path lie along a vale in life,
With mountain pride reared up on either side—
To make thy march triumphant, trailing not
The colours of thy Purpose in the dust—
And be received as victor into heaven.
Set Beauty in thy soul like a sea-light
To warn thee from the rocks and shoals of wrong,
And guide thee surely to thy journey's end;
Let her pure promptings stablish in thy heart
A living spring of motive, that may flow
Through thought and action, like the veinëd life
Through man and all his members; not for praise
Let thy work be, nor gain, but heaven and right,
And for the feeling of that sweetest sense,
That from thy sowing springeth up no tare
Of grief or bitterness, but goodly fruit
That nourisheth the heart, and gives it strength
To combat manfully for life and truth;
Look manhood in the face unblanchingly,
With no rose-coloured veil 'twixt it and thee—
With pure integrity to match the great,
And humbleness to poize thee with the small;
Look at its guilt and shame, as on deep wounds
Wherefrom a life is flowing; seek thou then
To staunch them in thy measure; mark its wrongs,
The burden of oppression and the toil
That grind the sand of life down till it run
Like water through the mighty glass of Time,
And let thy voice come like a trump to call
The faithful to the rescue. Find the weak,
And weary, and the desolate of heart,
Faint with the sorrows and the cares of life,
And let no act add to their bitter cup
One drop of gall, but like a priest do thou
Tell them of hope and peace, and gladden them
With that blest balm, pure kindness, which transforms,
With more than Magian art, the meanest act
Into the brightness of the summer sun!—
Doth not this quiet hour fall on thy soul
Like music dropping from the spheres?
Man.
Ay! sooth
It is most sweet! Methinks that such a time
Were meeter far for lover's tryst than eve,
When the dark night must sadden o'er their vows,
And hide them from each other. Now, all things
Are pure and beautiful as love should be,
The dew of youth fresh on them, and though life
Should darken o'er with clouds as it roll on,
Still love would light them on, like the bright guide
Of Israel, to the promised land of rest.
'Tis beautiful, love plighted in the morn
Of life, when not a shadow dims its heaven—
Plighted for good or ill, as fate may rule,
Enduring alike true through sun and storm,
Save when the cold blast sweeps across the way,
It knits them only closer heart to heart.