Garden Thoughts — The Three Days.
Ως κάρτα σοῦ νῦν μνείαν ἐχω.—Medea.
THREE days, like sister Graces, hand in hand,
And never one without the others, rise
Before me, oh! how oft, with haunting eyes
Of sad unearthly beauty-such a band
The painter conjures up in his dream-land,
And o'er his art, which cannot chain them, sighs.
One shall I sing amid these "memories,"
When Helen's eye my college garden scann'd;
The second has no mark of note, unless
It be its luxury of idleness:
When on the grass, with mind o'erwrought, I lay
Vacantly gazing on the summer sky
From morn till eve, the elm-shade chequer❜dly
Shifting athwart my face, the livelong day.
* See Sonnet 119, "The Lime Tree Avenue."
Garden Thoughts - The Third Day.
(I speak of one from many singled out),
One of those heavenly days which cannot die."
"The immortal spirit of one happy day
Lingers beside that rill, in vision clear."
THE Third excels its fellows, as a Queen
Thron'd mid her peers; among the stars, the Moon;
Or, as, when Paris gave the golden boon,
Venus outshone, on Ida's summit green,
Her Goddess rivals whom she stood between.
Ah! happy day, yet sad; begun too soon,
And too soon o'er; when by the swans in June,
Sailing on Thames, and only them was seen,
Shelter'd behind their cygnet-brooded isle,
My lingering boat near Hampton's stately pile,
When she, my heart's hope, by me sate serene,
Unguessing my long passion, nor let sink
Her pure eyes from my gaze-O God! to think
On what I am, and what I might have been!
"A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet."-WORDSWORTH.
HER face pure Grecian: the vermilion lips,
Half open'd by a kind smile's wave-like curl,
Disclosed two lucid rows of tempting pearl :
Her cheek, like fresh Aurora's finger-tips,
Or summer pinks whereat the wild bee sips:
Her locks, more graceful than the woodbine's whirl,
And glossier than the silk threads that enfurl
The chrysalis; and black as hawthorn hips.
Her eyes, wells of affection fathomless,
Fring'd with the drooping lash of modesty:
Her polish'd brow, the very cage of thought,
Behind the temples blue-vein'd network caught:
Blue-vein'd her neck and hand; and floatingly
In every motion grace and gentleness.
Earden Thoughts- Reflection on the Foregoing-Love's Antidote.
Ερως γὰρ ἄργον κ' απι τοῖς ἀργοῖς ἔφυ
φιλεῖ κάτοπτρα, καὶ κομὴς ξανθίσματα
pεúyεi de μóxlovs.-EURIP. Frag.
"Love is the passion of an indolent mind."-THEOPHRASTUS.
"Otia si tollas, periere Cupidinis artes
Contemptæque jacent et sine luce faces."-OVID.
"E pero leva su, vinci l'ambrascia,
Con l'animo che vinci ogni battaglia,
Il col suo grave corpo non s'accascia."-DANTE.
UNHAPPY lovers, slaves of vain regret,
Behold the talisman for your distress
for Love was born of Idleness;
Upon a summer bank, with dewdrops wet,
With starry oxlip sprent, and violet
Blue-gleaming in a mirror he doth dress
His glowing locks to order'd loveliness:
On sport and play his very heart is set ;
His labour, luxury and dalliance:
"Tis in unguarded moments he doth pass,
Still foe, into the bosom's citadel.
Beware his stratagems and snares; the dance,
The vacant mind, the wine-cup, and the glass;
And in its fortress safe the heart shall dwell.
Garden Thoughts - Reflection on the Foregoing.
"Love sits on a despotic throne,
And reigns a tyrant, if he reigns at all."-BARBAULD.
"Rouse thyself, and the weak, wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous hold,
And like a dewdrop from the lion's mane
Be shook to air."
Nor while he builds his nest, the imperial bird
Feels his breast glow with fierce instinctive fire;
The soldier starts from languishing desire,
When the first cannon's distant boom is heard.
By other lust than love's, the merchant stirr'd,
Cheapens the tapestries of purple Tyre;
Far other visionary dreams inspire
The cell of student poring o'er the word
Of the primeval sages:-therefore shun
Leisure-for Love will make himself no shrine
In minds that temple other Deities.
The whole heart's worship he demands, or none; And like the "wandering voice," Spring's earliest
Haunts but unpeopled shades, and in them sighs!
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