O ART, high gift of Heaven! how oft defamed
When seeming praised! To most a craft that fits,
By dead, prescriptive Rule, the scattered bits
Of gathered knowledge; even so misnamed
By some who would invoke thee; but not so
By him, the noble Tuscan,*—who gave birth
To forms unseen of man, unknown to Earth,
Now living habitants; he felt the glow
Of thy revealing touch, that brought to view
The invisible Idea; and he knew,
E'en by his inward sense, its form was true:
'T was life to life responding, - highest truth!
So, through Elisha's faith, the Hebrew Youth
Beheld the thin blue air to fiery chariots grow.
A LITTLE Conjurer before me stood.
Upon his head he wore a purple hood;
And yet no mystic word or sign
Gave tokens of his wizard power.
He seemed a modest, pretty Flower,-
Such as might grace a Poet's line,
Or Painter love in golden locks to wreathe;
Nor seemed he other till my throbbing heart
Felt in his odorous breath his mighty art:
Such breath can only magic breathe!
Scarce was my spirit of the truth aware
When straight it cleaved a thousand miles of air.
I trod, methought, my native land;
Where many a long-forgotten pleasure,
* Written on seeing this favorite flower of my childhood after an interval of many years.
Like many a spendthrift's early treasure,
Lay buried 'neath Time's dropping sand;
That ever-dropping sand that never drifts;
Though whirlwinds sweep it, still unmoved that piles
Its grain on grain; still climbing up to miles, -
To where not Himalaya lifts.
But Time, with all his load, was then as naught;
The wizard Flower had in my vision wrought
The gift to see through mountain years.
O, then how swift upon me thronging
Came every childish hope and longing,
And causeless smiles, and sunny tears
That fell as if in mockery of grief,
Making their rosy journeys from the eye
In laughing dimples for a while to lie,
Then yield a life as bright as brief!
Again the tiny Artist toiled apart
Beneath that fervid sun,·
The gay Pomegranate dropped anew,
As if to tempt his mimic powers,-
Her gold and crimson solid flowers,
That soon to fairy vases grew;
The giant Pine looked down upon the boat
Carved from his bark, and seemed in murmurs hoarse,
But gentle as the Child, to bless its course,
When that the little craft should float.
And then how long, how full of time, did seem
A single day in this my dreamed-o'er dream!
For all I saw the teeming mind
Had gifted with some wondrous story;
The aged Oak, whose moss-beard hoary
Waved to the fitful evening wind,
Was but the spirit of some Ogre, bound
In other shape, and doomed, for cruel thirst
Of infant's blood, to quit his form accursed,
Then rooted to enchanted ground.
Deep mystery! that the Soul, as not content
To see, to hear, should thus her own moods vent,
Living as 't were in all that lives!
E'en as the ever-changing Ocean,
Whether in calmèd rest or motion,
Its own transforming image gives;
Sending its terrors into hearts of stone
Till human wailing swells the dooming roar;
Or, smoothly sleeping near some fearful shore,
Dyes rocks in beauty not their own.
Ah, never will return those loving days,
So loath to part, those fond, reluctant rays
That seemed to haunt the summer's eve. And, O, what charm of magic numbers Can give me back the gentle slumbers Those weary, happy days did leave, When by my bed I saw my Mother kneel, And with her blessing took her nightly kiss? Whatever Time destroys, he cannot this,— E'en now that hallowed kiss I feel.
"O, POUR upon my soul again
That sad, unearthly strain,
That seems from other worlds to plain; Thus falling, falling from afar,
As if some melancholy star
Had mingled with her light her sighs,
And dropped them from the skies!
never came from aught below This melody of woe,
That makes my heart to overflow,
As from a thousand gushing springs,
Unknown before; that with it brings
This nameless light,— if light it be, -
That veils the world I see.
"For all I see around me wears
The hue of other spheres ;
And something blent of smiles and tears
Comes from the very air I breathe.
O, nothing, sure, the stars beneath
Can mould a sadness like to this,
So like angelic bliss."
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