Oft in thy little face, I find
The flitting shadows of the mind
Pass and repass, as thou dost tease
That mind with infant sophistries :-
And then, when no conclusion 's near,
Thou, like a true philosopher,
Dost seek the joyous heart again,
And leave at rest the little brain.
Fare thee well, I've found in thee
Blithe and sweet society;
Merriment in drooping pain;
Pictures given back again,
Of the pranks of childishness,
Ere I tasted of distress.
Fare thee well! may youth be slow
pass from thee, who wear'st it so;
For years are but the links of care,
To one so innocent and fair.
Around thee joy, within thee truth,
Thou 'rt worthy of perpetual youth ;-
Worthy of that delight which lies
Within thy blue and pleasant eyes;
Worthy thy mother's fond caressing :-
I owe thee, Fanny, many a blessing,
For pranks of kindliness and glee,
And words of childish charity;
For pleasures generous, light, and many,—
And therefore do I bless thee, Fanny!
AN utter wilderness of heaven and earth!
Above-no dreamlike isles Elysian,
In rest or motion on a blue abyss
Of boundless beauty, felt to be profound
As the pure silence of the ancient skies!
No solitary cloud-ship sailing by,
All by herself, with her unmurmuring prow,
Through tideless ether, ever and anon
Brought brightlier out in all her bravery,
By sudden splendours streaming from the sun,
Enamoured of the pageant from afar!
Nor yet innumerous fleet aerial,
Varying its shape to every breath that blows,
Unheard in that high clime by mortal ears,
From wedge to crescent, voyaging the light,
Like creatures in their native element
Banded for pastime in meridian day!
But all was dim; and soon the dimness grew
Darker and darker, almost black as night,
When, drowsily, at last the' eclipsed sun
Shut his faint eye-lid, and a sudden awe
Fell on me from the' obscured firmament.
Below-the sun-forsaken desert lay, Shorn of the coloured beams that beautify The naked rocks, till their old lichens burn Like rainbows, and the dusky heather moors Look up in crimson to the crimson clouds, Making one glory; soon the death of light Brought on the death of sound in streams and lochs, All hushed as frost; while the great cataract Kept falling in his forest sullenly,
Like far-off thunder deadened by the hills.
An utter wilderness of heaven and earth!
No cottage smoke-no flitting bird—no bee
Humming-no roe astir within the brake—
No red-deer belling up among the cliffs-
Silent the eagle's eyry, as if the bird
Were preying far at sea-among the mist
Mute Echo listened, listened all in vain
In her dim cavern unresponsively,
To ghost-like whisperings and mysterious sighs
Coming and going through the solitude.
I felt a syncope of soul and sense! Fancy her wings upfolded; Memory Lay in a swoon; Imagination,
In the dull eye, and in the duller ear,
Imprisoned, lost at once her heavenly dower,
And worked no wonders; like a burial-place
Was all the scene around, mere dreamless dust;
And I stood there, 'mid strange evanishings
Of thoughts and feelings dearest to my heart,
With all their sweetest, fairest imagery,
Insensate almost as the very stone
On which I leant, deep sunken in the moss,
The black moss of that quaking wilderness.
Ofttimes to me the heart of solitude
Beats cheerily, with grandeur in the cheer,
With many-pulsed life. Were I a Thrall
In some stone dungeon-cell beneath the sea,
Rock-ribbed against the music of the tides,
My finer ear could catch the melodies
Of small waves breaking foamy on the shells,
The pale pink shells of silvery-sanded shores
Of far-off isles, where plumed heads are seen
Nodding in graceful dance through palmy groves;
Or the dread diapason of the deep,
When ocean renders back unto the sky,
From the white tumult of some mid-sea cliff,
A more majestic thunder; or escaped
In soul from the' iron bondage of my frame,
The wings of some glad dove would I then take;
And, like that dove sole-sitting in a tree,
Enjoy the sylvan silence, by fair shapes
Haunted, by Dryad, or, than Dryad far
Lovelier, some simple human shepherdess
Seeking lost lamb, or floweret in the woods;
Or, in a bolder mood, the sounding plumes
Of the golden eagle I would borrow, fresh
With light and dew of morning, and aloft,
Soaring in glorious metamorphosis,
Make heaven and earth my own-as lightning quick
Mine eye-my wing far stronger than the storm.
Vain boast! for in that desert's loneliness My spirit, faithless to her sacred trust, Forsook her stay upon the past, and fell Into a mortal fit as blank as death!
In that dim trance, lo! something at my feet,
That in its wavering bloom seemed beautiful!
The beauty indistinct of form, and hue,
And motion-for the vision gently moved
Like light on water—almost dazzling-bright,
Yet in its brightness tenderly subdued
Down into faint and melancholy smiles!
With startled spirit, even as one awakes
From dreamless sleep, soon as his face is touched
By the rayed fingers of the rosy morn,
I gazed and gazed; and then the beauty grew,
Burnishing up by fine and fine degrees,
Into a happy Family of Flowers,
In their delight delighting all the desert,
Though narrow was their mossy nook of home,
The wild wide as the sea!
Nought but their own fair selves were smiling there, As if they all had sprouted suddenly,
Laden with full-blown blossoms, and with buds
Half-blown between, with stalks most delicate,
From the thin soil o'ergrown with yellow moss
That shared their beauty; or had fallen down,
Immortal flowers! from the pure coronal
Of seraph swimming through our lower skies,
One hour away from heaven!
Self-born amid the silence, like a thought,
A cheerful thought, not unembued with love,
Nor unallied to tears, almost a sigh,
Touched these sweet Harebells, for I knew their names, Even through the uncertain glimmer of their blue
And skiey beauty,-and a shower of pearls,
Shook from their petals, bathed the stalks as fine
As gossamer, and slipt along the leaves,
The tiny leaves almost invisible
Thus hid in dew, and as the dew expired,
Now greener than the green of emeralds.
Fancy, awakened by their loveliness,
Believed one moment that she heard a chime
From these blue bells, as from the magic reins
Of that green-armoured elfin chivalry,
That wont of old, beneath the moon and stars,
In many a glittering squadron, through the woods
And down the glens of Scotia to deploy,
In long succession, while the lady-fern
The cavalcade o'ershadowed, and the hind
Or shepherd lonely and belated, viewed
With beating heart, and with the holy sign
Across his bosom drawn unconsciously,
Ride by, the Fairy Queen and all her court!
But Fancy's dreams are transient in their flight,
As the thin thistle-down-those of the heart
Are in their nature permanent and pure,
As fragrance vested in the rose-bud's cell.
So, suddenly methought, those Harebells fair
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