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STUDIES IN POETRY.

SUBLIME ILLUSTRATION.

O HENRY! always striv'st thou to be great
By thine own act-yet art thou never great
But by the inspiration of great passion.

The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up
And shape themselves: from earth to heaven they stand,
As though they were the pillars of a temple,
Built by Omnipotence in its own honor!
But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit
Is fled the mighty columns were but sand,
And lazy snakes trail o'er the level ruins!

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT ROOM.

O GIVE me, from this heartless scene releas'd,
To hear our old musician, blind and gray,
(Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kist,)
His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play,
By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,
The while I dance amid the tedded hay
With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay
Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide
Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees,
Around whose roots the fisher's boat is tied,

On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease,
And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,

Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow,
That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers,
And the gust pelting on the out-house shed
Makes the cock shrilly in the rain-storm crow,
To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe,
Ballad of ship-wreck'd sailor floating dead,
Whom his own true love buried in the sands!
Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures
Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures

The things of nature utter; birds or trees
Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves,
Or where the stiff grass 'mid the heath-plant waves,
Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY.

Besides the rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides; and within a few paces of the glaziers the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."

HAST thou a charm to stay the Morning Star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of Pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gaz'd upon thee,

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Did'st vanish from my thought: entranc'd in prayer
I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought,
Yea, with my Life, and Life's own secret Joy:
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfus'd,
Into the mighty Vision passing—there,
As in her natural form, swell'd vast to Heaven.

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstacy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my Heart, awake!
Green Vales and icy Cliffs, all join my Hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole Sovran of the Vale!
O struggling with the Darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink :
Companion of the Morning-Star at Dawn,
Thyself Earth's ROSY STAR, and of the Dawn
Co-herald! wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?
Who fill'd thy Countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee Parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Forever shattered, and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder,, and eternal foam?

And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice,
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless Torrents! silent Cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen, full Moon? Who bade the Sun
Clothe you with Rainbows? Who with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! let the Torrents, like a shout of Nations
Answer! and let the Ice-plains echo, God!

God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye Pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds !
And they too have a voice, yon piles of Snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye livery flowers that skirt the eternal Frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the Eagle's nest! Ye Eagles, play-mates of the Mountain Storm! Ye Lightnings, the dread arrows of the Clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element!

Utter forth God, and fill the Hills with Praise !

Once more, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing Peaks, Oft from whose feet the Avalanche, unheard,

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure Serene,
Into the depth of Clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou too, again, stupendous Mountain! thou,
That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy Base

Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffus'd with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of Incense, from the Earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent Sky,
And tell the Stars, and tell yon rising Sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

THE EOLIAN HARP.

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown

With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of innocence and love!)

And watch the clouds that late were rich with light,
Slow sadd'ning round, and mark the star of eve

Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be)

Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents

Snatch'd from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed! The stilly murmur of the distant sea

Tells us of silence.

And that simplest lute,

Placed lengthways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caress'd,

It pours such sweet upbraidings, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! and now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at ove
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untam'd wing!
Methinks it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world like this,
Where even the breezes, and the common air,
Contain the power and spirit of harmony.

And thus, my love, as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half closed eyelids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;

Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd,
And many idle flitting phantasies,

Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject lute!

And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts,

Dim and unhallowed, dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humble with my God.
Meek daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said, and holily disprais'd
These shapings of the unregenerate mind
Bubbles, that glitter as they rise and break
On vain philosophy's aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
Th' Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith, that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies healed me,
A sinful and most miserable man,

Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess

Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!

REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT.

Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest rose
Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our Myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch
Thick Jasmins twined; the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refreshed the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The valley of Seclusion! once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness)
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa's citizen: methought it calmed
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paused and looked
With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around,
Then eyed our cottage and gazed round again,
And sighed, and said it was a blessed place
And we were blessed. Oft with patient ear
Long-listening to the viewless skylark's note,
(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen,
Gleaming on sunny wing), In whisper'd tones
I've said to my beloved, "Such, sweet girl!
The inobstrusive song of happiness,
Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard

When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd
And the heart listens."

But the time, when first
From that low dell, steep up the stony mount
I clim'd with perilous toil and reach'd the top,
Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak mount,
The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep;

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