I

I watched, all eye and ear; and in the ocean
Of the deep azure and circumfluent air,
As on the face of the half-slumbering earth,
There is no sound, nor breath, nor visible motion.
Like monumental effigies rise bare
The leafless trees, the dark firs' solemn green,
The budless twigs unconscious yet of birth
Of the life gathering in their veins unseen
The birds are silent, or in sleep, or living,
As the still woods, in yon inspiring sun,
That, from his central temple in the sky,
Doth look the fount of immortality
He is, to life its pulse and motion giving;
All is or happiness or grief repressed,
Wearing the shows of gladness or of rest.

II

My spirit, opening unconsciously,
Doth feel the harmonies around me now,
Truth from reflection's inmost vision won;
Glimpses which Nature gives us and withdraws;
Or rather indications from her brow,
As if to search her secrets she impelled
The hearts that worship her, and then withheld,
Lest they should read too deeply of her laws,
In the sharp boughs against the sky defined,
I hear the Æolian strings that meet the wind
Answering as to her harp of melody.
My own according spirit is a string
Impressed by life along it vibrating.
The giant Earth, her breathings unrepressed,
Slumbers before me; her sun-basking breast
Is motionless, and yet she does not sleep,
Lulled by the low airs that her forehead steep,
And senses, in their drowsy lullaby.

III

And as our souls, absorbed in reverie,
Repose awhile in their unconsciousness,
Holding, but exercising not, the powers
Of the thought, present in our wakeful hours;
Even so is Nature, such doth she express:
So is she now absorbed in thankfulness,
Herself a silent spectacle, a dream
Of contemplation and of peace supreme.
Even thus she silently revolves through space,
Light and shade chequering her passive face,
While her large forehead, turning to yon fire,
Feels the enkindling warmth, and as the lyre,
Responsive, feels within the vital flame,
The knowledge that from its quick life she came.