TO THE BLUE ANEMONE. From a long, long fervent gaze Where, like things of sculptured sleep, With the sunshine on their snows? Or can those warm tints be caught Flower! thou seem'st not born to die With thy radiant purity, But to melt in air away, And faint azure veils each hill, 311 And the lime-leaf doth not move, Flower! the laurel still may shed And the willow-leaves droop o'er Brows which love sustains no more: But by living rays refined, Thou, the trembler of the wind, Thou, the spiritual flower Sentient of each breeze and shower, Thou, rejoicing in the skies, And transpierced with all their dyes; THE SONG OF PENITENCE. 313 THE SONG OF PENITENCE.' UNFINISHED. HE pass'd from earth Without his fame,—the calm, pure, starry fame Of the world's heart, had perish'd. One alone, That song of tears found root, and by their hearths Fill'd with the piety of tenderness, Is murmur'd to their children, when his name 1 Suggested by the late Mrs. Fletcher's Story of The Lost Life, published in the Amulet for 1830. VOL. VI.. -27 I come alone, and faint I come, To nature's arms I flee; The green woods take their wanderer home, But Thou, O Father! may I turn to thee? The earliest odour of the flower, The bird's first song, is thine; Father in heaven! my dayspring's hour Pour'd its vain incense on another shrine. Therefore my childhood's once-loved scene Therefore, remembering what hath been, It is, it is-but Thou art gone, Or if the trembling shade Breathe yet of thee, with alter'd tone * THE IMAGE IN LAVA.1 THOU thing of years departed! What ages have gone by, Since here the mournful seal was set 1 The impression of a woman's form, with an infant clasped to the bosom, found at the uncovering of Herculaneum. THE IMAGE IN LAVA. Temple and tower have moulder'd, And childhood's fragile image, Babe! wert thou brightly slumbering Shut round each gentle guest? A strange, dark fate o'ertook you, Haply of that fond bosom On ashes here impress'd, Thou wert the only treasure, child! Perchance all vainly lavish'd And where it trusted, nought remain'd But thorns on which to lean. Far better, then, to perish, Thy form within its clasp, Than live and lose thee, precious one! From that impassion'd grasp. 315 |