I love tranquil solitude, As is quiet, wise and good; What difference? but thou dost possess I love Love-though he has wings, Spirit, I love thee Thou art love and life! O come, TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING. THUS to be lost and thus to sink and die, Perchance were death indeed !—Constantia, turn! In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie, Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour it is yet, And from thy touch like fire doth leap. Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet, Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget! A breathless awe, like the swift change Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers, Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange, Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven By the enchantment of thy strain, And on my shoulders wings are woven, Beyond the mighty moons that wane Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere, Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear. Her voice is hovering o'er my soul-it lingers My heart is quivering like a flame; As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies. I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee, Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, On which, like one in trance upborne, Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep, Rejoicing like a cloud of morn. Now 'tis the breath of summer night, Which when the starry waters sleep. Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, THE PINE FOREST OF THE CASCINE, NEAR PISA. DEAREST, best and brightest, To the woods and to the fields ! The eldest of the hours of spring, Bending from heaven, in azure mirth, And made the wintry world appear Radiant Sister of the Day, Round stones that never kiss the sun, Now the last day of many days, For the Earth hath changed its face, We wandered to the Pine Forest That skirts the Ocean's foam, The whispering waves were half asleep, It seemed as if the day were one We paused amid the Pines that stood How calm it was-the silence there The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew, It seemed that from the remotest seat A spirit interfused around, For still it seemed the centre of The magic circle there, Were not the crocuses that grew As beautiful in scent and hue We stood beside the pools that lie A purple firmament of light, And clearer than the day In which the massy forests grew, As in the upper air, More perfect both in shape and hue Than any waving there. Like one beloved, the scene had lent With that clear truth expressed. There lay far glades and neighbouring lawn, And through the dark green crowd The white sun twinkling like the dawn Under a speckled cloud. Sweet views, which in our world above Can never well be seen, And all was interfused beneath Until a wandering wind crept by, For thou art good and dear and kind, But less of peace in S's mind, TO NIGHT. SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave, Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, Blind with thine hair the eyes of day, Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, Come, long sought! When I arose and saw the dawn, I sighed for thee; When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary Day turned to his rest, Thy brother Death came, and cried, Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Shall I nestle near thy side? Death will come when thou art dead, Sleep will come when thou art fled; K K EVENING. PONTE A MARE, PISA. THE sun is set; the swallows are asleep; There is no dew on the dry grass to-night, Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light; And in the inconstant motion of the breeze The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirled about the pavement of the town. Within the surface of the fleeting river The wrinkled image of the city lay, Immovably unquiet, and for ever It trembles, but it never fades away; Go to the [ You, being changed, will find it then as now. The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut Which the keen evening star is shining through. THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO. OUR boat is asleep in Serchio's stream, Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, And the oars and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast, Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, And the thin white moon lay withering there, To tower, and cavern, and rift and tree, The owl and the bat fled drowsily. Day had kindled the dewy woods, And the rocks above and the stream below, And the vapours in their multitudes, And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow, And clothed with light of aery gold The mists in their eastern caves uprolled. Day had awakened all things that be, The lark and the thrush and the swallow free, And the milkmaid's song and the mower's scythe, And the matin-bell and the mountain bee: |