LXXXIV. What deep wounds ever closed without a scar? The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear With their own hopes, and have been vanquish'd, bear Fix'd Passion holds his breath, until the hour It came, it cometh, and will come,-the power To punish or forgive-in one we shall be slower. LXXXV. Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, To waft me from distraction; once I loved Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. R LXXXVI. It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more; LXXXVII. He is an evening reveller, who makes Starts into voice a moment, then is still. Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. LXXXVIII. Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star. LXXXIX. All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, Of that which is of all Creator and defence. XC. Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone; A truth, which through our being then doth melt The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, Binding all things with beauty;-'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. XCI. Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, (20) and thus take The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak, Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r! XCII. The sky is changed!—and such a change! Oh night,(21) And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, But From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud! XCIII. And this is in the night:-Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A portion of the tempest and of thee! As if they did rejoice q'er a young earthquake's birth. |