REMEMBRANCES OF A POETIC CHILDHOOD.

My Childhood! there is music in the sound!
Those syllables of sweetness lead the hours
Of Innocence, and Life's enchanted ground,
Softly upon the Memory. Pleasant Bowers,
Green with your summer leafage, where my heart
First learned to feel the Beautiful, nor knew
To speak its kindling thought; ye shall not part
From me, for I would linger still with you!
Oh, bless with dreams of old, of happy years,

My Memory still-that land whose rivers are of tears!

Yea, often when my rapt soul, heavenward soaring,
Swells even yet with ecstasie divine,

Or bends in silent ravishment, adoring
The Spirit of Beauty in her loveliest shrine,
Gleams of my glorious Childhood glance again
Their arrowy flashes on the dark of Thought;

I wake from Death to Life, from dungeoned men
To bowered angels,-like the Patriarch caught
In golden clouds to Paradise, and borne

From Time to Eternity-to Heaven's unfading morn!

And as a Mother folds a weeping child
Softly yet thrillingly upon her breast,
Hushing its cries until she hath beguiled
That burst of infant sorrow into rest ;-
So, in the veriest hour of my despair,
When my heart asks in every beat, to break,
When Death would be a Life, and this our air
Is loathed as stifling-then, oh! then-in meek
And matron garb, with love-effusing eyes,

A Form of Light descends, and soothes my struggling cries.

Changed, yet the same! She who embraced at first
My youth, the Mystic SPIRIT of Loveliness,—
Whate'er that be, which bids the full heart burst
Its bonds in fearful joy, the big distress
Of a soul panting to disclose its thought!
The invisible Glory and the Power unnamed.
Changed, yet the same! still as when first She sought
My dungeon, and in thrilling voice proclaimed
Me free, She comes, too faithful minister!
Forsaken of all beside, I still can weep with Her.

But of my Boyhood;-o'er the sunny hill
To wander, not alone, but with the aid
Of gentle Contemplation; in the still

And dream-like hush of noon, to watch the shade
Lazily darkening half the distant slope;
To joy amid the valley streams; to form
Torrents and armies from the clouded cope
Of the red sky at eve; to dread the storm
That marred its beauty and my happiness;

Such sports-such dreams-sufficed my strange still youth to bless.

What marvel then if I was not as those

Whose childhood blossomed round me? if at heart

I yearned not for their happiness, and rose
From their light laugh of joyaunce to depart
To my lone grove and fancy-dream? Alas!
There were but few who loved me, or with whom
My heart could link its joys! I learned to pass
Already as that fabled One whose doom

Is Life and Wandering, whose seared heart hath known
What Death it is to Live with men and Love not one!

There was a Silence that none understood
In my unjoyous childhood. Like a stream
Down-sunk amid the wild glens of a wood,
And peeping through the coppice with the gleam
Of shooting stars at twilight, but unheard
Amid the thunder of the struggling trees
That battle with the storm above,-unstirred

By all that pealed around me, the sweet breeze

Of Summer was my company, the glow

Of Sunset was my joy-and why, why now not so?

Alas! I cannot dream as I did then!

No rushing fires of Thought-my brain is cold!
The fitful gleams of Heaven come not again,
The Joy, the Majesty, the Power of old,
The reinless tempest of the soul! 'Tis past,
And, vanishing, bequeaths but one dark boon,
The bitter boon of Memory! Could I cast
That Scorpion of the Spirit off, how soon
Should all these echoes of youth's music be
Silenced, and Lethe's wave alone my Castaly!

But those around him left the musing Boy
Whose thoughts were not as theirs; and I was glad.
Aye-my heart leaped within my breast for joy
That I was thus alone, and might be sad

With fainting soul and far-upturning glance

Upon the mournful night-sky,—or delighted,
Those eyes all rapture, and that soul all trance-

With none to dread or shrink from! They had frighted
The innocent wildness of a changeful heart,

And now it beat again. I lived---I loved apart!

