My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek
reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing
sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot
o'ergrown
With white-flowered Jasmin, and
the broad-leaved Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence
and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late
were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark
the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should
Wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite
the scents
Snatched from yon bean-field!
and the world so hushed
The stilly murmur of the
distant Sea
Tells us of silence.
And that simplest Lute,
Placed length-ways in the
clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze
caressed,
Like some coy maid half
yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding,
as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And
now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long
sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and
rise,
Such a soft floating witchery
of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when
they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from
Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round
honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds
of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering
on untamed wing!
O! the one Life within us and
abroad,
Which meets all motion and
becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like
power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and
joyance everywhere-
Methinks, it should have been
impossible
Not to love all things in a
world so filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and
the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her
instrument.
And thus, my Love! as on the
midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my
limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed
eyelids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like
diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon
tranquility:
Full many a thought uncalled
and undetained,
And many idle flitting
phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and
passive brain,
As wild and various as the
random gales
That swell and flutter on this
subject Lute!
And what if all of animated
nature
Be but organic Harps diversely
framed,
That tremble into thought, as
o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one
intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and
God of all?
But thy more serious eye a mild
reproof
Darts, O belovèd Woman! nor
such thoughts
Dim and unhallowed dost thou
not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with
my God.
Meek Daughter in the family of
Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily
dispraised
These shapings of the
unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they
rise and break
On vain Philosophy's
aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak
of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when
with awe
I praise him, and with Faith
that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies
healèd me,
A sinful and most miserable
man,
Wildered and dark, and gave me
to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee,
heart-honored Maid
< British and American Poets
of the 19th Century >