Whose voice alone can still thy baby cries,
Now still itself; yet pensive smiles, and sighs,
And the mute meanings of a mother's eyes
Declare her thinking, deep felicity:
A bliss, my babe, how much unlike to thine,
Mingled with earthly fears, yet cheer'd with hope divine
Thou breathing image of the life of Nature!
Say rather image of a happy death—
For the vicissitudes of vital breath,
Of all infirmity the slave and creature,
That by the act of being perisheth,
Are far unlike that slumber's perfect peace
Which seems too absolute and pure to cease,
Or suffer diminution, or increase,
Or change of hue, proportion, shape, or feature;
A calm, it seems, that is not, shall not be,
Save in the silent depths of calm eternity.
A star reflected in a dimpling rill
That moves so slow it hardly moves at all;
The shadow of a white-robed waterfall,
Seen in the lake beneath when all is still;
A wandering cloud, that with its fleecy pall
Whitens the lustre of an autumn moon;
A sudden breeze that cools the cheek of noon,
Not mark'd till miss'd-so soft it fades, and soon ;
Whatever else the fond inventive skill
Of Fancy may suggest cannot supply
Fit semblance of the sleeping life of infancy.
Calm art thou as the blessed Sabbath eve,
The blessed Sabbath eve when thou wast born;
Yet sprightly as a summer Sabbath morn,
When surely 'twere a thing unmeet to grieve;
When ribbons gay the village maids adorn,
And Sabbath music, on the swelling gales,
Floats to the farthest nooks of winding vales,
And summons all the beauty of the dales.
Fit music this a stranger to receive;
And, lovely child, it rung to welcome thee, Announcing thy approach with gladsome minstrelsy.
So be thy life-a gentle Sabbath, pure
From worthless strivings of the work-day earth:
May time make good the omen of thy birth,
Nor worldly care thy growing thoughts immure,
Nor hard-eyed thrift usurp the throne of mirth
On thy smooth brow. And though fast-coming years
Must bring their fated dower of maiden fears,
Of timid blushes, sighs, and fertile tears,
Soft sorrow's sweetest offspring, and her cure;
May every day of thine be good and holy,
And thy worst woe a pensive Sabbath melancholy.
Is this the merry May of tale and song?
Chill breathes the North-the sky looks chilly blue,
The waters wear a cold and iron hue,
Or wrinkle as the crisp wave creeps along,
Much like an ague fit. The starry throng
Of flow'rets droop o'erdone with drenching dew,
Or close their leaves at noon, as if they knew,
And felt, in helpless wrath, the season's wrong.
Yet in the half-clad woods the busy birds
Chirping with all their might to keep them warm;
The young hare flitting from her ferny form;
The vernal lowing of the amorous herds;
And swelling buds impatient of delay,
Declare it should be, tho' it is not, May.
WHERE dwells she now? That life of joy
That seem'd as Time could ne'er destroy,
Nor frail infectious sense alloy,
Its self-derived and self-sufficing gladness?
Abides she in the bounds of space,
Or like a thought, a moment's grace,
Is she escaped from time and place,
The dull arithmetic of prison'd sadness?
May she behold this spot of earth,
This human home, that saw her birth,
Her baby tears, her infant mirth,
The first quick stirrings of her human mind?
May she return to watch the flowers
She planted last in fairy bowers? —
They freshen yet with summer showers,
And gambol with the frolic summer wind.
That lovely form, that face so bright,
That changeful image of delight,
May it no more to waking sight,
Or spiritual ken, in very truth appear?
That visible shape, that kind warm glow— That all that Heaven vouchsafed to shew
'Twas all our sense could know,
Of her we loved, whom yet we hold so dear.
The world hath lost the antique faith
In shade and spectre-warning wraith,
That wander'd forth to blast, and scathe
Poor earth-clogg'd, dark humanity.
No more the mystic craft of hell,
In cavern mirk, with impious spell,
Evokes the naked souls that dwell
In uncreated night's inanity.
"Tis well that creed is out of date, And men have found, at last, though late, That loathing fear, and fearful hate,
And rankling vengeance, all are cruel liars; And all the doctrine that they teach
Of ghosts that roam when owlets screech,
Is but the false and fatal speech
Of guilty terrors, or of worse desires.
But is there not a charm in love,
To call thy spirit from above?
Oh! had I pinions like a dove,
Were I like thee, a pure enfranchised soul,
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