Much have we to support us in our strife
 With things which else would crush us, nor alone
 Secret refreshings of the inward life,
 But many a flower of sweetest scent is strown
 Upon our outward and our open way;
 None sweeter than are at some seasons known
 To them who dwell for many a prosperous day
 Under one roof, and have, as they would hope,
 One purpose for their lives, one aim, one scope—
 To labour upward on the path to heaven.
 Full of refreshment these occasions are,
 Like seasonable resting-places given
 To pilgrim feet; for tho’, alas! too rare,
 Yet the sweet memories they supply, will give
 The food on which affection’s heart may live
 In after times; since it were sad indeed
 If all more intimate knowledge did not breed
 More trust in one another and more love,
 More faith that each is seeking to attain
 With humble earnest effort, not in vain,
 The happy rest of God. And so they part
 On their divided ways with cheerful heart,
 Knowing that in all places they will call
 On the same God and Father over all;
 And part not wholly, since they meet whose prayer
 Meets at the throne of grace; one life divine
 Through all the branches of the mystical vine
 Flows ever, even as the same breath of air
 Lifts every leaflet of a mighty grove.
 And from our meeting we shall reap a share
 Of a yet higher good, if we have won
 Hereby the strengthening of one weak desire,
 The fanning of one faint spark to a fire,
 The stirring of one prayer, that we may prove
 Stedfast and faithful till our work be done,
 Until the course appointed us be run.
We know not whither our frail barks are borne,
 To quiet haven, or on stormy shore;
 Nor need we seek to know it, while above
 The tempest and the waters’ angriest roar
 Are heard the voices of Almighty love—
 So we shall find none dreary nor forlorn.
 Whither we go we know not, but we know
 That if we keep our faces surely set
 Towàrd new Zion, we shall reach at last,
 When every danger, every woe is past,
 The city where the sealèd tribes are met,
 Whither the nations of the savèd flow,
 The city with its heav’n-descended halls,
 The city builded round with diamond walls.
Then how should we feel sorrow or dim fear
 At any parting now, if there to meet;
 How should our hearts with sadder pulses beat,
 When thou art going where kind hearts will greet
 And welcome thy return, and there as here
 Thou still wilt find thine own appointed sphere,
 To fill the measure up of gentle deeds,
 Even as we have learnèd that in these,
 That in the holy Christian charities,
 And the suppliance of the lowliest needs
 Of the most lowly, our true greatness is.
Therefore we will not seek to win thy stay,
 Nor ask but this—that thou shouldst bear away
 Kind memories of us, and only claim
 What of thyself thou wilt be prompt to give,
 That in thy heart’s affections he may live,
 To whom thou bearest that most holy name
 Of spiritual mother. O beloved friend,
 It is a cheering thought, if I should be
 Where I can no more watch for him nor tend
 His infant years—there where I cannot see
 What good, what evil wait upon his way,
 That yet thy love thy counsel and thy cares
 He will not lack, a child of faithful prayers.

TO ——.

ON THE MORNING OF HER BAPTISM.

This will we name thy better birth-day, child,
 O born already to a sin-worn world,
 But now unto a kingdom undefiled,
 Where over thee love’s banner is unfurled.
Lo! on the morning of this Sabbath day
 I lay aside the weight of human fears,
 Which I had for thee, and without dismay
 Look through the avenue of coming years.
I see thee passing without mortal harm
 Thro’ ranks of foes against thy safety met;
 I see thee passing—thy defence and charm,
 The seal of God upon thy forehead set.
From this time forth thou often shalt hear say
 Of what immortal City thou wert given
 The rights and full immunities to-day,
 And of the hope laid up for thee in heaven.
From this time forward thou shalt not believe
 That thou art earthly, or that aught of earth,
 Or aught that hell can threaten, shall receive
 Power on the children of the second birth.
O risen out of death into the day
 Of an immortal life, we bid thee hail,
 And will not kiss the waterdrops away,
 The dew that rests upon thy forehead pale.
And if the seed of better life lie long,
 As in a wintry hiddenness and death,
 Then calling back this day, we will be strong
 To wait in hope for heaven’s reviving breath;
To water, if there should be such sad need,
 The undiscernèd germ with sorrowing tears,
 To wait until from that undying seed
 Out of the earth a heavenly plant appears;
The growth and produce of a fairer land,
 And thence transplanted to a barren soil,
 It needs the tendance of a careful hand,
 Of love, that is not weary with long toil.
And thou, dear child, whose very helplessness
 Is as a bond upon us and a claim,
 Mayest thou have this of us, as we no less
 Have daily from our Father known the same.

