SAD Hesper o'er the buried sun And ready, thou, to die with him, Thou watchest all things ever dim And dimmer, and a glory done: The team is loosen'd from the wain, The boat is drawn upon the shore; Thou listenest to the closing door, And life is darken'd in the brain. Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, By thee the world's great work is heard Beginning, and the wakeful bird; Behind thee comes the greater light: The market boat is on the stream, And voices hail it from the brink; Thou hear'st the village hammer clink, And see'st the moving of the team. Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name For what is one, the first, the last, Thou, like my present and my past, Thy place is changed; thou art th same. CXXII. O, WAST thou with me, dearest then, To bare the eternal Heavens again, The strong imagination roll A sphere of stars about my soul, In all her motion one with law; If thou wert with me, and the grave Divide us not, be with me now, And enter in at breast and brow, Till all my blood, a fuller wave, Be quicken'd with a livelier breath, And like an inconsiderate boy, As in the former flash of joy, I slip the thoughts of life and death; And all the breeze of Fancy blows, And every dew-drop paints a bow, The wizard lightnings deeply glow, And every thought breaks out a rose. CXXIII. THERE rolls the deep where grow the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea. The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go. But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true; For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell. CXXIV. THAT which we dare invoke to bless; Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt; He, They, One, All; within, without; The Power in darkness whom we guess; I found Him not in world or sun, The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer'd "I have felt." No, like a child in doubt and fear: But that blind clamor made me wise; Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near; And what I am beheld again What is, and no man understands; And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro' nature, moulding men, AND all is well, tho' faith and form A deeper voice across the storm, And him, the lazar, in his rags : They tremble, the sustaining crags; The spires of ice are toppled down, And molten up, and roar in flood; The fortress crashes from on high, The brute earth lightens to the sky, And the great on sinks in blood, And compass'd by the fires of Hell; While thou, dear spirit, happy star, O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, And smilest, knowing all is well. CXXVIII. THE love that rose on stronger wings, No doubt vast eddies in the flood If all your office had to do With old results that look like new; If this were all your mission here, To draw, to sheathe a useless sword, To fool the crowd with glorious lies, To cleave a creed in sects and cries, To change the bearing of a word, To shift an arbitrary power, To cramp the student at his desk, To make old bareness picturesque And tuft with grass a feudal tower; Why then my scorn might well descend On you and yours. I see in part That all, as in some piece of art, Is toil cooperant to an end. THY Voice is on the rolling air; I hear thee where the waters run; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair. What art thou then? I cannot guess f But tho' I seem in star and flower To feel thee some diffusive power, I do not therefore love thee less: My love involves the love before; My love is vaster passion now; Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more. Far off thou art, but ever nigh; CXXXI. O LIVING will that shalt endure When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow thro' cur deeds and make them pure, And thou art worthy; full of power; Their pensive tablets round her head And the most living words of life Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, The "wilt thou " answer'd, aud The "wilt thou" ask'd, till out of Her sweet I will" has made ye one. Now sign your names, which shall be read, Mute symbols of a joyful morn, By village eyes as yet unborn; The names are sign'd, and overhead Begins the clash and clang that tells The joy to every wandering breeze; The blind wall rocks, and on the The dead leaf trembles to the bells. Await them. Many a merry face Salutes them-maidens of the place, That pelt us in the porch with flowers. O happy hour, behold the bride With him to whom her hand I gave. They leave the porch, they pass the grave That has to-day its sunny side. For them the light of life increased, To meet and greet a whiter sun; My drooping memory will not shun The foaming grape of eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays, And hearts are warm'd, and faces bloom, As drinking health to bride and We wish them store of happy days. From little cloudlets on the grass, And back we come at fall of dew. Of words and wit. the double health, And last the dance; - till I retire; Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire: And rise, O moon, from yonder down And catch at every mountain head, spread Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wali: And breaking let the splendor fall To spangle all the happy shores By which they rest, and ocean sounds, Aud, star and system rolling past, A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds, And, moved thro' life of lower phase, Result in man, be born and think, And act and love, a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose com mand Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book; No longer half-akin to brute, For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings Who laid about them at their wills and died; And mixt with these, a lady, one that armı'd Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate, Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. "O miracle of women," said the book, "O noble heart who, being strait-besieged By this wild king to force her to his wish, Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death, But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost Her stature more than mortal in the burst Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate, Pure sport: a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd And stump'd the wicket; babies roll' about Like tumbled fruit in grass; and me and maids Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light twangling And shadow, while the and The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. Strange was the sight and smacking of the time; And long we gazed, but satiated at length Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave The park, the crowd, the house; but The sward was trim as any garden lawn: From neighbor seats: and there was A broken statue propt against the wall, A scarf of orange round the stony And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook** Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests, And there we join'd them: then the maiden Aunt Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd An universal culture for the crowd, And all things great; but we, unworthier, told Of college: he had climb'd across the spikes, And he had squeezed himself betwixt And he had breath'd the Proctor's |