Он, nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy!
* A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe, which appeared suddenly in the heavens; attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter; then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.
Oh, nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill,
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That, like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell!—
Oh, nothing of the dross of ours—
Yet all the beauty-all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers-
Adorn yon world afar, afar-
'Twas a sweet time for Nesace-for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns-a temporary rest-
An oasis in desert of the blest.
Away-away 'mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendour o'er th' unchained soul-
The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
Can struggle to its destined eminence-
To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favour'd one of God;
But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
She throws aside the sceptre-leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.
Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely earth, Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth
(Falling in wreaths through many a startled star,
Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt),
She look'd into Infinity-and knelt.
Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curl'd-
Fit emblems of the model of her world-
Seen but in beauty-not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering through the light;
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opal'd air in colour bound.
All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers of lilies such as rear'd the head
On the fair Capo Deucato,* and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang
Upon the flying footsteps of deep pride-
Of her who loved a mortal-and so died.
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees:
And gemmy flower,; of Trebizond misnamed,
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it shamed
All other loveliness: its honied dew
(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
*On Santa Maura-olim Deucadia.
This flower is much noticed by Lowenhoeck and Tournefort. The bee feeding upon its blossom becomes intoxicated.
In Trebizond; and on a sunny flower,
So like its own above, that, to this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the bee
With madness and unwonted reverie :
In heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger-grief that hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair:
Nyctanthes, too, as sacred as the light
She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:
And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run:
And that aspiring flower that sprang on earth-
And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
Its way to heaven, from garden of a king:
* "Clytia-the Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better-known term, the turnsol, which turns continually towards the sun, covers itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy clouds, which cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day."-B. DE ST. PIERRE.
+ "There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris a species of serpentine aloes without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower exhales a strong odour of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion, which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month of July; you then perceive it gradually open its petals, expand them, fade and die."ST. PIERRE.
And Valisnerian lotus* thither flown
From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:
And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!†
Isola d'oro!-Fior di Levante !
And the Nelumbo bud‡ that floats for ever
With Indian Cupid down the holy river—
Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given
To bear the goddess' song, in odours, up to heaven.§
"Spirit! that dwellest where,
In the deep sky,
The terrible and fair,
In beauty vie!
Beyond the line of blue
The boundary of the star
Which turneth at the view
Of thy barrier and thy bar
Of the barrier overgone
By the comets who were cast
From their pride and from their throne,
* There is found in the Rhone a beautiful lily of the Valisnerian kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four feet, thus preserving its head above water in the swellings of the river.
It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen floating in one of these down the river Ganges, and that he still loves the cradle of his childhood.
§ "And golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints."-Rev. of St. John.
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