Her place is now by another's side—
Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride!
Bring flowers, pale flowers, on the bier to shed,
A crown for the brow of the early dead;
For this, through its leaves, hath the white rose burst;
For this, in the woods, was the violet nursed;
Though they smile in vain for what once was ours,
They are love's last gift-bring ye flowers, pale flowers!
Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer,
They are nature's offering, their place is there!
They speak of hope to the fainting heart,
With a voice of promise they come and part,
They sleep in dust through the winter hours,
They break forth in glory-bring flowers, bright flowers!
In the Endymion of KEATS. It exhibits a marvellous luxuriance of images clothed in a still more marvellous wealth of words.
"O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lovest to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth,
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loath
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx-do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!
"O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad-leaved fig-trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow-girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest blossom'd beans and poppied corn ;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low-creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh-budding year
All its completions-be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!
"Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half-sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewilder'd shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak-apples, and fir-cones brown—
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!
"O Hearkener to the loud-clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a-swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge-see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!
"Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth,
Gives it a touch ethereal-a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown-but no more: we humbly screen With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending, And giving out a shout most heaven-rending, Conjure thee to receive our humble Pæan, Upon thy Mount Lycean!"
A sprightly poem by LOWELL, the American poet.
INTO the sunshine,
Full of the light,
Leaping and flashing
From morn till night!
Into the moonlight,
Whiter than snow,
Waving so flower-like
When the winds blow!
Into the starlight
Rushing in spray,
Happy at midnight,
Happy by day!
Ever in motion,
Blithesome and cheery,
Still climbing heavenward,
Never aweary ;
Glad of all weathers,
Still seeming best,
Upward or downward
Motion thy rest ;—
Full of a nature
Nothing can tame,
Changed every moment,
Ever the same ;—
Ceaseless aspiring,
Ceaseless content,
Darkness or sunshine
Thy element ;-
Glorious fountain!
Let my heart be
Fresh, changeful, constant,
Upward, like thee!
PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATION.
A most poetical thought from one of THOMAS MOORE's later poems.
AND who can tell, as we're combined
Of various atoms--some refined,
Like those that scintillate and play
In the fix'd stars-some, gross as they
That frown in clouds or sleep in clay-
Who can be sure but 'tis the best
And brightest atoms of our frame,
Those most akin to stellar flame,
That shine out thus, when we're at rest;
Ev'n as their kindred stars, whose light
Comes out but in the silent night?
Or is it that there lurks, indeed,
Some truth in Man's prevailing creed,
And that our Guardians from on high
Come, in that pause from toil and sin,
To put the senses' curtain by,
And on the wakeful soul look in?
MIDNIGHT RHYMES.
By BARRY CORNWALL.
OH! 'tis merry when stars are bright
To sing, as you pace along,
Of the things that are dreamt by night,
To the motion of some old song:
For the fancy of mortals teems,
Whether they wake or sleep,
With figures, that shine like dreams,
Then-die in the darkness deep,
Oh! merry are Christmas times,
And merry the belfry chimes;
But the merriest things
That a man e'er sings,
Are his Midnight Rhymes.
'Tis night when the usurers feel
That their money is thrice repaid;
'Tis night when adorers kneel,
By scores, to the sleeping maid ; 'Tis night when the author deems That his critics are all at bay, And the gamester regains in dreams The gold that he lost by day,
Oh! merry are Christmas times, &c.
At night, both the sick and the lame
Abandon their world of care;
And the creature that droops with shame
Forgetteth her old despair!
The boy on the raging deep
Laughs loud that the skies are clear;
And the murderer turns, in sleep,
And dreams that a pardon's near!
Oh! merry are Christmas times, &c.
At night, all wrongs are right,
And all perils of life grow smooth;
Then why cometh the fierce day-light,
When fancy is bright as truth?
All hearts, 'tween the earth and the moon,
Recover their hopes again:
Ah,-'tis pity so sweet a tune
Should ever be jarr'd by pain!
Yet, merry are Christmas times, &c.
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