Page images
PDF
EPUB

And his own vain wings to feel
Drooping downward to his heel,
All their grace and import lost,
Burdening his weary ghost:
Ever walking by his side
He must see his angel guide,
Who at intervals doth turn

Looks on him so sadly stern,
With such ever-new surprise
Of hushed anguish in her eyes,
That it seems the light of day
From around him shrinks away,
Or drops blunted from the wall

Built around him by his fall.

Then the mountains, whose white peaks

Catch the morning's earliest streaks,

He must see, where prophets sit,

Turning east their faces lit,

Whence, with footsteps beautiful,

To the earth, yet dim and dull,

They the gladsome tidings bring
Of the sunlight's hastening:

Never can those hills of bliss

Be o'erclimbed by feet like his!

But enough! O, do not dare
From the next the veil to tear,
Woven of station, trade, or dress,

More obscene than nakedness,
Wherewith plausible culture drapes
Fallen Nature's myriad shapes!
Let us rather love to mark
How the unextinguished spark

Will shine through the thin disguise
Of our customs, pomps, and lies,
And, not seldom blown to flame,
Vindicate its ancient claim.

THE MORNING-GLORY.

WE wreathed about our darling's head the morning-glory

bright;

Her little face looked out beneath, so full of life and

light,

So lit as with a sunrise, that we could only say,

She is the morning-glory true, and her poor types are

they.

So always from that happy time we called her by their

name,

And very fitting did it seem, for, sure as morning came,

Behind her cradle-bars she smiled to catch the first faint

ray,

As from the trellis smiles the flower and opens to the

day.

But not so beautiful they rear their airy cups of

blue,

As turned her sweet eyes to the light brimmed with sleep's tender dew;

And not so close their tendrils fine round their supports are thrown,

As those dear arms whose outstretched plea clasped all hearts to her own.

We used to think how she had come, even as comes the

flower,

The last and perfect added gift to crown love's morning

hour,

And how in her was imaged forth the love we could not

say,

As on the little dew-drops round shines back the heart

of day.

We never could have thought, O God, that she must

wither up,

Almost before a day was flown, like the morning-glory's

cup;

We never thought to see her droop her fair and noble

head,

Till she lay stretched before our eyes, wilted, and cold, and dead.

The morning-glory's blossoming will soon be coming

round,

We see their rows of heart-shaped leaves upspringing from the ground;

The tender things the winter killed renew again their

birth,

But the glory of our morning has passed away from

earth.

O Earth, in vain our aching eyes stretch over thy green

plain!

Too harsh thy dews, too gross thine air, her spirit to

sustain,

« PreviousContinue »