FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

165

FULL MANY A GLORIOUS MORNING.

‘ULL many a glorious morning have I seen

FULL

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace : Even so my sun one early morn did shine, With all triumphant splendor on my brow; But out! alack! he was but one hour mine, The regent cloud hath masked him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.

Shakspere.

FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

H it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,

OH

Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,

To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily-persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould

Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low

And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold

'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land,

Or listening to the tide, with closed sight,

Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand

By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

Coleridge.

MOUNTAIN SACRAMENTS.

'OR we the mighty mountain plains have trod Both in the glow of sunset and sunrise; And lighted by the moon of southern skies! The snow-white torrent of the thundering flood We two have watched together. In the wood

We two have felt the warm tears dim our eyes
While zephyrs softer than an infant's sighs
Ruffled the light air of our solitude!

O Earth, maternal Earth, and thou, O Heaven,
And night first-born, who now, e'en now dost waken
The host of stars, thy constellated train!

Tell me if those can ever be forgiven,

Those abject, who together have partaken
These Sacraments of Nature-and in vain?

Aubrey De Vere.

A

AFTER THE BALL.

ND now the eastern sky

Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse

And open field, through which the pathway wound, And homeward led my steps. Magnificent

The morning rose, in memorable pomp,

THE WHISPEr of the apENNINE. 167

Glorious as ere I had beheld-in front,
The sea lay laughing at a distance; near,
The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds,
Grain tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
And in the meadows and the lower grounds
Was all the sweetness of a common dawn--
Dews, vapors, and the melody of birds,
And laborers going forth to till the fields.
Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim
My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated spirit.

Wordsworth.

THE WHISPER OF THE APENNINE.

LISTEN, listen, Mary mine,

To the whisper of the Apennine;

It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar,

Or like the sea on a northern shore,

Heard in its raging ebb and flow

By the captives pent in the caves below.

The Apennine in the light of day

Is a mighty mountain dim and gray,

Which between the earth and sky doth lay;
But when night comes, a chaos dread
On the dim starlight then is spread,

And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm.

Shelley.

THANKSGIVING.

'OR the lifting up of mountains,

FOR

In brightness and in dread;

For the peaks where snow and sunshine

Alone have dared to tread ; For the dark of silent gorges, Where mighty cedars nod; For the majesty of mountains I thank thee, O my God!

L

REAL AND IDEAL.

Lucy Larcom.

OOKING athwart the valley's cleft,

Where nestles many a cosey farm
Beside the stream whose music low
For ever keeps its ancient charm,
For one I love, who, young and gay,
Full often wandered by its side,
Floating his wayward fancies down
To the great sea upon its tide,-

Looking through dreamy, half-shut eyes
Across to where the shining mist
Bathed all the woods and uplands dim
With purple and with amethyst,

I said, Why do we linger thus

Where all is sharp and bright and clear? Seek we the pleasant land beyond,

And taste of its enchantments dear.

REAL AND IDEAL.

Agreed; and soon our faithful grays

Were plunging down the hill-side steep, Where over lichen-crinkled walls

The tangled thickets nod and creep;

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And past the spring that trickles down
Through ledges thick with brush and furze,
Where aspens show their silver pomp
And chestnuts drop their prickly burrs ;

And o'er the little rattling bridge

That spans the pebbly, murmurous stream, And on into the land that seemed

The mystic shadow of a dream.

And what to find? The smell of hay
New-mown, and gleam of mowers' scythes,
And purple milkweed hardly seen

For troops of golden butterflies;

And many a pleasant upland farm,
And many a sun-browned little maid,
And patient cattle half asleep

In many a maple's plenteous shade;

All this and more; but here nor there
One atom of the tender mist
That, from afar, had clothed the land
With purple and with amethyst.

But, looking backward to the hills
Which we had left an hour before,
Behold, the charm we came to seek

Was there! Down-folded softly o'er