Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere? Their lulling murmurs all in one combined? LONG time a child, and still a child, when years But now her looks are coy and cold, The love-light in her eye: HAST thou not seen an aged rifted tower, But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep, and wak- Yet, to the last, a rugged wrinkled thing ing, THE Soul of man is larger than the sky, Can make of man. Yet thou wert still the same, SONG. SHE is not fair to outward view Her loveliness I never knew Until she smiled on me; Oh! then I saw her eye was bright, To which young sweetness may delight to cling. FEAR. DIM child of darkness and faint-echoing space, But as myself, my sinful self, I own thee. TO A DEAF AND DUMB LITTLE GIRL LIKE a loose island on the wide expanse, JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. PERSECUTION. "And the woman fled into the wilderness." SAY, who is he in deserts seen, Or at the twilight hour; Of garb austere, and dauntless mien, Measured in speech, in purpose keen, Calm as in heaven he had been, Yet blithe when perils lower? My holy Mother made reply, "Dear child, it is my Priest. The world has cast me forth, and I Dwell with wild earth and gusty sky; He bears to men my mandates high, And works my sage behest. "Another day, dear child, and thou Shalt join his sacred band, Ah! well I deem, thou shrinkest now From urgent rule and severing vow; Gay hopes flit round, and light thy brow; Time hath a taming hand!” OXFORD, November 22, 1832. THE SCARS OF SIN. My smile is bright, my glance is free, But I am scann'd by Eyes unseen, Erst my good Angel shrank to see And now he scarce dare gaze on me IFFLEY, November 29, 1832. THE ISLES OF THE SIRENS. (Born 1801.) CEASE, Stranger, cease those piercing notes, The craft of Siren choirs; Hush the seductive voice that floats Upon the languid wires. Music's ethereal fire was given, Not to dissolve our clay, But draw Promethean beams from heaven, And purge the dross away. Weak self! with thee the mischief lies, The man of many woes. MEMORY. My home is now a thousand miles away; As I sped upwards, I shall on me bear, And duties given and ends I did obey. Ah! still unscared, I shall in fulness see MOSES. MOSES, the patriot fierce, became Moses, the man of meekest heart, To show, where Grace has done its part, Thou, who hast taught me in Thy fear, O grant me loss with Moses here, AT SEA, December 19, 1832. THE COURSE OF TRUTH. "Him God raised up the third day, and shewed Him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God." WHEN royal Truth, released from mortal throes, Or courted Tetrach's eye, or claim'd to rule By the world's winning grace, or proofs from learned school. But, robing him in viewless air, He told They in their turn imparted The gift to men pure-hearted, While the brute many heard His mysteries high, As some strange fearful tongue, and crouch'd, they knew not why. Still is the might of Truth, as it has been, Lodged in the few, obey'd, and yet unseen. Rear'd on lone heights, and rare, His saints their watch-flame bear, And the mad world sees the wide-circling blaze, Vain searching whence its streams, and how to quench its rays. MALTA, December 24, 1832. CORCYRA. I SAT beneath an olive's branches gray, From civil strife a hundred states to drown. Each in its self-form'd sphere of light or gloom? Henceforth, while pondering the fierce deeds then done, Such reverence on me shall its seal impress A HERMITAGE. FROM ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN. SOME One whisper'd yesterday, Of the rich and fashionable, Gregory in his own small way Easy was and comfortable. Had he not of wealth his fill Whom a garden gay did bless, And a gently trickling riil, And the sweets of idleness? I made answer:-"Is it ease Does to death his fleshy frame; Be there who in sloth are sunk, They have forfeited the name. OXFORD, 1834. JOSEPH. O PUREST Symbol of the Eternal Son! Not parent only by that light was won, Of a hid God, and drank the sound divine, Till a king heard, and all thou bad'st was