Nature

Of Beauty, Joy, and Life and Light, which dwell
In florid nature, be it mine to tell.
Majestic truth! with Beauty at thy side--
Irradiate maid of highest Heaven’s pride;
And thou, undying Harmony, attend,
Romance with fact, and fact with fiction blend.
Bright Virtue bring, by brilliant Fancy drest,
And called by man, Imagination, blest;
That she, companion of the muse, may show
The gentle thoughts that lofty souls should know.

Oh, well do I remember me, when late
I stood upon the beetling crags, to wait
The coming of the rosy-fingered morn,
And view the heavenly tints that thence were born.
Far, far beyond the mountain’s pencilled brow,
Defined so clearly in the mellow glow,
Leucothea grey precedes the flaming dye
With which Aurora paints th’ orient sky;
Robed in dark shadows lies that mountain now,
O’er which bright phosphor lifts his radiant brow,
While, all above, the leaden-coloured sky
Is cloudless to the little moon on high--
And brightly hangs that little circling moon,
Contrasting richly in that dull cartoon.
But oh, the star! the blazing star above,
The morning and the evening star of love,
Sheds silently upon the scene below
The glowing softness of its ardent brow,
Beams o’er the snowy clouds that calmly sleep
In outstretched slumber on the shadowed steep;
And viewed o’er these, assumes a lurid hue,
But flames the brighter for the contrast too--
E’en so as when along the o’ersnowed ways
Some chilly wanderer wakes the ruddy blaze,
It wears a lustre faint and pale, though bright,
And burns the fiercer in the dazzling light.
Essence of love--a tear by Sappho dropped,
Which Jove, in pity, in its falling stopped,
Suffused with light and his immortal fire
And hung above and granted to inspire
Love’s glowing bards, when beauty’s chain entwines
The heart that vents itself in am’rous lines.

Now far below, and o’er the shrouded world
Lie, densely clotted, fields of mist enfurled;
Jutting out that molten sea, the rugged peaks
Seem starting into life, to watch the freaks
Of Nature’s wildest fancy o’er her glades
That lie embosomed in those fleecy shades--
O’er hills and hills the snowy sheet extends,
And peaceful beauty to the landscape lends;
Hushed is all Nature in her slumber there,
And shrouded are her charms in veil so fair.
Now whisp’ring Zephyrs o’er the changing scene
Are sporting, where so late repose has been,
The mist in circling wreaths departs, nor stays
To idly wanton with the airy fays.
And sternly frowns that dusky mountain still,
And marks their fittings over moor and hill;
Like some fell giant of the early days
Beheld the dancing of the sportive fays.
Oh, for the power of Byron or of Moore,
To glow with one, and with the latter soar;
To find a vent for budding fancy’s throes,
And reap the soft luxuriance that she sows;
To snatch a glowing diction’s varied strain,
And paint the fire when it flames again;
So I might well portray fair Nature’s charms,
Depict the bounties of her lavish arms,
Invoke the strains that to the Nine belong,
And roll the happy tide of thrilling song.

But lo! the rainbow tints that fast succeed
Each other, proclaim th’ impatient speed
Of that bright sun that rules our universe,
Of Nature’s joys the sole, the constant nurse;
With burning gold he tips those ebon clouds
Whose jagged banks his glory now enshrouds--
Miniature mountains capped with melting snow--
They now appear ere fading ’fore his brow;
The upshot rays he darts through limpid air,
Through half-closed eyes in varied tints appear
The speedy maid, with bow of varied dye,
Throws beaming pleasure in the gladdened eye;
And from this giant peak on which I muse,
All space seems rife with kaleidoscopic hues.
And now Aurora opes the saffron gates,
And all the glory of the sky awakes--
“He flasheth forth like bridegroom to the feast,
Through the red portals of the fiery east.”
The glittering dew, with brilliant flashing clings
Around the scattered cobweb’s silken strings,
In pearly drops within the lily grows,
Loads the wild violet and the mountain rose;
In silvery sheen arrests each golden ray,
Refracts its stream in multi-coloured play,
As shivered mirrors on a flow’ry lawn
Reflect a thousand tints where one is born,
And filtering through these early morning beams,
Sinks spangling round the smoking mountain streams.

