Poor captive bird! who, from thy narrow cage, Pourest such music, that it might assuage The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee, Were they not deaf to all sweet melody, This song shall be thy rose; its petals pale Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale ! But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom, And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom.
High, spirit-winged Heart! who dost forever Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavor, Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed It over-soared this low and worldly shade, Lie shattered; and thy panting, wounded breast Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest! I weep vain tears; blood would less bitter be, Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee.
Seraph of heaven! too gentle to be human, Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman All that is insupportable in thee
Of light, and love, and immortality! Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse! Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe!
Thou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form Among the Dead! Thou Star above the Storm! Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror ! Thou Harmony of Nature's art! Thou Mirror In whom, as in the splendor of the Sun,
All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on! Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow;
I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song All of its much mortality and wrong,
With those clear drops which start like sacred dew From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through, Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy :
Then smile on it, so that it may not die.
I never thought before my death to see Youth's vision thus made perfect. Emily,
I love thee; though the world by no thin name Will hide that love, from its unvalued shame. Would we two had been twins of the same mother!
Or, that the name my heart lent to another Could be a sister's bond for her and thee, Blending two beams of one eternity!
Yet were one lawful and the other true,
These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due, How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me!
I am not thine: I am a part of thee!
Sweet Lamp! my moth-like Muse has burnt its wings; Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings,
Young Love should teach Time, in his own gray style, All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile,
A lovely soul formed to be blest and bless?
A well of sealed and secret happiness,
Whose waters like blithe light and music are, Vanquishing dissonance and gloom? a Star Which moves not in the moving heavens, alone? A smile amid dark frowns? a gentle tone Amid rude voices? a belovèd Light? A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight?
A Lute, which those whom Love has taught to play Make music on, to soothe the roughest day And lull fond grief asleep? a buried treasure? A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure? A violet-shrouded grave of Woe?—I measure The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, And find-alas! mine own infirmity.
She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way, And lured me toward sweet Death; as Night by Day, Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, Led into light, life, peace. An antelope, In the suspended impulse of its lightness, Were less ethereally light; the brightness Of her divinest presence trembles through Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew Embodied in the windless Heaven of June Amid the splendor-wingèd stars, the Moon Burns, inextinguishably beautiful;
And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops, Killing the sense with passion; sweet as stops Of planetary music heard in trance. In her mild lights the starry spirits dance, The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap Under the lightnings of the soul-too deep For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense.
The glory of her being, issuing thence,
Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade
Of unentangled intermixture, made
By Love, of light and motion: one intense
Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence,
Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing With the unintermitted blood, which there Quivers (as in a fleece of snow-like air The crimson pulse of living morning quiver), Continuously prolonged, and ending never, Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world; Scarce visible from extreme loveliness.
Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress, And her loose hair; and where some heavy tress The air of her own speed has disentwined, The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind; And in the soul a wild odor is felt,
Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt Into the bosom of a frozen bud.-
See where she stands! a mortal shape indued With love and life and light and deity,
And motion which may change but can not die ; And image of some bright Eternity;
A shadow of some golden dream; a Splendor Leaving the third sphere pilotless; a tender Reflection of the eternal Moon of Love
Under whose motion life's dull billows move; A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning,
A vision like incarnate April, warning
With smiles and tears, Frost the Anatomy Into his summer grave.
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