Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

Deems not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse, and lists with delight,

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;

Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbour's creed has lent.

All are needed by each one

Nothing is fair or good alone.

[blocks in formation]

The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.

I wiped away the weeds and foam,

I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.

The lover watched his graceful maid,

As mid the virgin train she strayed;

Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by the snow-white choir.

At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;

The gay

enchantment was undone

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat

I leave it behind with the games of youth.'
As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Over me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and of Deity:

Again I saw, again I heard,—

The rolling river, the morning bird;
Beauty through my senses stole

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

His admired poem on the Rhodora commences thus:—

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook:
The purple petals fallen in the pool

Made the black waters with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the marsh and sky,

Dear, tell them that if eyes were made for seeing,

Then beauty is its own excuse for being.

[blocks in formation]

ROWLAND BROWN has published some beautiful effusions, in which he has exhibited much delicacy of fancy. Here are his lines on Love-Letters :

As snowdrops come to a wintry world like angels in the night, And we see not the Hand who has sent us them, though they give us a strange delight;

And strong as the dew to freshen the flower or quicken the slumbering seed,

Are those little things called "letters of love," to hearts that com

fort need.

For alone in the world, midst toil and sin,

These still, small voices wake music within.

They come, they come, these letters of love, blessing and being

blest,

To silence fear with thoughts of cheer, that give to the weary rest! A mother looks out on the angry sea with a yearning heart in vajn, And a father sits musing over the fire, as he heareth the wind and the rain;

And a sister sits singing a favourite song, unsung for a long, long

while,

Till it brings the thought, with a tear to her eye, of a brother's vanished smile;

And with hearts and eyes more full than all,

Two lovers look forth for these blessings to fall;

And they come, they come, these letters of love, blessing and being blest,

To silence fear with thoughts of cheer, that give to the weary rest! Oh! never may we be so lonely in life, so ruined and lost to love, That never an olive-branch comes to our ark of home from some

cherished dove;

And never may we, in happiest hours, or when our prayers ascend, Feel that our hearts have grown too cold for a thought on an absent friend :

For, like summer rain to the fainting flowers,

They are stars to the heart in its darkest hours,

And they come, they come, these letters of love, blessing and being blest,

To silence fear with thoughts of cheer, that give to the weary rest!

EDWIN ARNOLD, one of the sweetest of England's latest poets, is the author of these delicate lines to the Almond Blossom :

Blossom of the almond-trees,

April's gift to April's bees,

Birthday ornament of Spring,
Flora's fairest daughterling ;-
Coming when no flow'rets dare
Trust the cruel outer air;
When the royal king-cup bold
Dares not don his coat of gold ;
And the sturdy blackthorn spray
Keeps his silver for the May;
Coming when no flow'rets would,
Save thy lowly sisterhood,
Early violets, blue and white,
Dying for their love of light.

Almond blossom, sent to teach us

That the Spring-days soon will reach us,

Lest, with longing over-tried,
We die as the violets died—
Blossom, clouding all the tree
With thy crimson broidery,
Long before a leaf of green
On the bravest bough is seen;

Ah! when winter winds are swinging

All thy red bells into ringing,

With a bee in every bell,

Almond bloom, we greet thee well.

How daintily he dilates upon the charm of Woman's gentle

[blocks in formation]

Not in the swaying of the summer trees,

When evening breezes sing their vesper hymn-
Not in the minstrel's mighty symphonies,

Nor ripples breaking on the river's brim,

Is earth's best music; these may have awhile

High thoughts in happy hearts, and carking cares beguile :

But even as the swallow's silken wings,

Skimming the waters of the sleeping lake,
Stir the still silver with a hundred rings,

So doth one sound the sleeping spirit wake
To brave the danger, and to bear the harm—

A low and gentle voice-dear Woman's chiefest charm.

An excellent thing it is! and ever lent

To truth, and love, and meekness; they who own
This gift, by the All-gracious Giver sent,

Ever by quiet step and smile are known:

By kind eyes that have wept, hearts that have sorrowed—
By patience never tired, from their own trials borrowed.

An excellent thing it is-when first in gladness
A mother looks into her infant's eyes,—
Smiles to its smiles, and saddens to its sadness-
Pales at its paleness, sorrows at its cries;

Its food and sleep, and smiles and little joys

All these come ever blent with one low, gentle voice.

*

The following lines, simple and homely, yet touchingly beautiful, are by CHARLOtte Young :

:

How like a tender mother, with loving thoughts beguiled,
Fond Nature seems to lull to rest each faint and weary child!
Drawing the curtain tenderly, affectionate and mild.

Hark to the gentle lullaby, that through the trees is creeping!

Those sleepy trees that nod their heads, ere the moon as yet comes

peeping,

Like a tender nurse, to see if all her little ones are sleeping.

One little fluttering bird, like a child in a dream of pain,

Has chirped and started up, then nestled down again.

Oh, a child and a bird, as they sink to rest, are as like as any twain.

« AnteriorContinuar »