Oh! yet one smile, tho' dark may lower Around thee clouds of woe and ill, Let me yet feel that I have power, Mid Fate's bleak storms, to soothe thee still.
Tho' sadness be upon thy brow, Yet let it turn, dear love, to me, I cannot bear that thou should'st know Sorrow I do not share with thee.
If aught of oaten stop, or past'ral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own solemn springs, Thy springs and dying gales, O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed;
In vain thou bid’st me strike the lyre, And sing a song of mirth and glee, Or, kindling with poetic fire, Attempt some higher minstrelsy; In vain, in vain! for every thought That issues from this throbbing brain, Is from its first conception fraught With gloom and darkness, woe and pain. From earliest youth my path has been Cast in life’s darkest, deepest shade, Where no bright ray did intervene, Nor e’er a passing sunbeam strayed; But all was dark and cheerless night, Without one ray of hopeful light. From childhood, then, through many a shock,
Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare.— Confess. St. August. Earth, ocean, air, belovèd brotherhood! If our great Mother has imbued my soul With aught of natural piety to feel Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of Misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on Day and night, and night and day, Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel's track; Whilst above, the sunless sky, Big with clouds, hangs heavily, And behind, the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet, Riving sail, and cord, and plank, Till the ship has almost drank Death from the o'er-brimming deep;
I The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom— Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings Of waters—with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume, In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
Ye distant spires, ye antique tow'rs, That crown the wat'ry glade, Where grateful Science still adores Her Henry's holy Shade; And ye, that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowr's among Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way.
Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade, Ah, fields belov'd in vain, Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain!
There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine, And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine In cataract after cataract to the sea. Behind the valley topmost Gargarus Stands up and takes the morning: but in front The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel, The crown of Troas.
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