No sweet hymn ascended, no murmur of prayer,
Yet I felt that the spirit of worship was there,
And bent my young head, in devotion and love,
'Neath the form of the angel, that floated above.
How wide was the sweep of its beautiful wings!
How boundless its circle! how radiant its rings!
If I looked on the sky, 't was suspended in air;
If I looked on the ocean, the rainbow was there;
Thus forming a girdle, as brilliant and whole
As the thoughts of the rainbow, that circled my soul.
Like the wing of the Deity, calmly unfurled,
It bent from the cloud and encircled the world.
There are moments, I think, when the spirit receives
Whole volumes of thought on its unwritten leaves,
When the folds of the heart in a moment unclose
Like the innermost leaves from the heart of a rose.
And thus, when the rainbow had passed from the sky,
The thoughts it awoke were too deep to pass by;
It left my full soul, like the wing of a dove,
All fluttering with pleasure, and fluttering with love.
I know that each moment of rapture or pain
But shortens the links in life's mystical chain;
I know that my form, like that bow from the wave,
Must pass from the earth, and lie cold in the grave;
Yet O! when death's shadows my bosom encloud,
When I shrink at the thought of the coffin and shroud,
May Hope, like the rainbow, my spirit enfold
In her beautiful pinions of purple and gold.
TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art—
Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given
For happy spirits to alight
Betwixt the earth and heaven
Can all that Optics teach, unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?
When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!
And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.
When o'er the green undeluged earth Heaven's covenant thou didst shine, How came the world's gray fathers forth To watch thy sacred sign.
And when its yellow luster smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.
Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first made anthem rang
On earth delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.
Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam;
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the prophet's theme!
The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When glittering in the freshened fields
The snowy mushroom springs.
For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span,
Nor lets the type grow pale with age
That first spoke peace to man.
Ay, thou art for the Grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long: another spring
Shall deck her for men's eyes—but not for thine-
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,
And the vexed ore no mineral of power;
And they who love thee wait in anxious grief
Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour.
Glide softly to thy rest then: death should come
Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee.
As light winds wandering through groves of bloom
Detach the delicate blossom from the tree.
Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain;
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again.
NOBLE she is by birth made good by virtue;
Exceeding fair; and her behavior to it
Is like a singular musician
To a sweet instrument, or else as doctrine
Is to the soul, that puts it into act,
And prints it full of admirable forms,
Without which 't were an empty, idle flame;
Her eminent judgment to dispose these parts
Sits on her brow and holds a silver scepter,
Wherewith she keeps time to the several musics
Placed in the sacred concert of her beauties:
Love's complete armory is managed in her
To stir affection, and the discipline
To check and to affright it from attempting
Any attaint might disproportion her,
And make her graces less than circular:
Yet her even carriage is as far from coyness,
As from immodesty; in play, in dancing,
In suffering courtship, in requiting kindness,
In use of places, hours, and companies,
Free as the sun, and nothing more corrupted;
As circumspect as Cynthia in her vows,
As constant as the center to observe them;
Ruthful and bounteous, never fierce nor dull,
In all her courses ever at the full.
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