Resuming now my trusty Terry’s weight,
I wander on where fleeting game or fate
Does guide my steps--where o’er the sloping grounds
High in the air the exulting Oribe bounds--
“The rifle raised and levelled with the eye,
Sharp a short thunder rolls along the sky,”
Swift to the unconscious hind the leaden death
Speeds on the wings of fate and stops his breath;
With one quick spring he falls upon the plain,
No more o’er vernal lawns to bound again.
Or, where the wary Rhee buck, wild and shy,
Perceive afar the hunter drawing nigh,
Together rush in one affrighted band,
And wildly gaze and tremble as they stand;
Till fully scared, with one short cough, again
They sweep like wind across the sounding plain.
Where, mute and lonely on the impending steeps,
The mountain hawk his frequent vigil keeps,
With noiseless pinion shoots into the air,
And sails upon the wind that’s wandering there;
With head oblique he scans his native sky,
Then far below his piercing glances hie
To where his dreaded shade portentous sweeps
O’er wilds, where in the sun the coney sleeps;
With sudden fear the rocks with cries resound,
As dive the furry tribe beneath the ground.
Now down I stray to where yon rushing rill
Is tumbling down the rock-defended hill,--
Here grateful winds in many a whispered lay,
With mild impression o’er my forehead stray,
And here reclined, where shadowed flows the stream,
I lend myself to reverie and dream.

Remorseless Time has rolled long years away
Since last I faced wild ocean’s fresh’ning spray,
But still a charmed impression lingers o’er
The heart, when scenes she’s often felt before,
Come crowding on her corners, thick as waves
Roll closely sequent into lonely caves;
Which prompts me to retune my feeble lyre,
And sing the theme of which we never tire;--
But whence this thought that thus the past recalls
That sudden gleams and oft the mind appals?
Without the faintest cause or reason plain,
This lightning thought darts quickly on the brain,
Picturing in the clear mirror of the mind
The distant spot that long we’ve left behind,
In faithful semblance painting on her eye
The bygone scene to mem’ry now so nigh,
And then as sudden flies, unless as here,
We fix the shadow e’er it disappear.
Not ev’ry one has felt this vision leap
With magic bound upon their mem’ry’s sleep,
But some there are, who, startled by the spell,
Retain remembrance to the feeling well;
Each spoken word, each gesture will appear
To have been acted in some former year,
And oft we think we almost can foretell
The next words spoken in this passing spell.

But how shall I essay to shape my way
Through themes, that multi-genius ’fore my day,
Has wrought upon and left no point unviewed,
That varied Nature on their minds imbued?
How through exhausted pictures steer my course,
And shun the oft-used terms that almost force
Themselves upon expression, for they deem
They are the sine qua nons of the theme,
And cling so firmly in the lab’ring breast,
That ’tis beyond its power to divest
Its chambers of these oft-recurring terms,
That stamp their image and implant their germs.
Coincidence of thought will oft produce
The same in words, and thus I do adduce
That censors ne’er will quibble in these times,
Nor scent a plagiarist in these stray lines.
So bear we on with that we have contrived,
Ne’er pausing to reflect from whence derived,
Nor spurn a passage for the reason that
Its semblance was in other brains begat--
For truth will charm though sung in echoed strain,
And changeless scenes instruct the bard again.

With long-swept rise and swiftly gathering sweep,
That seems to rake the bosom of the deep;
With curling crest and tint of lucid blue,
That glows with innate specks of snowy hue;
With pendent pause and darkly swelling breast,
That heaves as lovely woman’s in her rest;
The mighty eastern wave with booming roar
Falls thund’ring on old Afric’s rocky shore.
With busy spread he swamps the crannied rocks,
And now refills a thousand puny locks,
In seething eddies swirls and frets about,
Then shrinking back, he sinks, and hurries out.
Recalled, I ween, by some internal power
That guides his motion and directs his hour;
As does the heart, withdrawing in its turn,
The drop it late emitted from its urn.

Now further down along the sandy beach
The waves seem stretching to their utmost reach,
Then swift receding with the grating sand,
They curl in little rills along the strand,
While myriad tribes of sea-born insect life
Pursue their exit and enjoy their strife;
The fresh’ning sea-breeze spreads her airy wings,
And health and coolness to the seashore brings;
The tumbling porpoise bowl along the tide,
And now aloft, now down the billow glide,
And shrieking sea-birds swooping round the steep,
Skim the gay surface of the cresting deep;
The distant ship, as viewed from Komo’s cliff,
Seems almost dwindled to a fisher’s skiff;
As swiftly gliding o’er the seething surge,
She sinks beyond the horizon’s dusky verge;
While flaming in the painted west again,
“The sun’s last splendour lights the dazzling main.”
Lo! on the flushed horizon rolled along
Dark mountain lines of clouds embattling throng,
Mid blood-tipt peaks of fiercest fiery hue
Intensely sleeps th’ unutterable blue;
While gentle Hesperus from the empurpled sky,
Serenely lustrous as repose draws nigh,
Sinks sweetly smiling to her silken bed,
Where gorgeous robes and pillowing folds are spread,
And darkened Day leaves stretching o’er his grave
Deep crimson stains along the dark-blue wave.

