ALL hours are sweet, when love is there
A heavenliness to make and share ;
All scenes delight, when eyes adored
The magic of their gaze afford;
No rock is bleak, no desert rude,
When Beauty walks the solitude;-
But moonlight charms the outward eye,
Like music heard by memory;
And temptingly the moonbeams play
Around young lovers' lonely way,
As though fond Nature glow'd to meet
The pressure of their timing feet!-
Belated, like a starry train
When loth to quit the azure plain,
Yon vision'd pair,-behold them now;
While Dian bares her crested brow,
And clouds of alabaster white
Float in the soundless breath of night,—
How beautiful Creation's sleep!
So innocent, so calm, and deep:
The air is rock'd to voiceless rest;
The bird within his woven nest;
The dew upon unshaken leaves
A web of filmy lustre weaves;
And onward as the lovers steal,
You'd deem the fairy ground could feel
Their shadows o'er its silence fall,-
So rapt a stillness veileth all!
But they have reach'd a woodland shore, Where billows, now the breeze is o'er,
Are blended into one broad mass
Of heaving glory !—like a glass
Reflecting forth with twinkling change
The heaven-lights, in their lofty range.–
Magnificent, and mute, and bright,
To feel it, is to worship night !
And there they stand, absorb'd and blest,
In adoration unexprest;
Yet, drinking in with eye and soul
Earth's beautiful and boundless whole !
Bur, hark ! to sounds so musically dear,
By flattery melted into Folly's ear;
Behold a LION that doth roar to-night,
And doubt if homage be not man's delight !
Amid the sweet soft words that come and
go
From lord to lady, and from belle to beau,
There in thyself a night-throned idol see,
'Tis all thou art, and all a fool should be!--
Enamour'd thus, nonsensically dream
Thy mental worth a supernatʼral theme;
Yet, look around thee ere the night be o'er,
Thy heart is free, and thou a fool no more!
Thy mien, thy manners, and thy person tend
To make no charm Politeness could commend;
And, lest they should not quite sufficient see,
The faults of others are bestow'd on thee:
Thus on, till all that once was glory thought
From tongue to tongue is whisper'd into nought;
While each is conscious, as thy fame's o'erthrown,
To wound another's, is to heal his own.
ETHEREAL essence, interfused through life,
Is love. In orbs of glory spirits live
On such perfection; and on earth it feeds
And quickens all things with a soul-like ray :
The beautiful in its most beauteous sense;
And symbolized by nature, in her play
Of harmonies,-her forms, her hues, and sounds;
In each connexion, aptitude, and grace
Reside. Thus flowers in their infantile bloom
Of sympathy, the bend of trees, and boughs,
The chime of waters, and caress of winds,-
Betoken that they all partake a sense
Of that sweet principle, that charms the world.
ALONE, amid the wide and desert world,
Without a heart to echo to our own,
O! what is all the pomp and play of life!—
There is a solitude that lifts the mind
To lofty things,-seclusion from the rush
And stir of the unfeeling crowd, whose days
Reap scarce a thought to sanctify their flight:
Far from the city din, may Wisdom haunt
Her lone retreats, and yet not live alone;
For is there not the fellowship of books
Divine, the company of kindling thoughts,
And all that Nature yields a grateful mind?
This is not loneliness :-to look around
The peopled world, and 'mong its myriad hearts
To find no sympathies to nurse our own,—
O! this is loneliness! that solitude
Of soul, which makes the world a desert seem.
What is the guerdon of Ambition worth,
The cold applause of common minds, the crown
Of Genius, and th' abiding wreath of Fame,
Without the smile of some partaking soul ?-
For when the heart is full, the overflow
Of bliss, by being shared, is sweeter still :-
The very flowers, that in the May-breeze shake,
Bloom out together; and the blessed stars
Of Night walk not the pathless heavens alone,
Bnt twinkle, though unseen, in blissful trines
Of sympathetic light; all beauteous things
Hold mystic fellowship, and gifted man
Without a brother heart,-how darkly doom'd!
In sorrow cursed,-in happiness the same.
I knew a man, in mind and fame supreme,
And yet not happy, though by happiest ones
Admired.-A loftiness of feeling, sprung
From cent'ries dead, and ancestors unknown,
Together, with a soul-born pride that soar'd
Above the cloudy scene of vulgar life,—
In childhood fill'd him with a thirst of fame.
High fancies, of the hills and mountains born,
An inspiration from the haunted streams,
And dim deserted woods, with all the rays
Of beauty, which creative mind attracts
From scenes that Contemplation loved,—awoke
His genius into glorious play, he struck
The lyre-a World admired, and wreathed his brow
With a fresh laurel of immortal fame ;
A thousand tongues grew eloquent for him,
A thousand eyes would sparkle forth his praise!
And whem amid the gazing throng he sat―
A happy hypocrite to charm the hour,
And not obstruct the flow of joy,-the dreams
Of young Ambition brighten'd at his praise ;-
Alas!-how often the o'erladen mind
Reliev'd its anguish in a glowing smile!—
Within that soul a secret blank remain'd
Which Admiration could not fill; alone,
No trusting heart, no gentle voice of love,
No happy faces round his evening hearth,—
Were his to share; and what was brief renown?
A shade; and he?-a Soul in solitude!
OH! weep not that our beauty wears
Beneath the wings of time;
That age conceals the brow with cares
That once appear'd sublime.
Oh! weep not that the clouded eye
No shining thought can speak ;
And, fresh and fair, no longer lie
Joy-tints upon the cheek.
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