Widen and mingle, one and all ; Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall.
Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter, The wind is gathering in the west; The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter, Then droop to a fitful rest;
Up from the stream with sluggish flap Struggles the gull and floats away; Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,- We shall not see the sun go down to-day: Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh, And tramples the grass with terrified feet, The startled river turns leaden and harsh.
You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat.
Look! look! that livid flash! And instantly follows the rattling thunder, As if some cloud-crag, split asunder,
Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash, On the Earth, which crouches in silence under; And now a solid gray wall of rain
Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile ;
For a breath's space I see the blue wood again, And, ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof,
Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof; Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes,
The rapid hail clashes,
The white waves are tumbling, And, in one baffled roar, Like the toothless sea mumbling A rock-bristled shore,
The thunder is rumbling
And crashing and crumbling,- Will silence return never more?
Hush! Still as death,
The tempest holds his breath As from a sudden will;
The rain stops short, but from the eaves You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves, All is so bodingly still; Again, now, now, again Plashes the rain in heavy gouts, The crinkled lightning
Seems ever brightening, And loud and long
Again the thunder shouts
His battle-song,—
One quivering flash,
One wildering crash,
Followed by silence dead and dull, As if the cloud, let go,
Leapt bodily below
To whelm the earth in one mad overthrow, And then a total lull.
Gone, gone, so soon!
No more my half-crazed fancy there Can shape a giant in the air,
No more I see his streaming hair, The writhing portent of his form ;- The pale and quiet moon
Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, are drifting over me.
TRUE Love is but a humble, low-born thing, And hath its food served up in earthen ware; It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the every-dayness of this work-day world, Baring its tender feet to every roughness, Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray From Beauty's law of plainness and content; A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home; Which, when our autumn cometh, as it must, And life in the chill wind shivers bare and leafless, Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth In bleak November, and, with thankful heart, Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit, As full of sunshine to our aged eyes
As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring. Such is true Love, which steals into the heart With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark, And hath its will through blissful gentleness,---- Not like a rocket, which, with savage glare, Whirrs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night
Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes;
A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults, Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points, But loving-kindly ever looks them down With the o'ercoming faith of meek forgiveness; A love that shall be new and fresh each hour, As is the golden mystery of sunset, Or the sweet coming of the evening star, Alike, and yet most unlike, every day,
And seeming ever best and fairest now; A love that doth not kneel for what it seeks, But faces Truth and Beauty as their peer, Showing its worthiness of noble thoughts By a clear sense of inward nobleness; A love that in its object findeth not All grace and beauty, and enough to sate Its thirst of blessing, but, in all of good Found there, it sees but Heaven-granted types Of good and beauty in the soul of man, And traces, in the simplest heart that beats, A family-likeness to its chosen one,
That claims of it the rights of brotherhood. For love is blind but with the fleshly eye, That so its inner sight may be more clear; And outward shows of beauty only so Are needful at the first, as is a hand To guide and to uphold an infant's steps : Great spirits need them not: their earnest look Pierces the body's mask of thin disguise, And beauty ever is to them revealed, Behind the unshapeliest, meanest lump of clay, With arms outstretched and eager face ablaze, Yearning to be but understood and loved.
THY voice is like a fountain, Leaping up in clear moonshine; Silver, silver, ever mounting, Ever sinking, Without thinking,
To that brimful heart of thine.
Every sad and happy feeling, Thou hast had in bygone years, Through thy lips come stealing, stealing, Clear and low;
All thy smiles and all thy tears In thy voice awaken,
And sweetness, wove of joy and woe, From their teaching it hath taken : Feeling and music move together, Like a swan and shadow ever Heaving on a sky-blue river In a day of cloudless weather.
It hath caught a touch of sadness, Yet it is not sad;
It hath tones of clearest gladness, Yet it is not glad ;
A dim, sweet, twilight voice it is Where to-day's accustomed blue Is over-grayed with memories,
With starry feelings quivered through.
Thy voice is like a fountain Leaping up in sunshine bright, And I never weary counting
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