Were I the poet-laureate of the fairies, Who in a rose-leaf finds too broad a page;Or could I, like your beautiful canaries, Sing with free heart and happy, in a cage;Perhaps I might within this little space (As in some Eastern tale, by magic power, A giant is imprisoned in a flower)
Have told you something with a poet's grace.
But I need wider limits, ampler scope, A world of freedom for a world of passion, And even then, the glory of my hope Would not be uttered in its stateliest fashion;Yet, lady, when fit language shall have told it, You'll find one little heart enough to hold it!
XI "Which Are the Clouds, and Which the Mountains? See"
Which are the clouds, and which the mountains? See, They mix and melt together! Yon blue hill Looks fleeting as the vapors which distill Their dews upon its summit, while the free And far-off clouds, now solid, dark, and still, An aspect wear of calm eternity.
Each seems the other, as our fancies will --The cloud a mount, the mount a cloud, and we Gaze doubtfully. So everywhere on earth, This foothold where we stand with slipping feet, The unsubstantial and substantial meet, And we are fooled until made wise by Time.
Is not the obvious lesson something worth, Lady? or have I wov'n an idle rhyme?
XII "What Gossamer Lures Thee Now? What Hope, What Name"
What gossamer lures thee now? What hope, what name Is on thy lips? What dreams to fruit have grown?
Thou who hast turned ONE Poet-heart to stone, Is thine yet burning with its seraph flame?
Let me give back a warning of thine own, That, falling from thee many moons ago, Sank on my soul like the prophetic moan Of some young Sibyl shadowing her own woe.
The words are thine, and will not do thee wrong, I only bind their solemn charge to song.
Thy tread is on a quicksand -- oh! be wise!
Nor, in the passionate eagerness of youth, MISTAKE THY BOSOM-SERPENT'S GLITTERING EYES
FOR THE CALM LIGHTS OF REASON AND OF TRUTH.
XIII "I Thank You, Kind and Best Beloved Friend"
I thank you, kind and best belov|"ed friend, With the same thanks one murmurs to a sister, When, for some gentle favor, he hath kissed her, Less for the gifts than for the love you send, Less for the flowers than what the flowers convey, If I, indeed, divine their meaning truly, And not unto myself ascribe, unduly, Things which you neither meant nor wished to say, Oh! tell me, is the hope then all misplaced?
And am I flattered by my own affection?
But in your beauteous gift, methought I traced Something above a short-lived predilection, And which, for that I know no dearer name, I designate as love, without love's flame.
XIV "Are These Wild Thoughts, Thus Fettered in My Rhymes"
Are these wild thoughts, thus fettered in my rhymes, Indeed the product of my heart and brain?
How strange that on my ear the rhythmic strain Falls like faint memories of far-off times!
When did I feel the sorrow, act the part, Which I have striv'n to shadow forth in song?
In what dead century swept that mingled throng Of mighty pains and pleasures through my heart?
Not in the yesterdays of that still life Which I have passed so free and far from strife, But somewhere in this weary world I know, In some strange land, beneath some orient clime, I saw or shared a martyrdom sublime, And felt a deeper grief than any later woe.
XV In Memoriam -- Harris Simons True Christian, tender husband, gentle Sire, A stricken household mourns thee, but its loss Is Heaven's gain and thine; upon the cross God hangs the crown, the pinion, and the lyre:
And thou hast won them all. Could we desire To quench that diadem's celestial light, To hush thy song and stay thy heavenward flight, Because we miss thee by this autumn fire?
Ah, no! ah, no! -- chant on! -- soar on! -- Reign on!
For we are better -- thou art happier thus;And haply from the splendor of thy throne, Or haply from the echoes of thy psalm, Something may fall upon us, like the calm To which thou shalt hereafter welcome us!
Poems Now First Collected Song Composed for Washington's Birthday, and Respectfully Inscribed to the Officers and Members of the Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, February 22, 1859 A hundred years and more ago A little child was born --To-day, with pomp of martial show, We hail his natal morn.
Who guessed as that poor infant wept Upon a woman's knee, A nation from the centuries stept As weak and frail as he?
