Emblems

Her image haunts me. Lo! I muse at even,
    And straight it gathers from the gloom to make
    My soul its mirror, which (as some deep lake
Impictures the cerulean smiles of heaven)
Through the hushed night retains it, when ’tis given
    To take a warmer presence and incline
    A glowing cheek all blushfully to mine,
Saying, ‘The heart for which thou long hast striven
With pale looks, fancy pale, I grant thee now,
    And if for pity, yet more for Love’s sweet sake,
My lips shall seal this promise on thy brow.”
    Thus blest in sleep, who would not weep to wake
    When the cold truth from his belief must shake
Such vows, like blossoms from a shatter’d bough?

Nightly I watch the moon with silvery sheen
    Flaking the city house-tops, till I feel
    Thy memory, Rosa, like a presence, steal
Down in her light: for ever in her mien
Thy soul’s similitude my soul hath seen!
    And as she seemeth now a guardian seal
    On Heaven’s far bliss, upon my future weal
Even such thy truth is—radiantly serene!
But long my fancy may not entertain
    These bright resemblances—for, lo, a cloud
Blots her away, and in my breast the pain
    Of absent love, recurring, pines aloud!
When shall I look in thy sweet eyes again,—
    Rosa, when cheer thee with like sadness bowed?
Wherever in some wildwood bower
There blooms a honey-yielding flower,
There too dwells a bird to sup
Out of its delicious cup,
And sing betimes, lest it should be
O’erfed into satiety:
So wherever Loveliness

Dwells retired—dwells to bless,
Not dazzle: there some destin’d spirit,
Feeding on its luscious merit,
Can at peace with Passion be
Only through sweet Poesy.

O say, if into sudden storm
    Some future cloud we may not shun
Should burst, and Love’s bright world deform,
    His and your Poet leaving one
Scorning and scorned of heartless men,—
Beloved, would you love me then?

Stung by the world’s eternal guile,
    Should the defiance of despair
Plant on my cheek its bitter smile,
    And writhe so long and whiten there
That it might freshen ne’er again,—
Beloved, would you love me then?

Should long, long years of absence scowl
    And ’twixt us under heaven’s wide cope,
Should regions spread or oceans roll
    That question thus might even Hope—
“How can you ever meet again?”
Beloved, would you love me then?
    Love is wayward, Beauty wilful,
    Hence however—ever skilful
    Be the wit that like a gem,
    Would supremely richen them,
    They will sometimes take offence
    At the very brightest sense,
    As though for happy spite they meant
    To clothe delight with discontent.

The manifold hills, forsaken of the sun,
Are dusking into one
Featureless Mightiness gloomed up with dun,
And in the solitude of heaven afar
There shineth a sole star:
Even so the memory of one adored
With all Affection’s hoard
Of golden feelings treasured up for truth
In vain throughout our youth,
A far bright mystery, still shines apart
O’er the wide vacancy of Love’s lone heart!

Thought-weary and sad I reclined by a Fountain
At the head of a white-cedar shaded ravine,
And the breeze that fell over the high-glooming mountain
Sang like Love to me there as I gazed o’er the scene.

Long I’d reclined not till slumber came o’er me,
Grateful as balm to a suffering child;
When a lofty-browed Maiden seemed standing before me
With a lyre in her hand O so sounding and wild!

Bright was her brow, never heaven was brighter!
Her eyes were two midnights of passionate thought!
Light was her motion, a breeze’s not lighter,
And her locks were like sunshine and shadow inwrought!
Never before did my bosom inherit
Emotion so thrilling, such exquisite awe!
Never such wonder exalted my spirit
Before as did now through the Vision I saw.

Robed for the chase like a Nymph of Diana,
Her ivory limbs were half given below,—
Bare, that the pure breath of heaven might fan her,
Bare was her bosom of roseate snow.

Then lifting the lyre and with every feeling
Sublim’d as with love, she awakened the strings:
Bliss followed—and half into being came stealing
The motion and light of angelical wings.

Divine were the measures! Each voice of the wild-
    wood
Seemed gathering head in their musical thrills,—
The gladness of rivers that sing of their childhood,
The shoutings of echoes that look from the hills,

The moaning of trees all at midnight in motion
When the breezes seem wandering lost, with a rare
And sweet meaning spirit of human devotion,
All blending and woven together were there!

