The Fireside Encyclopædia of Poetry: Comprising the Best Poems of the Most ...

Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly | You cross the threshold; and dim and

voices,

And jarrest the celestial harmonies?

small

Is the space that serves for the Shep herd's Fold;

Were half the power that fills the world The narrow aisle, the bare, white wall,

with terror,

Were half the wealth bestow'd on camps

and courts,

The pews, and the pulpit quaint and tall,
Whisper and say: "Alas! we are old."

Herbert's chapel at Bemerton

Hardly more spacious is than this; But Poet and Pastor, blent in one, Clothed with a splendor, as of the sun, That lowly and holy edifice.

The warrior's name would be a name ab- It is not the wall of stone without

horrèd,

And every nation that should lift again Its hand against a brother, on its forehead Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain !

That makes the building small or great, But the soul's light shining round about, And the faith that overcometh doubt,

And the love that stronger is than hate. Were I a pilgrim in search of peace, Were I a pastor of Holy Church,

Down the dark future, through long gene- More than a bishop's diocese

rations,

The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;

And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,

I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!"

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals

The blast of War's great organ shakes

the skies,

But, beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

OLD ST. DAVID'S AT RADNOR.

WHAT an image of peace and rest

Is this little church among its graves!
All is so quiet; the troubled breast,
The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed,
Here may find the repose it craves.

See, how the ivy climbs and expands
Over this humble hermitage,

And seems to caress with its little hands
The rough, gray stones, as a child that

stands

Caressing the wrinkled cheeks of age!

Should I prize this place of rest, and re

lease

From farther longing and farther search.

Here would I stay, and let the world

With its distant thunder roar and roll;
Storms do not rend the sail that is furled;
Nor like a dead leaf, tossed and whirled
In an eddy of wind, is the anchored soul
HENRY WADSworth LongfFELLOW.

LINES,

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN
ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF
THE WYE.

FIVE years have past; five summers, with

the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-
springs

With a sweet inland murmur.-Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and con-

nect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these or
chard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

Among the woods and copses, nor disturb The wild green landscape. Once again I

see

If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft, In darkness, and amid the many shapes Of joyous daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, lines How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer thro' the farms, woods, Green to the very door; and wreaths of How often has my spirit turned to thee!

smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees With some uncertain notice, as might

seem

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,

Of vagrant Dwellers in the houseless And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again:

woods, Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire Where here I stand, not only with the sense The Hermit sits alone. Of present pleasure, but with pleasing

These beauteous Forms, Through a long absence, have not been to

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:-feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I
trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed
mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight,
Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:-that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,-
Until the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:

thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by)

To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colors and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.-That time is
past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

While with an eye made quiet by the Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other

Have followed, for such loss, I would The heart that loved her; 'tis her privi

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample With lofty thoughts, that neither evil

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we be-
hold

And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: Is full of blessings. Therefore let the
A motion and a spirit, that impels

moon

All thinking things, all objects of all Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

thought,

And let the misty mountain winds be free

And rolls through all things. Therefore To blow against thee: and, in after years,

am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye and ear, both what they half create,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh!
then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

And what perceive; well pleased to recog- Should be thy portion, with what healing

nize

In nature and the language of the sense,

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the

nurse,

thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and If I should be where I no more can hear

Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me, here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I
catch

The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. On! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes

these gleams

Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper
zeal

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty
cliffs,

And this green pastoral landscape, were to

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I More dear, both for themselves and for thy

make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

sake!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

"PSALMS AND HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS."

EPH. V. 19.

WATCHMAN, TELL US OF THE NIGHT. | That He our deadly forfeit should release,

WATCHMAN, tell us of the night—
What its signs of promise are!
Traveller, o'er yon mountain's height
See that glory-beaming star!
Watchman, does its beauteous ray
Aught of hope or joy foretell?
Traveller, yes; it brings the day-
Promised day of Israel.

Watchman, tell us of the night-
Higher yet that star ascends!
Traveller, blessedness and light,
Peace and truth, its course portends.
Watchman, will its beams alone

Gild the spot that gave them birth?
Traveller, ages are its own—
See, it bursts o'er all the earth !

Watchman, tell us of the night,

For the morning seems to dawn. Traveller, darkness takes its flightDoubt and terror are withdrawn. Watchman, let thy wandering cease; Hie thee to thy quiet home. Traveller, lo! the Prince of PeaceLo! the Son of God, is come.

SIR JOHN BOWRING.

And with His Father work us a perpetual

peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith He wont at heav'n's high coun-
cil-table

To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of
mortal clay.

III.

Say, heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred

vein

Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn

strain,

To welcome Him to this His new abode, Now while the heav'n, by the sun's team untrod,

Hath took no print of the approaching light,

And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright ?

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S

NATIVITY.

IV.

See how from far upon the eastern road The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet:

THIS is the month, and this the happy Oh run, prevent them with thy humble ode,

morn,

Wherein the Son of heav'n's eternal King, Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring;

For so the holy sages once did sing.

And lay it lowly at His blessed feet;
Have thou the honor first thy Lord to

greet,

And join thy voice unto the Angel quire, From out His secret altar touch'd with hal low'd fire.

Should look so near upon her foul de- Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid

The idle spear and shield were high up Or e'er the point of dawn,

As if they surely knew their sov'reign Lord Was all that did their silly thoughts so

« Anterior Continuar »

Livros