HIGH is our calling, friend! Creative art-
Whether the instrument of words she use
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues-
Demands the service of a mind and heart,
Though sensitive, yet in their weakest part
Heroically fashioned, to infuse
Faith in the whispers of the lonely Muse
While the whole world seems adverse to desert.
And O, when Nature sinks, as oft she may,
Through long lived pressure of obscure distress,
Still to be strenuous for the bright reward
And in the soul admit of no decay,
Brook no continuance of weak-mindedness-
Great is the glory, for the strife is hard!
How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright
The effluence from yon distant mountain's head,
Which, strewn with snow smooth as the sky can shed,
Shines like another sun on mortal sight
Uprisen, as if to check approaching Night
And all her twinkling stars! Who now would tread, If so he might, yon mountain's glittering headTerrestrial, but a surface by the flight
Of sad mortality's earth sullying wing
Unswept, unstained? Nor shall the aërial powers
Dissolve that beauty, destined to endure,
White, radiant, spotless, exquisitely pure,
Through all vicissitudes, till genial Spring
Has filled the laughing vales with welcome flowers.
INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE.
TAX not the royal saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the architect who planned,
Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white-robed scholars only, this immense
And glorious work of fine intelligence!
Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less or more.
So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof,
Self-poised and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on as loath to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine,
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony with instinct more divine-
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam,
True to the kindred points of heaven and home!
SCORN not the sonnet; critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours. With this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
Camoens soothed with it an exile's grief;
The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glowworm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from fairy-land
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!
HOPE rules a land forever green:
All powers that serve the bright-eyed queen
Are confident and gay;
Clouds at her bidding disappear;
Points she to aught? the bliss draws near,
And fancy smooths the way.
Not such the land of wishes-there
Dwell fruitless day-dreams, lawless prayer,
And thoughts with things at strife;
Yet how forlorn, should ye depart,
Ye superstitions of the heart,
How poor were human life!
When magic lore abjured its might,
Ye did not forfeit one dear right,
One tender claim abate;
Witness this symbol of your sway,
Surviving near the public way-
The rustic Wishing-gate!
Inquire not if the fairy race
Shed kindly influence on the place
Ere northward they retired;
If here a warrior left a spell,
Panting for glory as he fell,
Or here a saint expired.
Enough that all around is fair,
Composed with Nature's finest care
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