done. Then was fulfill'd Nature's dim augury, That "Wisdom, clad in visible form, would be So fair, that all must love and bow the knee;" Lest it might seem, what time the Substance came, Truth lack'd a sceptre, when It but laid by Its beaming front, and bore a willing shame. LAZARET, MALTA, January 20, 1833. ISAAC. MANY the guileless years the Patriarch spent, Bless'd in the wife a father's foresight chose; Many the prayers and gracious deeds, which rose Daily thank-offerings from his pilgrim tent. THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES. LOVE'S LAST MESSAGES. MERRY, merry little stream, Tell me, hast thou seen my dear? I left him with an azure dream Calmly sleeping on his bier- (Born 1803-Died 1849). "I passed him in his church-yard bedA yew is sighing o'er his head, And grass-roots mingle with his hair." O cruel! can he lie alone? Or in the arms of one more dear? Or hiles he in that bower of stone, To cause and kiss away my fear? He doth not speak, he doth not moan-- Among the daisies sweet." Moonlight whisperer, summer air, Whether thou hast seen my love. "This night in heaven I saw him lie, Discontented with his bliss; And on my lips he left this kiss, For thee to taste and then to die." DIRGE. IF thou wilt ease thine heart And not a sorrow Hang any tear on your eyelashes; Sad soul, until the sea-wave washes The rim o' the sun to-morrow, In eastern sky. But wilt thou cure thine heart Of love and all its smart, Then die, dear, die ; "Tis deeper, sweeter, Than on a rose bank to lie dreaming And then alone, amid the bea.ning Of love's star, thou'lt meet hers In eastern sky THE Swallow leaves her nest, The soul my weary breast; But therefore let the rain On my grave Fall pure; for why complain? Since both will come again O'er the wave. The wind dead leaves and snow Doth hurry to and fro; And, once, a day shall break O'er the wave. When a storm of ghosts shall shake The dead, until they wake In the grave. A CYPRESS BOUGH, and a rose-wreath sweet, And smiling Love's alarms; Death and Hymen both are here; In youthful power and force; By him the grizard bare, Pale knight on a pale horse, Death and Hymen both are here: So up with scythe and torch, And to the old church porch, While all the bells ring clear: And rosy, rosy the bed shall bloom, And earthy, earthy heap up the tomb SONG ON THE WATER. WILD with passion, sorrow-beladen, With its gentle spirit these tamed waters, And bids the wave, with weedy tresses Embower the ocean's pavement stilly Whose eyes not born to weep, Than in our fields the lily; And sighing in their rest More sweet than is its breath; And quiet as its death Upon a lady's breast. Heart high beating, triumph-bewreathed, And kisseth their limbs o'er : A DIRGE. TO-DAY is a thought, a fear is to-morrow, Where the body's the tomb, Is buried alive in its hideous gloom. Then waste no tear, For we are the dead; the living are here, In the stealing earth, and the heavy bier. Death lives but an instant, and is but a sigh, And his son is unnamed immortality, Whose being is thine. Dear ghost, so to die Is to live, and life is a worthless lie.Then we weep for ourselves, and wish thee goodbye. THE RUNAWAY HAST no one seen my heart of you? And, if you catch him, ladies, do On earth he is no more, I hear, Upon the land or sea; For the women found the rogue so queer, They sent him back to me. In heaven there is no purchaser For such strange ends and odds, Says a Jew, who goes to Jupiter To buy and sell old gods So there's but one place more to search, A CROCODILE. HARD by the lilied Nile I saw A duskish river-dragon stretched along, A SUBTERRANEAN CITY. I FOLLOWED once a fleet and mighty serpent The mammoths, ribbed like to an arched cathedral, Lay there, and ruins of great creatures else And vegetable rocks, tall sculptured palms, nests. SWEET TO DIE. Is it not sweet to die? for, what is death, row, Spilling our woes, crushing our frozen hopes, If not the soul's most delicate delight When it does filtrate, through the pores of thought, In love and the enamelled flowers of song? |