Where fashion's high-born minions sport,
Like gilded insects on the wing;
But thence, when love had touched her soul,
To nature and to truth she stole.
From din, and pageantry, and strife,
'Midst woods and mountains, vales and plains,
She treads the paths of lowly life,
Yet in affection's bosom reigns;
No fountain scattering diamond showers,
But the sweet streamlet, edged with flowers.
MIDST the court a Gothic fountain played,
Symmetrical, but decked with carvings quaint;
Strange faces like to men in masquerade,
And here perhaps a monster, there a saint:
The spring gushed through grim mouths, of granite made,
And sparkled into basins, where it spent
Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,
Like man's vain glories, and his vainer troubles.
Silence and twilight here, twin-sisters, keep
Their noon-day watch, and sail among the shades
Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,
Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
Images all the woven boughs above,
And each depending leaf, and every speck
Of azure sky, darting between their chasms;
Nor aught else in the liquid mirror lave
Its portraiture, but some inconstant star,
Between one foliaged lattice, twinkling fair;
Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon;
Or gorgeous insect, floating motionless,
Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.
EARKEN, sweet Peona!
Beyond the matron-people of Latona,
Which we should see, but for these darkening boughs,
Lies a deep hollow, from whose ragged brows
Bushes and trees do lean all round athwart,
And meet so nearly, that with wings outraught,
And spreading tail, a vulture could not glide
Past them, but he must brush on every side.
Some mouldered steps lead into this cool cell,
Far as the slabbed margin of a well,
Whose patient level peeps its crystal eye
Right upward, through the bushes, to the sky.
Oft have I brought thee flowers, on their stalks set
Like vestal primroses, but dark velvet
Edges them round, and they have golden pits:
'Twas there I got them, from the gaps and slits
In a mossy stone, that sometimes was my seat,
When all above was faint with mid-day heat.
And there in strife, no burning thoughts to heed,
I'd bubble up the water through a reed;
So reaching back to boyhood: make me ships
Of moulted feathers, touchwood, alder chips,
With leaves stuck in them; and the Neptune be
Of their petty ocean. Oftener, heavily,
When lovelorn hours had left me less a child,
I sat contemplating the figures wild
Of o'er-head clouds melting the mirror through.
GUSH of waters, faint, and sweet, and wild,
Like the far echo of the voice of years;
The ancient Nature, singing to her child
The self-same hymn that lulled the infant spheres.
A spell of song not louder than a sigh,
Yet speaking like a trumpet to the heart;
And thoughts that lift themselves, triumphingly,
O'er time, where time has triumphed over art ;
As wild-flowers climb its ruins, haunt it still,
While still, above the consecrated spot,
Lifts up its prophet voice the ancient rill,
And flings its oracles along the grot.
But where is she, the lady of the stream,
And he, whose worship was, and is a dream?
Silent, yet full of voices; desolate,
Yet filled with memories, like a broken heart.
Oh! for a vision like to his who sate
With thee, and with the moon and stars, apart,
By the cool fountain, many a livelong even,
That speaks unheeded to the desert now,
When vanished clouds had left the air all heaven,
And all was silent, save the stream and thou,
Egeria-solemn thought upon his brows,
For all his diadem,-thy spirit-eyes,
His only homage, and the flitting boughs
And birds, alone, between him and the skies.
Each outward sense expanded to a soul,
And every feeling tuned into a truth,
And all the bosom's shattered strings made whole,
And all its worn-out powers retouched with youth,
Beneath thy spell, that chastened while it charmed;
Thy words, that touched the spirit while they taught;
Thy look, that uttered wisdom while it warmed,
And moulded fancy in the stamp of thought,
And breathed an atmosphere below, above,
Light to the soul, and to the senses, love.
Beautiful dreams, that haunt the younger earth,
In poet's pencil, or in minstrel's song,
Like sighs, or rainbows, dying in their birth,
Perceived a moment, and remembered long!
Oh, no! bright visions, fables of the heart!
Not to the past alone do ye belong;
Types for all ages, wove when early art
To feeling gave a voice, to truth a tongue!
Oh, what if gods have left the Grecian mount,
And shrines are voiceless on the classic shore,
And lone Egeria by the gushing fount
Waits for her monarch-lover never more.
Who hath not his Egeria?-some sweet thought,
Shrouded and shrined within his heart of hearts,
More closely cherished, and more fondly sought,
Still, as the daylight of the soul departs;
The visioned lady of the spring, that wells
In the green valley of his brighter years,
Or gentle spirit that for ever dwells,
And sings of hope, beside the fount of tears!
HE fountain's depths were dim and chill,
Though summer smiled upon the plain,
Though gaily sang the tinkling rill,
And softly chimed the distant main ; The blossoms, springing by its side, Sheds down their hues upon its wave,
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