Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Hence, viper thoughts, that coil Deep is the air and dark, substantial, around my mind, Reality's dark dream! I turn from you, and listen to the wind, Thou actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! Thou mighty poet, e'en to frenzy bold! What tell'st thou now about? 'Tis of the rushing of a host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting woundsAt once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold! But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence! And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans, and tremulous shudderings-all is over It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud! A tale of less affright, And tempered with delight, As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, 'Tis of a little child Not far from home, but she hath black, est it, An ebon mass: methinks thou pierc 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 living 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 elements! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise! Thou too, 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 bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, To rise before me- - Rise, O ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth! Place, titles, salary — a gilded chain-I told her of the knight that wore hath slain? are not Greatness and goodness means, but ends! Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good great man?-three treasures, love and light, And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath:And three firm friends, more sure than day and nightHimself, his Maker, and the angel Death. I told her how he pined: and ah! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love, Interpreted my own. She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes, and modest grace; And she forgave me, that I gazed |