V.
We are ambitious overmuch in life,
Straining at ends of hard accomplishment,
And goaded onward by poor discontent,
We build our little Babels up through strife,
And bitterness of soul, and motions rife
With passions that oft slay the innocent,
Like Priests of Lust plunging the cruel knife
Into the victims of their wilderment.
Not thus do thou, but with a patient hand
Place thou thine acorn in the fertile soil,
Labouring ever with unhurtful toil,
And cheerful hope until the seed expand,
Grow with the strength of truth, and ripening Time,
And stand at last in majesty sublime.
VI.
Mountains! and huge hills! wrap your mighty forms
Close with mantle of eternal cloud;
Gather around ye the fierce band of storms;
And let the stainless snow-drift be your shroud.
Back from your rugged steeps, and caverns hoar
Bellow in hoarse disdain the tempest's roar;
Laugh at the rolling thunder; let the flash
Of its fierce lightning lumine but your scorn;
Down your deep-furrow'd slopes let torrents dash,
And on the winds their hollow rage be borne.
Ye mighty ones! Why should ye bow your pride,
And doff your venerable crowns, or dress
Your wrinkled brows in smiles, or lay aside
The dread insignias of your mightiness!
VII.
To Ella.
Ofttimes I gaze upon thine eyes, fair child,
Till sense forgets all but the beautiful,
And my entranced and raptured heart is full
Of blissful visions, pure, and bland, and mild
In their o'erstealing, as the rosy sleep
That falls upon an infant, wafting it
In balmy dreams to heaven. Within the deep
The thrilling sea of their blue loveliness,
By sun-reflected gleams of heaven uplit,
My spirit bathes in sweet unconsciousness
Of aught material, and oft doth drink
Of beauty there, whose freshness never dies,
Till, pleasure-lapt, it feels as it could sink
Beneath the waves, and enter paradise.