TO A LADY SINGING.

How like a swan, cleaving the azure sky,
 The voice upsoars of thy triumphant song,
 That whirled awhile resistlessly along
 By the great sweep of threatening harmony,
 Seemed, overmatched, to struggle helplessly
 With that impetuous music, yet ere long
 Escaping from the current fierce and strong,
 Pierces the clear crystàlline vault on high.
 And I too am upborne with thee together
 In circles ever narrowing, round and round,
 Over the clouds and sunshine—who erewhile,
 Like a blest bird of charmèd summer-weather
 In the blue shadow of some foamless isle,
 Was floating on the billows of sweet sound.

THE SAME CONTINUED.

When the mute voice returns from whence it came,
 The silence of a momentary awe,
 A brief submission to the eternal law
 Of beauty doth to every heart proclaim
 A Spirit has been summoned; yea, the same
 Whose dwelling is the inmost human heart,
 Which will not from that home and haunt depart,
 Which nothing can quite vanquish or make tame.
 It is the noblest gift beneath the moon,
 The power, this awful presence to compel
 Out of the lurking places where it lies
 Deep-hidden and removed from human eyes:
 Oh! reverence thou in fear and cherish well
 This privilege of few, this rarest boon.

THE SAME CONTINUED.

Look! for a season (ah, too brief a space),
 While yet the spell is strong upon the rout,
 With something of still fear all move about,
 As though a breath or motion might displace
 The Spirit, which had come of heavenly grace
 Among them, for a moment to redeem
 Their thoughts and passions from the selfish dream
 Of earthly life, and its inglorious race.
 If we might keep this awe upon us still,
 If we might walk for ever in the power
 And in the shadow of the mystery,
 Which has been spread around us at this hour,
 This might suffice to guard us from much ill,
 This might go far to keep us pure and free.

THE SAME CONTINUED.

But the spell fails—and of the many here,
 Who have been won to brief forgetfulness
 Of all that would degrade them and oppress,
 Who have been carried out of their dim sphere
 Of being, to realms brighter and more clear,
 How few to-morrow will retain a trace,
 Which the world’s business shall not soon efface,
 Of this high mood, this time of reverent fear.
 In these high raptures there is nothing sure,
 Nothing that we can rest on, to sustain
 The spirit long, or arm it to endure
 Against temptation weariness or pain,
 And if they promise to preserve it pure
 From earthly taint, the promise is in vain.

THE SAME CONTINUED.

Yet proof is here of men’s unquenched desire
 That the procession of their life might be
 More equable majestic pure and free;
 That there are times when all would fain aspire,
 And gladly use the helps, to lift them higher,
 Which music, poesy, or Nature brings,
 And think to mount upon these waxen wings,
 Not deeming that their strength shall ever tire.
 But who indeed shall his high flights sustain,
 Who soar aloft and sink not? He alone
 Who has laid hold upon that golden chain
 Of love, fast linked to God’s eternal throne,—
 The golden chain from heav’n to earth let down,
 That we might rise by it, nor fear to sink again.

SONNET.

A counsellor well fitted to advise
 In daily life and at whose lips no less
 Men may inquire or nations, when distress
 Of sudden doubtful danger may arise,
 Who, though his head be hidden in the skies,
 Plants his firm foot upon our common earth,
 Dealing with thoughts which everywhere have birth,—
 This is the poet, true of heart and wise:
 No dweller in a baseless world of dream,
 Which is not earth nor heav’n: his words have past
 Into man’s common thought and week-day phrase;
 This is the poet, and his verse will last.
 Such was our Shakspeare once, and such doth seem
 One who redeems our later gloomier days.

SONNET.

Me rather may to tears unbidden move
 The meanest print that on a cottage wall
 Some ancient deed heroic doth recal,
 Or loving act of His, whose life was love,
 Than that my heart should be too proud to prove
 Emotions and sweet sympathies, until
 The magic of some mighty master’s skill
 Called hues and shapes of wonder from above:
 Since if we do no idle homage pay
 To what in art most beautiful is found,
 We shall have learned to feel in that same hour
 With man’s most rude and most unskilled essay
 To win the beauty that is floating round
 Into abiding forms of grace and power.

SONNET,

CONNECTED WITH THE FOREGOING.

