FROM you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of Youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odor and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Yet seemed it winter still, and, you Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time; When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed; When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. And she turned her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighsAll the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes— Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;" Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long." Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight. Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, And her whisper thronged my pulses with the fulness of the Spring. Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall. Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep, To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep. Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whispered by the phantom years, And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears; And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again. Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry. 'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry. Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest. Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast. O, the child, too, clothes the father with a dearness not his due. Half is thine, and half is his: it will be worthy of the two. O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart. "They were dangerous guides the feelings she herself was not exempt Truly, she herself had suffered”. Perish in thy self-contempt! Overlive it- lower yet be happy! wherefore should I care? I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair. What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys. Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do? I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, When the ranks are rolled in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound. But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels. Can I but relive in sadness? I will Make me feel the wild pulsation that Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field, And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn; And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men; Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do: For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grap pling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm; Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law. So I triumphed ere my passion sweeping through me left me dry, Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye; Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint: Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point: Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, Though the deep heat of existence beat forever like a boy's? Knowledge comes, but wisdom lin gers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more. Or to burst all links of habit - there to wander far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the day. Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag; Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree — Summer isles of Eden lying in darkpurple spheres of sea. |