Ceased then the strain; and as soon as were flowing
Around but the accents that people the wild,
The Lyrist, subdued by her rapture and glowing,
Adjusted her mantle, approached me, and smiled:

Smiled with a look like the radiance of morning
When flushing the crystal of heaven’s serene
Blent with that darkness of beauty adorning
The world when the moon first arising is seen.

And repressing it seemed then the fondest suggestions,
Calmly she spake;—I arose to my knees,
Expectant and tremblingly glad of her questions:
And the wild-warbled words that she uttered were these—
“I am the Muse of the evergreen Forest,
I am the Spouse of thy spirit, lone Bard!
Ev’n in the days when thy boyhood thou worest
Thy pastimes drew on thee my fondest regard.

For I felt thee ev’n then wildly, wondrously musing
Of glory and grace by old HAWKESBURY’S side,
Scenes that spread recordless round thee suffusing
With the purple of love—I beheld thee and sighed.

Sighed—for the fire-robe of Thought had enwound thee—
It seemed but the breeze or a sigh of thine own!
I would sweep then this lyre, gliding viewlessly round
    thee
To give thy emotions full measure and tone.

Since, I have track’d thee through dissolute places,
Seen thee with sorrow long herd with the vain,
Lured into error by false-smiling faces,
Chained by dull Fashion though scorning her chain.

Then would I prompt in the still hour of dreaming
Thoughts of thy beautiful country again,
Of her streams through the shadowy forest far gleaming,
Her hills that re-echo the hunt in the glen,

Till at length I beheld thee arise in devotion
To shake from thy heart the vile bondage it bore,
And I joyed as in sunrise rejoiceth the ocean
Thy footfall to hear on the mountains once more!

Listen, rejoined one, I promise thee glory
Such as shall rise like the day-star apart,
To brighten the current of many a story,
But for this thou must give to the Future thy heart.

Be then the bard of thy country! O rather
Should such be thy choice than a monarchy wide!
Lo, ’tis the land of the grave of thy father!
’Tis the cradle of Liberty!—Think and decide,
Well hast thou chosen.” She ceased. Unreplying
And love-faint I gazed on her wildering charms:
Deeper they glowed, her lips trembled, and sighing
She rushed to my heart and dissolved in my arms!

Thus seemed she to pass—and yet something remaining
Like a separate Soul in my soul seemed to be—
An aching delight—an extension that, paining
My being, yet made it more strengthy and free.

She passed—but to leave in my brain a reflexion,
A forevisioned blaze of perpetual sway,
While tones that seem gushings of mystic affection
Flow through me by night and around me by day.

And since, or in cities or solitudes dreary,
Upon the lone hill or more lonely sea-sand,
Though many that blame, few that praise he anear me
I feel like a monarch of song in the land!

Away, away she plunges
    With her white sails o’er her spread,
Like the summer clouds that gather
    On some hill’s piny head;—
Still away she plunges rampant
    Like a lion roused to wrath,
And the proud wave lies humbled
    I’ the track of her path.

Ye ho! my gallant sailors
    Wear her head from off the land:
As his steed obeys the Arab
    How she gives to the hand!
And now like a soul the world forsaking,
    She leaves the coast behind,
And the main is her wide dwelling
    And her spouse is the wind.
    Then pledge we a full measure
    To the friends we left to-day,
    Whose kind wishes hover o’er us
    On our watery way:
    Where diurnally remind us
    Shall the same bright-brimming rite
    Of the eyes that yearned blessings
    When last we knew their light!

The leaf-glancing boughs of the o’erdoming trees
Now seem in wild dance to the pipe of the breeze
As clashing and clasping in merry despite
They mass into shadow or quiver in light,
When cut by their motion the slanting moonbeam
Falls sifted like coin on the floor of the stream
That murmurs thereby like a voice in a dream,
Save when the breeze straining in lengthen’d escape
Holds open their sprays for a steadier escape,
Then too bright fragment of Night’s ripest blue
Relieving the leaf-work come transiently through,
And broad stars seem glowing as seen amid these
Like apples of fire in the tops of the trees!