Yes, and not otherwise, if we in deed
 And with pure hearts are seeking what is fair
 In Nature, then believe we shall not need
 Long anxious quests, exploring earth and air
 Ere we shall find wherewith our hearts to feed:
 The beauty which is scattered everywhere
 Will in our souls such deep contentment breed,
 We shall not pine for aught remote or rare;
 We shall not ask from some transcendant height
 To gaze on such rare scenes, as may surpass
 Earth’s common shows, ere we will own delight:
 We shall not need in quest of these to roam,
 While sunshine lies upon our English grass,
 And dewdrops glitter on green fields at home.

DESPONDENCY[8].

I.

It is a weary hill
 Of moving sand that still
 Shifts, struggle as we will,
 Beneath our tread:
 Of those who went before,
 And tracked the desert o’er,
 The footmarks are no more,
 But gone and fled.

II.

We stray to either side,
 We wander far and wide,
 We fall to sleep and slide
 Far down again:
 As thro’ the sand we wade,
 We do not seek to aid
 Our fellows, but upbraid
 Each others’ pain.

III.

I gaze on that bright band
 Who on the summit stand,
 To order and command,
 Like stars on high:
 Yet with despairing pace
 My way I could retrace,
 Or on this desert place
 Sink down and die.

IV.

As we who toil and weep,
 And with our weeping steep
 The path o’er which we creep,
 They had not striven;
 They must have taken flight
 To that serenest height,
 And won it by the might
 Of wings from heaven.

V.

Alack! I have no wing,
 My spirit lacks that spring,
 And Nature will not bring
 Her help to me.
 From her I have no aid,
 But light-enwoven shade,
 And stream and star upbraid
 Our misery.

ODE TO SLEEP.

I.

I cannot veil mine eyelids from the light;
 I cannot turn away
 From this insulting and importunate day,
 That momently grows fiercer and more bright,
 And wakes the hideous hum of monstrous flies
 In my vexed ear, and beats
 On the broad panes, and like a furnace heats
 The chamber of my rest, and bids me rise.

II.

I cannot follow thy departing track,
 Nor tell in what far meadows, gentle Sleep,
 Thou art delaying. I would win thee back,
 Were mine some drowsy potion, or dull spell,
 Or charmèd girdle, mighty to compel
 Thy heavy grace; for I have heard it said,
 Thou art no flatterer, that dost only keep
 In kingly haunts, leaving unvisited
 The poor man’s lowlier shed;
 And when the day is joyless, and its task
 Unprofitable, I were fain to ask,
 Why thou wilt give it such an ample space,
 Why thou wilt leave us such a weary scope
 For memory, and for that which men call hope,
 Nor wind in one embrace
 Sad eve and night forlorn
 And undelightful morn.

III.

If with the joyous were thine only home,
 I would not so far wrong thee, as to ask
 This boon, or summon thee from happier task.
 But no,—for then thou wouldst too often roam
 And find no rest; for me, I cannot tell
 What tearless lids there are, where thou mightst dwell.
 I know not any, unenthralled of sorrow,
 I know not one, to whom this joyous morrow,
 So full of living motion new and bright,
 Will be a summons to secure delight.
 And thus I shall not harm thee, though I claim
 Awhile thy presence—O mysterious Sleep.
 Some call thee shadow of a mightier Name,
 And whisper how that nightly thou dost keep
 A roll and count for him.—
 Then be thou on my spirit like his presence dim.

IV.

Yet if my limbs were heavy with sweet toil,
 I had not needed to have wooed thy might,
 But till thy timely flight
 Had lain securely in thy peaceful coil.
 Or if my heart were lighter, long ago
 Had crushed the dewy morn upon the sod,
 Darkening where I trod,
 As was my pleasure once, but now it is not so.

V.

And therefore am I seeking to entwine
 A coronal of poppies for my head,
 Or wreathe it with a wreath engarlanded
 By Lethe’s slumberous waters. Oh! that mine
 Were some dim chamber turning to the north,
 With latticed casement, bedded deep in leaves,
 That opening with sweet murmur might look forth
 On quiet fields from broad o’erhanging eaves,
 And ever when the Spring her garland weaves,
 Were darkened with encroaching ivy-trail
 And jaggèd vine-leaves’ shade;
 And all its pavement starred with blossoms pale
 Of jasmine, when the wind’s least stir was made;
 Where the sun-beam were verdurous-cool, before
 It wound into that quiet nook, to paint
 With interspace of light and colour faint
 That tesselated floor.
 How pleasant were it there in dim recess,
 In some close-curtained haunt of quietness,
 To hear no tones of human pain and care,
 Our own or others, little heeding there,
 If morn or noon or night
 Pursued their weary flight,
 But musing what an easy thing it were
 To mix our opiates in a larger cup,
 And drink, and not perceive
 Sleep deepening lead his truer kinsman up,
 Like undistinguished Night, darkening the skirts of Eve.

