Maybe because you always have appeared
The image of that fatal rest to me,
O night! You come towards me so dear!
Escorted by the summer clouds with glee
And by the gentle breezes full of cheer,

Or from the snowy air you come sending
That long, uneasy darkness to the world,
O summoned night, upon the earth descending,
The darkest secrets of my heart you hold.

At sight of you my mind begins to wander
To the eternal void beyond the sky;
And all along the wretched time meanders

EXULT MY MUSE! exult to see
Each envious, waspish, jealous thing,
Around its harmless venom fling,
And dart its powerless fangs at THEE!
Ne'er shalt THOU bend thy radiant wing,
To sweep the dark revengeful string;
Or meanly stoop, to steal a ray,
E'en from RINALDO'S glorious lay,
Tho' his transcendent Verse should twine
About thy heart, each bliss divine.

O MUSE ADOR'D, I woo thee now
From yon bright Heaven, to hear my vow;
From thy blest wing a plume I'll steal,
And with its burning point record

And have I lost thee evermore?

Hast thou, oh fair one, from me flown?
Still in mine ear sounds, as of yore,

Thine ev'ry word, thine ev'ry tone.

As when at morn the wand'rer's eye

Attempts to pierce the air in vain,
When, hidden in the azure sky,

The lark high o'er him chaunts his strain:

So do I cast my troubled gaze

Through bush, through forest, o'er the lea;
Thou art invoked by all my lays;

Oh, come then, loved one, back to me!

HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove!
   Thou messenger of Spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
   And woods thy welcome ring.

What time the daisy decks the green,
   Thy certain voice we hear:
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
   Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant! with thee
   I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
   From birds among the bowers.

Yet do not thou forsake me now,
Poesy, with Peace-together!
Ere this last disastrous blow
Did lay my struggling fortunes low,
In love unworn have we not borne
Much wintry weather?
The storm is past, perhaps the last,
Its rainy skirts are wearing over
But though yet a sunnier glow
Should give my ice-bound hopes to flow,
Forlorn of thee, ’twere nought to me
A lonely rover!

Ah, misery! what were then my lot
Amongst a race of unbelievers
Sordid men who all declare
That earthly gain alone is fair,

Seraph! thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea -
Some ocean vexed as it may be
With storms; but where, meanwhile,
Serenest skies continually
Just o'er that one bright island smile.
For 'mid the earnest cares and woes
That crowd around my earthly path,
(Sad path, alas, where grows
Not even one lonely rose!)
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee; and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.

At first you'll joy to see the playful snow,
Like white moths trembling on the tropic air,
Or waters of the hills that softly flow
Gracefully falling down a shining stair.

And when the fields and streets are covered white
And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw,
Or underneath a spell of heat and light
The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw,

Like me you'll long for home, where birds' glad song
Means flowering lanes and leas and spaces dry,
And tender thoughts and feelings fine and strong,

So thou art come again, old black-winged night,
Like an huge bird, between us and the sun,
Hiding, with out-stretched form, the genial light;
And still, beneath thine icy bosom's dun
And cloudy plumage, hatching fog-breathed blight
And embryo storms, and crabbéd frosts, that shun
Day's warm caress. The owls from ivied loop
Are shrieking homage, as thou cowerest high;
Like sable crow pausing in eager stoop
On the dim world thou gluttest thy clouded eye,
Silently waiting latest time's fell whoop,

638

To my small Hearth His fire came—
And all my House aglow
Did fan and rock, with sudden light—
'Twas Sunrise—'twas the Sky—

Impanelled from no Summer brief—
With limit of Decay—
'Twas Noon—without the News of Night—
Nay, Nature, it was Day—

To my little niece Sally Livingston, on the death of a little serenading wren she admired.


Hasty pilgrim stop thy pace
Turn a moment to this place
Read what pity hath erected
To a songster she respected.
Little minstrel all is o'er
Never will thy chirpings more
Soothe the heavy heart of care
Or dispel the darkness there.
I have known thee e'er the sun
Hath on yonder mountain shone;
E'er the sky-lark hath ascended,
Or the thrush her throat distended;
Cheerful trill thy little ditty
As the singer, blithe and pretty.