The spectres that no spell has power to bind, The loved, but lost, whose soul's life is in ours, As incense in sepulchral urns, enshrined,
The sense of blighted or of wasted powers, The hopes whose promised fruits have perish'd with their flowers.
There is a small low cape-there, where the moon Breaks o'er the shatter'd and now shapeless stone; The waters, as a rude but fitting boon, [thrown Weeds and small shells have, like a garland, Upon it, and the wind's and wave's low moan, And sighing grass, and cricket's plaint, are heard To steal upon the stillness, like a tone
Remember'd. Here, by human foot unstirr'd, Its seed the thistle sheds, and builds the ocean-bird.
Lurks the foul toad, the lizard basks secure
Within the sepulchre of him whose name
Had scatter'd navies like the whirlwind. Sure,
If aught ambition's fiery wing may tame,
"Tis here; the web the spider weaves where Fame
Planted her proud but sunken shaft, should be
To it a fetter, still it springs the same.
Glory's fool-worshipper! here bend thy knee!
The tomb thine altar-stone, thine idol Mockery :
A small gray elf, all sprinkled o'er with dust
Of crumbling catacomb, and mouldering shred
Of banner and embroider'd pall, and rust
Of arms, time-eaten monuments, that shed
A canker'd gleam on dim escutcheons, where
The groping antiquary pores to spy-
A what? a name-perchance ne'er graven there;
At whom the urchin with his mimic eye
Sits peering through a scull, and laughs continually.
THE clouds, that upward curling from
Nevada's summit fly,
Melt into air: gone are the showers,
And, deck'd, as 'twere with bridal flowers,
Earth seems to wed the sky.
All hearts are by the spirit that
Breathes in the sunshine stirr'd;
And there's a girl that, up and down,
A merry vagrant, through the town
Goes singing like a bird.
A thing all lightness, life, and glee;
One of the shapes we seem
To meet in visions of the night;
And, should they greet our waking sight,
Imagine that we dream.
With glossy ringlet, brow that is
As falling snow-flake white,
Half hidden by its jetty braid,
And eye like dewdrop in the shade,
At once both dark and bright:
And cheek whereon the sunny clime
Its brown tint gently throws,
Gently, as it reluctant were
To leave its print on thing so fair-
A shadow on a rose.
She stops, looks up-what does she see? A flower of crimson dye,
Whose vase, the work of Moorish hands, A lady sprinkles, as it stands
High, leaning from a window forth,
From curtains that half shroud
Her maiden form, with tress of gold,
And brow that mocks their snow-white fold,
Like Dian from a cloud.
Nor flower, nor lady fair she sees-
That mountain girl-but dumb
And motionless she stands, with eye
That seems communing with the sky:
Her visions are of home.
That flower to her is as a tone
Of some forgotten song,
One of a slumbering thousand, struck
From an old harp-string; but, once woke,
It brings the rest along.
She sees beside the mountain brook,
Beneath the old cork-tree
And toppling crag, a vine-thatch'd shed,
Perch'd, like the eagle, high o’erhead,
The home of liberty;
The rivulet, the olive shade,
The grassy plot, the flock;
Nor does her simple thought forget,
Haply, the little violet,
That springs beneath the rock.
Sister and mate, they may not from
Her dreaming eye depart;
And one, the source of gentler fears,
More dear than all, for whom she wears
The token at her heart.
And hence her eye is dim, her cheek
Has lost its livelier glow;
Her song has ceased, and motionless
She stands, an image of distress:
Strange what a flower can do!
There were Seven Sisters, and each wore
A starry crown, as, hand in hand,
By Hesper woke, they led the hours-
The minstrels of his virgin band.
And Love would come at eve, as they
Were met their vesper hymn to sing,
And linger till it ceased, with eye
Of raptured gaze and folded wing.
For ne'er on earth, in air, were heard
More thrilling tones than, to the lyre
Of Heaven timed, rose nightly from
The lips of that young virgin choir.
But they were coy, or seeming coy,
Those minstrels of the twilight hour;
Nuns of the sky, as cold and shy,
As blossoms of the woodland bower.
'Twas eve, and Hesper came to wake
His starry troop, but wept-for one,
The brightest, fairest of the group,
Where all were bright and fair, was gone.
They found within her bower the harp
To which was tuned her vesper-hymn,
The star-gems of her coronet,
And one was with a teardrop dım.
They told how Love had at the gate
Of twilight linger'd, long before
The daylight set; but he was flown,
And she, the lost one, seen no more.
ALL was so still that I could almost count
The tinklings of the falling leaves. At times,
Perchance, a nut was heard to drop, and then-
As if it had slipp'd from him as he struck
The meat—a squirrel's short and fretful bark.
Anon, a troop of noisy, roving jays,
Whisking their gaudy topknots, would surprise
And seize upon the top of some tall tree,
Shrieking, as if on purpose to enjoy
The consternation of the noontide stillness..
Roused by the din, the squirrel from his hole,
Like some grave justice bent to keep the peace,
Thrust his gray pate, much wondering what it meant.
And squatted near me on a stone, there bask'd
A fly of larger breed and o'ergrown bulk,
In the warm sunshine, vain of his green coat
Of variable velvet laced with gold,
That, ever and anon, would whisk about,
Vexing the stillness with his buzzing din,
As human fopling will do with his talk:
And o'er the mossy post of an old fence,
Lured from its crannies by the warmth, was spied
A swarm of gay motes waltzing to a tune
Of their own humming: quiet sounds, that serve
More deeply to impress us with a sense
Of silent loneliness and trackless ways.
'Twas an hour of fearful issues,
When the bold three hundred stood,
For their love of holy freedom,
By that old Thessalian flood;
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