ATLANTIS.

I.

I could loose my boat,
 And could bid it float
 Where the idlest wind should pilot,
 So its glad course lay
 From this earth away,
 Towards any untrodden islet.

II.

For this earth is old,
 And its heart is cold,
 And the palsy of age has bound it;
 And my spirit frets
 For the viewless nets
 Which are hourly clinging round it.

III.

And with joyful glee
 We have heard of thee,
 Thou Isle in mid ocean sleeping;
 And thy records old,
 Which the Sage has told,
 How the Memphian tombs are keeping.

IV.

But we know not where,
 ’Neath the desert air,
 To look for the pleasant places
 Of the youth of Time,
 Whose austerer prime
 The haunts of his childhood effaces.

V.

Like the golden flowers
 Of the western bowers,
 Have waned their immortal shadows;
 And no harp may tell
 Where the asphodel
 Clad in light those Elysian meadows.

VI.

And thou, fairest Isle
 In the daylight’s smile,
 Hast thou sunk in the boiling ocean,
 While beyond thy strand
 Rose a mightier land
 From the wave in alternate motion?

VII.

Are the isles that stud
 The Atlantic flood,
 But the peaks of thy tallest mountains,
 While repose below
 The great water’s flow
 Thy towns and thy towers and fountains?

VIII.

Have the Ocean powers
 Made their quiet bowers,
 In thy fanes and thy dim recesses?
 Or in haunts of thine
 Do the sea-maids twine
 Coral wreaths for their dewy tresses?

IX.

Or does foot not fall
 In deserted hall,
 Choked with wrecks that ne’er won their haven,
 By the ebb trailed o’er
 Thy untrampled floor,
 Which their sunken wealth has paven?

X.

Oh, appear! appear!
 Not as when thy spear
 Ruled as far as the broad Egean,
 But in Love’s own might,
 And in Freedom’s right,
 Till the nations uplift their Pæan,

XI.

Who now watch and weep,
 And their vigil keep,
 Till they faint for expectation;
 Till their dim eyes shape
 Temple tower and cape
 From the cloud and the exhalation.

SAIS.

An awful statue, by a veil half-hid,
 At Sais stands. One came, to whom was known
 All lore committed to Etruscan stone,
 And all sweet voices, that dull time has chid
 To silence now, by antique Pyramid,
 Skirting the desert, heard; and what the deep
 May in its dimly-lighted chambers keep,
 Where Genii groan beneath the seal-bound lid.
 He dared to raise that yet unlifted veil
 With hands not pure, but never might unfold
 What there he saw—madness, the shadow, fell
 On his few days, ere yet he went to dwell
 With night’s eternal people, and his tale
 Has thus remained, and will remain, untold.

SONNET.

I stood beside a pool, from whence ascended,
 Mounting the platforms of the cloudy wind,
 A stately hern—its soaring I attended,
 Till it grew dim, and I with watching blind—
 When, lo! a shaft of arrowy light descended
 Upon its darkness and its dim attire:
 It straightway kindled then, and was afire,
 And with the unconsuming radiance blended.
 A bird, a cloud, flecking the sunny air,
 It had its golden dwelling mid the lightning
 Of those empyreal domes, and it might there
 Have dwelt for ever, glorified and brightning,
 But that its wings were weak—so it became
 A dusky speck again, that was a wingèd flame.

RECOLLECTIONS OF BURGOS.

