THE BEINGS OF THE MIND. "The beings of the mind are not of clay; And multiply in us a brighter ray, And more beloved existence; that which Fate BYRON. COME to me with your triumphs and your woes, In the deep shadow of a voiceless thought; 'Midst the glad music of the spring alone, And sorrowful for visions that are gone! Come to me! make your thrilling whispers heard, That bursts from grief, like lightning from a cloud, Come to me! visit my dim haunt!-the sound Of hidden springs is in the grass beneath; The stock-dove's note above; and all around, The poesy that with the violet's breath Floats through the air, in rich and sudden streams, Mingling, like music, with the soul's deep dreams. Friends, friends!-for such to my lone heart ye are― Unchanging ones; from whose immortal eyes The glory melts not as a waning star, And the sweet kindness never, never dies; THE BEINGS OF THE MIND. Bright children of the bard! o'er this green dell Pass once again, and light it with your spell! Imogen! fair Fidele! meekly blending 99 1 135 In patient grief, "a smiling with a sigh:' And thou, Cordelia! faithful daughter, tending That sire, an outcast to the bitter sky; Thou of the soft low voice!-thou art not gone! Still breathes for me its faint and flute-like tone. And come to me!-sing me thy willow-strain, In thy beseeching glance, where still, though vain, Come, bowing thy young head to wrong and scorn, As a frail hyacinth, by showers o'erborne. And thou, too, fair Ophelia! flowers are here That well might win thy footstep to the spotPale cowslips, meet for maiden's early bier, And pansies for sad thoughts,2-but needed not! Come with thy wreaths, and all the love and light In that wild eye still tremulously bright. And Juliet, vision of the south! enshrining "Nobly he yokes A smiling with a sigh." Cymbeline. "Here's pansies for you—that's for thoughts." Hamlet. Thou, making death deep joy!-but could'st thou die? No!-thy young love hath immortality! From earth's bright faces fades the light of morn, THE LYRE'S LAMENT. "A large lyre hung in an opening of the rock, and gave forth its melancholy music to the wind-but no human being was to be seen." A DEEP-TONED lyre hung murmuring "O melancholy wind," it sigh'd, "What would thy breath with me? "Thou can'st not wake the spirit That in me slumbering lies, Thou strikest not forth th' electric fire "Wind of the dark sea-waters! Thou dost but sweep my strings Into wild gusts of mournfulness, Salathiel. THE LYRE'S LAMENT. "But the spell-the gift-the lightning— Within my frame conceal'd, Must I moulder on the rock away, "I have power, high power, for freedom I have sounds that through the ancient hills "I have pealing notes of victory That might welcome kings from war; I have rich deep tones to send the wail For a hero's death afar. "I have chords to lift the pæan From the temple to the sky, Full as the forest-unisons When sweeping winds are high. 137 "And love-for love's lone sorrow "Soft-spiritual—mournful— Sighs in each note enshrined- Thou canst not, ocean-wind! "I pass without my glory, Forgotten I decay Where is the touch to give me life? -Wild, fitful wind, away!" So sigh'd the broken music That in gladness had no partHow like art thou, neglected lyre, To many a human heart! TASSO'S CORONATION.' A crown of victory! a triumphal song! A TRUMPET'S note is in the sky, in the glorious Whose dome hath rung, so many an age, to the voice of victory; There is crowding to the Capitol, the imperial streets along, For again a conqueror must be crown'd-a kingly child of song: Yet his chariot lingers, Yet around his home 'Midst the joy of Rome. A thousand thousand laurel boughs are waving wide and far, To shed out their triumphal gleams around his rolling car; 1 Tasso died at Rome on the day before that appointed for his coronation in the Capitol. |