THOUGH joy attend thee orient at the birth To watch thy course when daylight, fled from earth, And splendor slowly mustering. Since the sun, The mountain borders of this seat of care, Whose overburdened hand could scarcely hold The glittering crowns and garlands which it brought, She vanished, leaving prospect blank and cold Yet in another poem on this subject, he says that "Carnage" is God's "daughter"! Such perilous inconsistency is there in playing with the edge-tools of theological metaphysics. XVI. THE WORST PANGS OF SORROW. SURPRISED by joy, impatient as the wind Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind, But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind To my most grievous loss? That thought's return Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, XVII. DEATH CONQUERING AND DEATH CONQUERED. METHOUGHT I saw the footsteps of a throne But all the steps and ground about were strown Sick, hale, old, young, who cried before that cloud, With her face up to heaven; that seemed to have A lovely Beauty in a summer grave! * * I hope I am doing no injustice to Wordsworth. If so, the plenitude of his genius can afford it. But I have an impression of having met with this sonnet, or something very like it, before; I think, in Italian. ROBERT SOUTHEY. I. TO A LARK. O THOU Sweet lark, who in the heaven so high That lags below thee in the infinite, Still in my heart receive thy melody. O thou sweet lark, that I had wings like thee! But that I soon would wing my eager flight To that loved home, where Fancy even now Counting the weary hours that hold her here! |