some divine goodness, which we may not attain, yet toward which we must perpetually aspire." O WORLD! O LIFE! O TIME! O WORLD! O Life! O Time! On whose last steps I climb, Trembling at that where I had stood before, Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar TO THE MOON ART thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, Among the stars that have a different birth, – And ever-changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy? A DIRGE ROUGH wind, that moanest loud I FEAR THY KISSES I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden ; I ARISE from dreams of thee Hath led me who knows how? The wandering airs they faint Oh lift me from the grass! ONE WORD IS TOO OFTEN PROFANED ONE word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it. One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, I can give not what men call love; The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not: LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY I THE fountains mingle with the river II See, the mountains kiss high heaven, THE CLOUD I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, I bear light shade for the leaves when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 't is my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, Lured by the love of the genii that move Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depths of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, That orbed maiden with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Like strips of the sky fallen thro' me on high, I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, From cape to cape with a bridge-like shape, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof; The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch thro' which I march When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, I am the daughter of earth and water, I pass thro' the pores of the ocean and shores; For after the rain, when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, – And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. |