Strophes I à XX

There is but one to whom my hopes are clinging,
As clings the bee unto the morning flower,
There is but one to whom my thoughts are winging
Their dove-like passage through each silent hour:
One who has made my heart her summer bower.
Feeling and passion there forever bloom
For her, who, by her love’s mysterious power,
Dispels the languor of my spirit’s gloom,
And lifts my dead heart up, like Lazarus from the tomb.

Maiden! from whose large, intellectual eyes,
My soul first drank love’s immortality,
Plume my weak spirit for its chosen skies,
*I would falter in its mission without thee.
Conduct its flight; and if its musings be
Oft’ner of earth than heaven, bear awhile
With what is native to mortality:
It dare not err exulting in thy smile:
Look on it with thine eyes, and keep it free from guile.

The bark leaps love-fraught from the land; the sea
Lies calm before us, Many an isle is there,
Clad with soft verdure; many a stately tree
Uplifts its leafy branches through the air;
The amorous current bathes the islets fair,
As we skip, youth-like, o’er the limpid waves;
White cloudlets speck the golden atmosphere,
Through which the passionate sun looks down, and graves
His image on the pearls that boil from the deep caves,

And bathe the vessel’s prow. Isle after isle
Is passed, as we glide tortuously through
The opening vistas, that uprise and smile
Upon us from the ever-changing view.
Here nature, lavish of her wealth, did strew
Her flocks of panting islets on the breast
Of the admiring River, where they grew,
Like shapes of Beauty, formed to give a zest
To the charmed mind, like waking Visions of the Blest.

    The silver-sinewed arms of the proud Lake,
    Love-wild, embrace each islet tenderly,
The zephyrs kiss the flowers when they wake
At morn, flushed with a rare simplicity;
See how they bloom around yon birchen tree,
And smile along the bank, by the sandy shore,
In lovely groups—a fair community!
The embossed rocks glitter like golden ore,
And here, the o’erarching trees form a fantastic bower.

Red walls of granite rise on either hand,
Rugged and smooth; a proud young eagle soars
Above the stately evergreens, that stand
Like watchful sentinels on these God-built towers F
And near yon beds of many-colored flowers
Browse two majestic deer, and at their side
A spotted fawn all innocently cower’s;
In the rank brushwood it attempts to hide,;
While the strong-antlered stag steps forth with lordly stride,

And slakes his thirst, undaunted, at the stream,
Isles of o’erwhelming beauty! surely here
‘The wild enthusiast might live, and dream
His life away. No Nymphic trains appear,
To charm the pale Ideal Worshipper
Of Beauty; nor Neriads from the deeps below;
Nor hideous Gnomes, to fill the breast with fear:
But crystal streams through endless landscapes flow,
And o’er the clustering Isles the softest breezes blow.

Here the Spirit of Beauty keepeth
    Jubilee for evermore;
Here the Voice of Gladness leapeth,
    Echoing from shore to shore.
O’er the hidden watery valley,
    O’er each buried wood and glade,
Dances our delighted galley,
    Through the sunlight and the shade—©
    Dances o’er the granite cells,
    Where the Soul of Beauty dwells:

Here the flowers are ever springing,
    While the summer breezes blow;
Here the Hours are ever clinging,
    Loitering before they go;
Playing round each beauteous islet,
    Loath to leave the sunny shore,
Where, upon her couch of violet,
    Beauty sits for evermore—
    Sits and smiles by day and night,
    Hand in hand with pure Delight.

Here the Spirit of Beauty dwelleth
    In each palpitating tree,
In each amber wave that welleth
    From its home, beneath the sea;
In the moss upon the granite,
    In each calm, secluded bay,
    With the zephyr trains that fan it
    With their sweet breaths all the day—
    On the waters, on the shore,
    Beauty dwelleth evermore!

Yes, here the Genius of Beauty truly dwells.
I worship Truth and Beauty in my soul.
The pure prismatic globule that upwells
From the blue deep; the psalmy waves that roll
Before the hurricane; the outspread scroll
Of heaven, with its written tomes of stars;
The dew-drop on the leaf: These I extol,
And all alike—each one a Spirit-Mars,
Guarding my Victor-Soul above Earth’s prison bars.

There was a stately Maiden once, who made
These Isles her home. Oft has her lightsome skiff
Toyed with the waters; and the velvet glade,
The shadowy woodland, and the granite cliff,
Joyed at her footsteps. Here the Brigand Chief,
Her father, lived, an outlaw. Her soul’s pride
Was ministering to his wants. In brief,
The wildest midnight she would cross the tide,
Full of a daughter’s love, to hasten to his side.

Queen of the Isles! she well deserved the name:
In look, in action, in repose a Queen!
Some Poet-Muse may yet hand down to fame
Her woman’s courage, and her classic mien;
Some Painter’s skill immortalize the scene,
And blend with it that Maiden’s history;
Some Sculptor’s hand from the rough marble glean
An eloquent Thought, whose truthfulness shall be
The expounder of her worth and moral dignity..