My song has wandered from the mountain stream,
And Ocean’s wonders still employ my dream,
And here the cherished image of the brain
In pensive beauty shades the heart again;
Fond, foolish fancy, ever hov’ring nigh,
Paints her own idol on the wistful eye,
And breeds an atrophy’s insatiate ill,
Which though with nectar slaked, is cheerless still.
Oh, for the witching arts of ancient days,
When mortals, oft transmuted into fays,
Were given to guide the streamlet’s winding course,
And dwell enchanted at its bubbling source,
That I an Oread of my love might make,
To bless my steps through hunting glade or brake,
And roam with her where mountain cascades roll,
The guiding star, the Beatrice of my soul.
But to my theme--the sunny hours flow by,
And still unnumbered objects please the eye;
I watch the bubbles in their endless race,
For ever glancing o’er the brooklet’s face;
Oft at some sailing bud there sudden leaps
The finny darter of the glassy deeps;
While quiv’ring lilies in the current’s sweep,
In dancing movement, ceaseless motion keep;
I watch the butterflies in giddy flights,
Intensely mad, enjoying noon’s delights;
They meet, they turn, they hover here and there,
Then wildly scatter through the heated air.

The sun declines, behind the clouds he steals;
Loud o’er my head the sudden thunder peals,
And winged with lightning, awful echoes wakes
In caves rebellowing to the din it makes--
Dies on the breathless air, the song of birds,
And distant low the homeward wending herds;
The twitt’ring birds now seek the leafy brakes,
The lofty eagle now his perch forsakes,--
Forth from his castled rock he sudden flies,
And shuns in caves the fury of the skies.
Now heavy clouds o’ershade the verdant plain,
Then on the thirsty earth descend in rain;
And now the snowy hail, with rushing sound
Falls from its crystal quarries to the ground.
’Tis past! the sun a moment smiles in joy,
And rides his parting course without alloy;
While Zephyrs coy compound a gentle breeze,
And fan the air, and play among the trees.
Sunk o’er the mount, far in the tinted west,
The hidden sun has now declined to rest;
And ling’ring twilight, gloaming o’er the hill,
Sheds softest influence on the evening still.
I fain would cease, yet many thoughts still flow
Upon my mind, though ever waning low,
As when old Ocean’s billow-beaten shore
Has echoed to the wakened waters’ roar;
The o’erflown storm an agitation leaves
That still the less’ning wavelet on him heaves--
And still these little waves will ceaseless play
As ruling passions ever hold their sway;
Our primal thoughts will ever flow toward
Their consummation of their own accord,
As fountains, scattered o’er a mountain’s side
Will still, unto a point, converging, glide.

High on this hill I sound my rugged shell,
And sweep th’ untutored lyre; and should I swell
A strain of feelings purer than I feel
In th’ envenomed world below, and steal
The precepts of the Ethic muse to sing
Of that I practise not, forgive my string.
For still with joy is hailed the welcome hour
That bears respite from frequent trials’ power;
And all the puling prate of fashion’s twang,
And jarring accents of the city’s clang;
Releasing from the weary humdrum prose
That marks each dreary day’s monot’nous close;
And lifts us from the plain of low desires
To where Imagination never tires,
Where Contemplation plumes her ruffled wings,
And th’ untrammelled mind beholds all things,
As through a stained and softly coloured glass
One views the dream-like trees and waving grass,
And transports where kind Nature oft bestows
A soothing cup--nepenthe of our woes--
And though the harp be swept by bard profane,
If good the theme, the song is ne’er in vain;
For should his simple lay be nursed by fame,
Old Time forgets the follies of his name,
Effaces all the failings of his life,
And rears the strain that softens earthly strife.

And now, farewell!--dark shades enwrap the hill,
O’er dying day the dews in tears distil,
To shine again when with the morrow’s dawn
The golden light and joyous sun are born,
As gathered tears called forth by sorrow’s night,
In Beauty’s eyes, when lit by joy, are bright--
The sable Night, with dusky wings on high,
With silent pace invades the spangling sky--
And distant gleaming on th’ horizon’s verge,
The parting storm rolls out its solemn dirge--
And should this artless strain a thought afford
That strikes in gen’rous breasts a fellow chord,
Then, oh! forgive, that thus I rashly dare
From Nature’s hallowed charms the veil to tear--
But ever with her changing scenes imbued,
Her pleading beauties urge me to intrude.