Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

She comes: The loosen'd rivulets ru The frost-bead melts upon her ga hair;

Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sz Now wraps her close, now archi leaves her bare

To breaths of balmier air;

II.

Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welco her,

About her glance the tits, and str the jays,

Before her skims the jubilant woodpec The linnet's bosom blushes at her g While round her brows a woodland cu flits.

Watching her large light eyes gracious looks,

And in her open palm a halcyon sits Patient-the secret splendour of brooks.

Come, Spring! She comes on waste a wood,

On farm and field: but enter also be: Diffuse thyself at will thro' all my blox And, tho' thy violet sicken into sere Lodge with me all the year!

III.

Once more a downy drift against brakes,

Self-darken'd in the sky, descendi slow!

But gladly see I thro' the wavering flaks Yon blanching apricot like snow i

snow.

These will thine eyes not brook in fores paths,

On their perpetual pine, nor rout

the beech;

They fuse themselves to little spicy baths Solved in the tender blushes of th peach;

They lose themselves and die

On that new life that gems the haw

thorn line;

Thy gay lent-lilies wave and put them b And out once more in varnish'd glery

shine

Thy stars of celandine.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

MERLIN AND THE GLEAM- ROMNEY's remorse.

Of lowly labour,

Slided The Gleam

VI.

Then, with a melody
Stronger and statelier,
Led me at length
To the city and palace
Of Arthur the king;
Touch'd at the golden
Cross of the churches,
Flash'd on the Tournament,
Flicker'd and bicker'd
From helmet to helmet,
And last on the forehead
Of Arthur the blameless
Rested The Gleam.

VII.

Clouds and darkness
Closed upon Camelot;
Arthur had vanish'd
I knew not whither,
The king who loved me,

And cannot die;

For out of the darkness

Silent and slowly

The Gleam, that had waned to a

wintry glimmer

On icy fallow

And faded forest,

Drew to the valley

Named of the shadow,

And slowly brightening
Out of the glimmer,

And slowly moving again to a melody

Yearningly tender,
Fell on the shadow,

No longer a shadow,

But clothed with The Gleam.

VIII.

And broader and brighter
The Gleam flying onward,
Wed to the melody,
Sang thro' the world;
And slower and fainter,
Old and weary,

But eager to follow,

I saw, whenever

In passing it glanced upon

Hamlet or city,

That under the Crosses
The dead man's garden,

The mortal hillock,

Would break into blossom
And so to the land's
Last limit I came
And can no longer,
But die rejoicing,
For thro' the Magic
Of Him the Mighty,
Who taught me in childhood,
There on the border

Of boundless Ocean,
And all but in Heaven
Hovers The Gleam.

IX.

Not of the sunlight,
Not of the moonlight,
Not of the starlight!
O young Mariner,
Down to the haven,
Call your companions,
Launch your vessel,
And crowd your canvas,
And, ere it vanishes

Over the margin,

After it, follow it,

Follow The Gleam.

ROMNEY'S REMORSE.

807

'I read Hayley's Life of Romney the other day Romney wanted but education and reading to make him a very fine painter; but his ideal was not high nor fixed. How touching is the close of his life! He married at nineteen, and because Sir Joshua and others had said that "marriage spoilt an artist" almost immediately left his wife in the North and scarce saw her till the end of his life; when old, nearly mad, and quite desolate, he went back to her and she received him and nursed him till he died. This quiet act of hers is worth all Romney's pictures! even as a matter of Art, I am sure' (Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald, vol. i.)

[blocks in formation]

Good, I am never weary painting you.
To sit once more? Cassandra, Hebe,
Joan,

Or spinning at your wheel beside the

vine

Bacchante, what you will; and if I fail
To conjure and concentrate into form
And colour all you are, the fault is less
In me than Art. What Artist ever yet
Could make pure light live on the canvas?
Art!

Why should I so disrelish that short word?

Where am I? snow on all the hills! so hot,

So fever'd! never colt would more delight

To roll himself in meadow grass than I To wallow in that winter of the hills.

Nurse, were you hired? or came of your own will

To wait on one so broken, so forlorn? Have I not met you somewhere long ago? I am all but sure I have-in Kendal church

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »