Evolves the harmony which is Life. The world
Were dead without my rays, who am the Light
Which vivifies the world. Nay, but for me,
The universal order which attracts
Sphere unto sphere, and keeps them in their paths
For ever, were no more. All things are bound
Within my golden chains, whose name is Love.
And if there be, indeed, some sterner souls,
Or sunk in too much learning, or hedged round
By care and greed, or haply too much rapt
By pale ascetic fervours, to delight
To kneel to me, the universal voice
Scorns them as those who, missing willingly
The good that Nature offers, dwelt unblest
Who might be blest, but would not. Every voice
Of bard in every age has hymned me. All
The breathing marbles, all the heavenly hues.
Of painting, praise me. Even the loveless shades
Of dim monastic cloisters show some gleam,
Tho' faint, of me. Amid the busy throngs
Of cities reign I, and o'er lonely plains,
Beyond the ice-fields of the frozen North,
And the warm waves of undiscovered seas.
For I was born out of the sparkling foam
Which lights the crest of the blue mystic wave,
Stirred by the wandering breath of Life's pure dawn
From a young soul's calm depths. There, without voice,
Stretched on the breathing curve of a young breast,
Fluttering a little, fresh from the great deep
Of life, and creamy as the opening rose,
Naked I lie, naked yet unashamed,
While youth's warm tide steals round me with a kiss, And floods each limb with fairness. Shame I know not. Shame is for wrong, and not for innocence
The veil which error grasps to hide itself
From the awful Eye. But I, I lie unveiled
And unashamed-the livelong day I lie,
The warm wave murmuring to me; and all night,
Hidden in the moonlit caves of happy Sleep,
I dream until the morning, and am glad.
Why should I seek to clothe myself, and hide
The treasure of my Beauty?
The venal charm, the simulated flush
Of fleshly passion, they are none of mine,
Only corruptions of me. Yet I know
The counterfeit the stronger, since gross souls
And brutish sway the earth; and yet I hold
That sense itself is sacred, and I deem
'Twere better to grow soft and sink in sense
Than gloat o'er blood and wrong.
My kingdom is Over infinite grades of being. All breathing things, From the least crawling insect to the brute,
From brute to man, confess me. Yet in man
I find my worthiest worship. Where man is,
A youth and a maid, a youth and a maid, nought else
Is wanting for my temple. Every clime
Kneels to me-the long breaker swells and falls
Under the palms, mixed with the merry noise
Of savage bridals, and the straight brown limbs
Know me, and over all the endless plains
I reign, and by the tents on the hot sand
And sea-girt isles am queen, and on the side
Of silent mountains, where the white cots gleam
Upon the green hill pastures, and no sound
But the thunder of the avalanche is borne
To the listening rocks around; and in fair lands
Where all is peace; where thro' the happy hush
Of tranquil summer evenings, 'mid the corn,
Or thro' cool arches of the gadding vines,
The lovers stray together hand in hand,
Hymning my praise; and by the stately streets
Of echoing cities-over all the earth,
Palace and cot, mountain and plain and sea,
The burning South, the icy North, the old
And immemorial East, the unbounded West,
No new God comes to spoil me utterly--
All worship and are mine.
Upon her rosy mouth, the goddess ceased;
And when she spoke no more, the silence weighed
As heavy on my soul as when it takes
Some gracious melody, and leaves the ear
Unsatisfied and longing, till the fount
Of sweetness springs again.
ON A BIRTHDAY
(LORD ABERDARE'S)
What shall be written of the man
Who through life's mingled hopes and fears Touches to-day our little span
Who, with force undiminished still,
A Nestor stands among his peers,
Full of youth's fire and dauntless will
At seventy years.
Who knows no creeping chill of age,
But, rich in all which life endears,
Keeps still the patriot's noble rage
Through seventy years.
The form unbent, the flashing eye,
The curious lore, the wit that cheers,
The scorn of wrong which can defy
His seventy years;
To whom no wound which mars the state,
No humblest neighbour's grief nor tears,
Appeal in vain for love or hate
These seventy years;
For whom home's happy radiance yet
A steadfast beacon-fire appears,
Bright through the storms, the stress, the fret
Of seventy years ;—
What else but this? "Brave heart, be strong,
Be of good hope; life holds no fears,
Nor death, for him who strives with wrong
For seventy years.
Live, labour, spread that sacred light
Of knowledge, which thy soul reveres ;
Fight still the old victorious fight
Of seventy years.
Live, labour, ripen to fourscore,
While still the listening Senate hears; Live till new summers blossom o'er These seventy years.
Or if a brighter, briefer lot
Withdraw thee from thy country's tears,
Be sure there is where change is not,
Nor age, nor years."
PER GL' OCCH' ALMENO NON VỀ
CLAUSURA
Perugia holds a picture wrought by one
Whose cunning hand, rich heart, and master eyes
Have drawn their mellow forces from the sun
That ripens all things 'neath Etruscan skies;
A convent wall it is that tells his tale,
Crag-built, breast-high; a grey nun leans on it,
Gazing across a sweet home-teeming vale;
And underneath for keynote has he writ―
Per gl' Occh' almeno non v'è Clausura.
We
gaze
with her, but know not whence we gaze-
Some terraced perch perchance of Apennine-
For o'er his scene he spreads a studious haze
That leaves mysterious what he found divine;
Nor
may we raise the lappet of her veil
To note if the clipped locks be gold or grey;
Nor ask whose spirit 'tis that thus breaks pale
In one sad whisper to the summer day—
Per gl Occh' almeno non v'è Claüsura.
Her eyes are messengers that go and come
To guild her soul with guesses; to make fair The chambers of her mind, grown void and numb With painless penance and with prayerless prayer; So may some manacled forgotten wretch
Watch o'er his head chance swallow-shadows flit, Blurring the shafts of light that faintly stretch Athwart the roof of his dark dungeon pitPer gl' Occh' almeno non v'è Clausura.
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