On, through the lovely Archipelago,
Glides the swift bark. Soft summer matins ring
From every isle. The wild fowl come and go,
Regardless ofour presence. On the wing,
And perched upon the boughs, the gay birds sing
Their loves: This is their summer paradise;
From morn till night their joyous caroling
Delights the ear, and through the lucent skies
Ascends the choral hymn in softest symphonies.

The Spring is gone—light, genial-hearted Spring!
‘Whose breath gives odor to the violet,
Crimsons the wild rose, tints the blackbird’s wing,
Unfolds the buttercup. Spring that has set
To music the laughter of the rivulet,
Sent warm pulsations through the hearts of hills,
Reclothed the forests, made the valleys wet
With pearly dew, and waked the grave old mills
From their calm sleep, by the loud rippling of the rills.

Long years ago the carly Voyageurs
Gladdened these wilds with some romantic air;
The moonlight, dancing on their dripping oars,
Showed the slow batteaux passing by with care,
Impelled by rustic crews, as debonnair
As ever struck pale Sorrow dumb with Song:
Many a drooping spirit longed to share
Their pleasant melodies, that swept among
The echo-haunted woods, in accents clear and strong.

See, we have left the Islands far behind,
And pass into a calm, pellucid Lake.
Merrily dance the billows! for the wind
Rises all fresh and healthful in our wake,
Up start large flocks of waterfowl, that shake
The spray from their glossed plumage, as they fly
To seek the shelter of some island brake;
Now like dark clouds they seem against the sky,
So vast the numbers are that pass us swiftly by.

Merrily dance the billows! Cheerily leaps
Our fearless bark!—it loves to skim the sea,
The River and the Lake, when o’er them sweeps
The swift unwearied billow fearlessly.
Stretches its spotless sail!—it tightens—see!
How the wind curves the waters all around,
Ploughing into their bosoms fitfully.
Hark to the tempest’s dismal shriek! its bound,
Like to an earthquake, makes the river’s depths resound,

Through the dense air the terror-stricken clouds
Fly, tortured by the pursuing hurricane.
Fast bound the milky billows—the white shrouds
That wind around the mariner on the main.
Nay, shrink not, dark-eyed one! they weave no chain
For us—we’re free! Ha! ha! our gallant bark
Spurns the white wave with eloquent disdain;
She laughs to scorn the waters wild and dark,
She revels in the Storm, the Tempest loves to mark.

Hoarsely reverberates the thunder loud
Through the charged air. The fiery lightnings leap
Forth, from their mystic dwelling in the cloud;
Electric shafts through all the heavens sweep,
And penetrate the surface of the deep,
Like flaming arrows from the bow of wrath,
Shot down some dark and cloud-pavillioned steep;
Each red-hot bolt the fearful power hath
To scatter blight and death along its burning path.

A wild joy fills my overburdened brain.
My ears drink music from each thunder peal.
I glory in the lightnings and the rain.
There is no joy like this! With thee to feel
And share each impulse, makes my spirit kneel.
Sing to me, love! my heart is pained with bliss!
Thy voice alone can quicken and unseal
The inner depths of feeling. Grant me this:
Flood me with Song, and loose the founts of Happiness.

    Oh! mighty, Oh! mysterious One!
Thou willest, and the lightnings fly,
Flame-winged and silent, through the sky,
    Outglowing the exultant sun.

    Along the hills reverberates
The eloquent, sonorous bass,
Shaking the earth from place to place,
    Then heavenward to Thy temple gates,

    Where every whisper, every tone
Of music, from the earth, rolls in,
Whether from putrid lips of sin,
    Or girdled by a prayerful zone.

    Thy Voice is in the thunder cloud,
Thy Presence in the lightning’s fire—
Breathings of an Almighty Ire,
    That wraps the heavens in a shroud
    Of blinding light, before whose heat
The granite mountains melt away,
And finite Man falls down to pray
    For mercy at his Maker’s feet.

    How Vast art Thou! how minute he!—
A human tissue which a breath
Can hurl from quickest life to death—
    An atom to Immensity.

    Oh! wondrous Power! Oh! strength Divine!
Oh! weak and insignific Man!—
Weak here, but in the After-plan
    Not less eterne than Thee and Thine!

Mysterious power of Song! the lips of Love
Make mellower music than a thousand strings
Of harps. Thine eyes my grosser thoughts remove,
But thy sweet voice doth give my spirit wings,
As up the air melodious whisperings,
Ethereal harmonies, divinely low,
Float, like the echoes which the morning flings
From the pleased valleys—hymns that upward flow,
Warming the purple hills with praises as they go.

Hast thou not heard upon a summer’s eve
The musical pulsations of the air?
“The voices of the mountain pines, that weave
Their low complainings with the atmosphere?
Thus, throughout Nature, floating everywhere,
Eternal symphonies, low, rich and deep,
Pass from her Poet-lips. Her children hear
And treasure up these lyrics, as they sweep
With Zephyrus through the air, or visit them in sleep.