March, that comes roaring, maned, with rampant paws,
And bleatingly withdraws;
March,—'tis the year's fantastic nondescript,
That, born when frost hath nipped
The shivering fields, or tempest scarred the hills,
Dies crowned with daffodils.
The month of the renewal of the earth
By mingled death and birth:
But, England! in this latest of thy years
Call it—the Month of Tears.
"UNDER THE DARK AND PINY STEEP"
Under the dark and piny steep
We watched the storm crash by:
We saw the bright brand leap and leap
Out of the shattered sky.
The elements were minist'ring
To make one mortal blest;
For, peal by peal, you did but cling
The closer to his breast.
THE BLIND SUMMIT
[A Viennese gentleman, who had climbed the Hoch-König without a guide, was found dead, in a sitting posture, near the summit, upon which he had written, "It is cold, and clouds shut out the view."—Vide the Daily News of September 10, 1891.]
So mounts the child of ages of desire,
Man, up the steeps of Thought; and would behold
Yet purer peaks, touched with unearthlier fire,
In sudden prospect virginally new;
But on the lone last height he sighs: "'Tis cold,
And clouds shut out the view."
Ah, doom of mortals! Vexed with phantoms old,
Old phantoms that waylay us and pursue,—
Weary of dreams,—we think to see unfold
The eternal landscape of the Real and True;
And on our Pisgah can but write: "'Tis cold,
And clouds shut out the view."