Illumes the by-ways of the earth,
Unseen, but good; unknown, but great.
Many a happy and lovely soul
Lives beauty in the fields afar,
Or, 'mid the city's human shoal,
Shines like a solitary star.
From MILTON's Paradise Lost.
HAIL holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born,
Or of th' Eternal co-eternal beam
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from Eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hearest thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God as with a mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to th' Orphean lyre
Isung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisitest not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and Blind Moonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out
So much the rather, thou, celestial light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
THE PALE QUEEN.
By BARRY CORNWALL.
I AM the Queen anointed,-crowned!
My forehead is all with roses bound,
But pale, all pale!
With rosemary boughs and slips of yew,
With violets shrunk, and lilies, too,
But pale, still pale!
I am the Bride whose arms are wound
About my lover without a sound;
I whisper soft,
And he flies aloft,
But pale, all pale!
Whatever I will-whate'er I say,
Wherever I look-all things obey:
From the iron clown to the kings of clay,
My words ne'er fail :
I wither the bud, and the passion bloom;
I strip the rose of her young perfume;
I breathe and the flower doth bear no fruit;
I come and the singer's voice is mute;
The harp unstrung, and lost the lute:
And trumpets wail
My coming, although no battle's near,
And burst on the self-slain soldier's bier,
And hill and dale
And fountains lone, and the running river,
Sea and sea-shore,
Hard rocks, and mountains cold and hoar From all their echoing peaks cry out for ever, "Hail! hail! hail!"
And now, pale youth, I come to thee,
Whose home is under the willow tree,
And thou may'st dream
Where it dips its hair in the fond fond stream: But, arise! arise!
What can come of human sighs,
Lover's sorrow-weeping eyes
When all that cometh quickly flies?
Arise, and leave thy buried bride,
And come with me to the water's side,
Where lilies gay
Lie sleeping on the shining tide,
Which flies away
Unto the ocean far and wide,
Day after day!
The weeping stars will be ever o'er thee,
And she thou lov'st is gone before thee,
So, ne'er delay:
The Past is lost, the Present lone,
So we will fly to a world unknown;
And be as thou wishest, sad or gay,
Thro' summer and spring, and winter day :-
Come on! We will seek thy wasted bride :
Behold, I am Death, the amorous-eyed,
Who reign for aye!
THE rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.
And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.
On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dream'd not of her love.
Like Dian's kiss, unask'd, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassion'd gaze.
It comes, the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,—
In silence and alone,
To seek the elected one.
It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him who slumbering lies.
O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utter desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
Responds,- -as if, with unseen wings,
An angel touch'd its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
"Where hast thou stay'd so long?"
THE QUESTION.
By SHELLEY.
IDREAM'D that, as I wander'd by the way,
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kiss'd it and then fled, as thou mightest in a dream.
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearl'd arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxlips; tender blue bells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low-wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.
And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
Green cow-bind, and the moonlight-colour'd May, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streak'd with gold, Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.
And nearer to the river's trembling edge
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white, And starry river buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
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