Most like some agèd king it seemed to me,
 Who had survived his old regality,
 Poor and deposed, but keeping still his state,
 In all he had before of truly great;
 With no vain wishes and no vain regret,
 But his enforcèd leisure soothing yet
 With meditation calm and books and prayer;
 For all was sober and majestic there—
 The old Castilian, with close finger tips
 Pressing his folded mantle to his lips;
 The dim cathedral’s cross-surmounted pile,
 With carved recess, and cool and shadowy aisle,
 And had not from dark hoods peered darker eyes,
 All fitted well for meditation wise—
 The walks of poplar by the river’s side,
 That wound by many a straggling channel wide;
 And seats of stone, where one might sit and weave
 Visions, till well-nigh tempted to believe
 That life had few things better to be done,
 And many worse, than resting in the sun
 To lose the hours, and wilfully to dim
 Our half-shut eyes, and veil them till might swim
 The pageant by us, smoothly as the stream
 And unremembered pageant of a dream.
A castle crowned a neighbouring hillock’s crest,
 But now the moat was level with the rest;
 And all was fallen of this place of power,
 All heaped with formless stone, save one round tower,
 And here and there a gateway low and old,
 Figured with antique shape of warrior bold.
 And then behind this eminence the sun
 Would drop serenely, long ere day was done;
 And one who climbed that height might see again
 A second setting o’er the fertile plain
 Beyond the town, and glittering in his beam,
 Wind far away that poplar-skirted stream.

TO A FRIEND.

Thou that hast travelled far away,
 In lands beyond the sea,
 Wilt understand me, when I say
 What there has come to me.
In chambers dim thou wilt have wrought,
 With no one by, to cheer,
 And trod the downward paths of thought,
 In solitude and fear;
Nor till the weary day was o’er,
 Into the air have fled
 From thought which could delight no more,
 From books whose power was dead;
What time perchance the drooping day
 With burning vapour fills
 The deep recesses far away
 Of all the golden hills:
Or later, when the twilight blends
 All hues, or when the moon
 Into the ocean depths descends,
 A wavering column, down.
Then hast not thou in spirit leapt,
 Emerging from thy gloom,
 Like one who unawares o’erstept
 The barriers of a tomb.
And in thine exultation cried—
 Of gladness having fill,
 And in it being glorified—
 “The world is beauteous still!”

TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL EXILES OF 1823.

[WRITTEN IN 1829.]

Wise are ye in a wisdom vainly sought
 Thro’ all the records of the historic page;
 It is not to be learned by lengthened age,
 Scarce by deep musings of unaided thought:
 By suffering and endurance ye have bought
 A knowledge of the thousand links that bind
 The highest with the lowest of our kind,
 And how the indissoluble chain is wrought.
 Ye fell by your own mercy once—beware,
 When your lots leap again from fortune’s urn,
 An heavier error—to be pardoned less.
 Yours be it to the nations to declare
 That years of pain and disappointment turn
 Weak hearts to gall, but wise to gentleness.

TO THE SAME.

Like nightly watchers from a palace tower,
 In hope and faith and patience strong to wait
 The beacons on the hills, which should relate
 How some fenced city of deceit and power
 Had fallen—ye have stood for many an hour,
 Till your first hope’s high movements must be dead,
 And if with new ye have not cheered and fed
 Your bosoms, dim despair may be your dower.
 Yet not for all—tho’ yet no fire may crest
 The mountains, or light up their beacons sere—
 Your eminent commission so far wrong,
 Or so much flatter the oppressors’ rest,
 As to give o’er your watching, for so long
 As ye shall hope, ’tis reason they must fear.

SONNET.

The moments that we rescue and redeem
 From the bare desert and the waste of years,
 To fertilize, it may be with our tears,
 Yet so that for time after they shall teem
 With better than rank weeds, and wear a gleam
 Of visionary light, and on the wind
 Fling odours from the fields long left behind,
 These and their fruit to us can never seem
 Indifferent things, and therefore do I look
 Not without gentle sadness upon thee,
 And liken thy outgoing, O my book,
 To the impatience of a little brook,
 Which might with flowers have lingered pleasantly,
 Yet toils to perish in the mighty sea.

ON AN EARLY DEATH.

I.

Ah me! of them from whom the good have hope,
 Of them whom virtue for her liegemen claims,
 How many the world tames,
 That with its evil they quite cease to cope,
 And their first fealty sworn to beauty and truth
 Break early; and amid their sinful youth
 Make shipwreck of all high and glorious aims.
 How few the fierce and fiery trial stand,
 To be as weapons tempered and approved
 For an almighty hand.
How few of all the streamlets that were moved,
 Do ever unto clearness run again,
 And therefore is it marvellous to us,
 When of these weapons one is broken thus,
 When of these fountains one would seem in vain
 Renewed in clearness, and is staunched before
 It has had leave to spread fresh streams the desert o’er.

II.