Bulchevy's Book of English Verse Part 118

The thousand car-bourne cherubim, The wandering eleven, All join to chant the dirge of him Who fell just now from Heaven.

Hartley Coleridge. 1796-1849

643. The Solitary-Hearted

SHE was a queen of n.o.ble Nature's crowning, A smile of hers was like an act of grace; She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning, Like daily beauties of the vulgar race: But if she smiled, a light was on her face, A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam Of peaceful radiance, silvering o'er the stream Of human thought with unabiding glory; Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream, A visitation, bright and transitory.

But she is changed,--hath felt the touch of sorrow, No love hath she, no understanding friend; O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow What the poor n.i.g.g.ard earth has not to lend; But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend.

The tallest flower that skyward rears its head Grows from the common ground, and there must shed Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely, That they should find so base a bridal bed, Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely.

She had a brother, and a tender father, And she was loved, but not as others are From whom we ask return of love,--but rather As one might love a dream; a phantom fair Of something exquisitely strange and rare, Which all were glad to look on, men and maids, Yet no one claim'd--as oft, in dewy glades, The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness, Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades;-- The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness.

'Tis vain to say--her worst of grief is only The common lot, which all the world have known; To her 'tis more, because her heart is lonely, And yet she hath no strength to stand alone,-- Once she had playmates, fancies of her own, And she did love them. They are past away As Fairies vanish at the break of day; And like a spectre of an age departed, Or unsphered Angel wofully astray, She glides along--the solitary-hearted.

Hartley Coleridge. 1796-1849

644. Song

SHE is not fair to outward view As many maidens be, Her loveliness I never knew Until she smiled on me; O, then I saw her eye was bright, A well of love, a spring of light!

But now her looks are coy and cold, To mine they ne'er reply, And yet I cease not to behold The love-light in her eye: Her very frowns are fairer far Than smiles of other maidens are.

Hartley Coleridge. 1796-1849

645. Early Death

SHE pa.s.s'd away like morning dew Before the sun was high; So brief her time, she scarcely knew The meaning of a sigh.

As round the rose its soft perfume, Sweet love around her floated; Admired she grew--while mortal doom Crept on, unfear'd, unnoted.

Love was her guardian Angel here, But Love to Death resign'd her; Tho' Love was kind, why should we fear But holy Death is kinder?

Hartley Coleridge. 1796-1849

646. Friends.h.i.+p

WHEN we were idlers with the loitering rills, The need of human love we little noted: Our love was nature; and the peace that floated On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills, To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills: One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted, That, wisely doting, ask'd not why it doted, And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.

But now I find how dear thou wert to me; That man is more than half of nature's treasure, Of that fair beauty which no eye can see, Of that sweet music which no ear can measure; And now the streams may sing for others' pleasure, The hills sleep on in their eternity.

Thomas Hood. 1798-1845

647. Autumn

I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like Silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird would sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;-- Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?--With the sun, Oping the dusky eyelids of the south, Till shade and silence waken up as one, And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.

Where are the merry birds?--Away, away, On panting wings through the inclement skies, Lest owls should prey Undazzled at noonday, And tear with h.o.r.n.y beak their l.u.s.trous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?--In the west, Blus.h.i.+ng their last to the last sunny hours, When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest Like tearful Proserpine, s.n.a.t.c.h'd from her flow'rs To a most gloomy breast.

Where is the pride of Summer,--the green prime,-- The many, many leaves all twinkling?--Three On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime Trembling,--and one upon the old oak-tree!

Where is the Dryad's immortality?-- Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through In the smooth holly's green eternity.

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd h.o.a.rd, The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain, And honey bees have stored The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells; The swallows all have wing'd across the main; But here the Autumn melancholy dwells, And sighs her tearful spells Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.

Alone, alone, Upon a mossy stone, She sits and reckons up the dead and gone With the last leaves for a love-rosary, Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily, Like a dim picture of the drowned past In the hush'd mind's mysterious far away, Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last Into that distance, gray upon the gray.

O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded Under the languid downfall of her hair: She wears a coronal of flowers faded Upon her forehead, and a face of care;-- There is enough of wither'd everywhere To make her bower,--and enough of gloom; There is enough of sadness to invite, If only for the rose that died, whose doom Is Beauty's,--she that with the living bloom Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light: There is enough of sorrowing, and quite Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,-- Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl; Enough of fear and shadowy despair, To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!

Thomas Hood. 1798-1845

648. Silence

THERE is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave--under the deep, deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hush'd--no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, That never spoke, over the idle ground: But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, Though the dun fox or wild hyaena calls, And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan-- There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

Thomas Hood. 1798-1845

649. Death

IT is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below; It is not death to know this--but to know That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go So duly and so oft--and when gra.s.s waves Over the pa.s.s'd-away, there may be then No resurrection in the minds of men.

Thomas Hood. 1798-1845

650. Fair Ines

O SAW ye not fair Ines?

She 's gone into the West, To dazzle when the sun is down, And rob the world of rest: She took our daylight with her, The smiles that we love best, With morning blushes on her cheek, And pearls upon her breast.

O turn again, fair Ines, Before the fall of night, For fear the Moon should s.h.i.+ne alone, And stars unrivall'd bright; And blessed will the lover be That walks beneath their light, And breathes the love against thy cheek I dare not even write!

Would I had been, fair Ines, That gallant cavalier, Who rode so gaily by thy side, And whisper'd thee so near!

Were there no bonny dames at home, Or no true lovers here, That he should cross the seas to win The dearest of the dear?

I saw thee, lovely Ines, Descend along the sh.o.r.e, With bands of n.o.ble gentlemen, And banners waved before; And gentle youth and maidens gay, And snowy plumes they wore: It would have been a beauteous dream,-- If it had been no more!

Alas, alas! fair Ines, She went away with song, With Music waiting on her steps, And shoutings of the throng; But some were sad, and felt no mirth, But only Music's wrong, In sounds that sang Farewell, farewell, To her you've loved so long.

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines!

That vessel never bore So fair a lady on its deck, Nor danced so light before,-- Alas for pleasure on the sea, And sorrow on the sh.o.r.e!

The smile that bless'd one lover's heart Has broken many more!

Thomas Hood. 1798-1845