Thus silent as a voiceless Star, my mind
Gave not itself to others; it was free

Of their communion; sought not, nor could find
In such, responses for its melody.

The music of its thoughts was like the trill
Of an unmated nightingale, when clear

And full its thickly-gushing note-as still

As Time-floats out at night with none to hear!

For some sounds have a silence in their tone,

Deepening the stillness more, when they are heard alone!

Hills, streams, and rocks! was not my fellowship
A mute communion of the heart with you,

And you almost alone? No mortal lip

Taught my young soul to love you, yet it flew
To the companionship of Solitude,

As the wild eagle to his stormy hold,

A cloud-borne wanderer! Still no temper rude
Marked nature's youthful eremite; if cold

To some perchance appeared the lonely Child,

Yet aye to those he loved that Silent Öne was mild!

For there is chastening power in loneliness,
And awe in Nature's Mystery, best felt
With few or none around us to oppress

The heart immersed in beauty! Who hath knelt
On the rude crag, intranced in drowsy thought,
Or held deep converse with the watchful stars,
Or loved the quiet hush of woods, or wrought
From his exhaustless soul those CHILMINARS
Of wild but glorious fancy-forms the Mind

Can build, and leave even Nature's loveliness behind,

Oh, who that loves to seek for living wells

Of thought in every lifeless thing, and knows
What food for gentle meditation dwells
In Nature's silent treasuries,-who goes
O'er the lone cliffland with a joyous gait,
Hailing the Bright Ones of the skies as friends,
As old familiar friends,-who yearns to sate
His burning soul with glory, as he bends
Above the cataract whose monotonous roar

Lulls-till he hears those waves upon some dreamland shore,

Who, that thus vowed to nature breathe amid

That better world of thoughtful love, but feel
How its mild images will steal unbid

Even o'er the darker truth of life, and steal
To purify?

Nor joyless the stern gloom

Of fiercer fancies! trembling heart and limb
Spoke my young terrors as beside the tomb
The fiends of Fable rose in twilight dim,

While the dread Sorcerer laughed, and hideous mirth
Broke the still hour, and mocked the place of hallowed earth!

But gentler visions-Night's lone universe,
Morn's burst of glories, spoke yet more of God,
For these were Love developed; these immerse
The soul in streams that issue from the abode
Of Love enthroned Omnipotent! In HIM
(Methought) the Primal Beauty lives, and all
Attired in beauty are but transcripts dim
Of His unuttered thoughts, that coldly fall
On dull material essence, yet declare

How rich that Light whose shade our world is given to share!

Fond hope! I dream'd man's Eden won again,

His majesty regain'd of spotless soul,

When linked to nature's Lord in nature; when,
Charm'd-awed-by glimpses of the wond'rous whole,

He dallies with Infinity, he hails

The name of God upon the beaming sky

Written in stars; and, till the tired wing fails,

Strains, urges still beyond the daring eye

The Soul more daring :-and when Fancy felt

Such wild faith, thus she told the TEMPLE where she knelt!

There is a Shrine-thus Fancy spake-to God
Upraised for every creed in every land,

By saint or savage, Jew or Gentile, trod,

A Fane whose columns own no human hand.

There kneel the whole wide world, in voiceless prayer,
To the whole world's one Father! Him, who bade
The temple rise, and shrined His Spirit where
Himself His sole befitting shrine had made.

Nature's Shechinah! where the Omnific Lord

Seen thro' the cloud of Sense, is still through clouds adored.*

The pillars of that Fane are sunken deep
Where the far sea-line faints upon the sky,
Mid caverns sunless, and the sullen sleep
Of the unfathom'd ocean-world. But high
Swells the huge Dome, earth-grasping and eterne,
Hung with ten thousand lamps-each lamp a world-
That 'neath the Temple's vail of sunbeams burn
The long bright hours, till night the vail has furled,
The vail of beams inwove in beams, and given
To sight the arch august, the symmetry of heaven!

And is that Temple silent? Doth no sound
Inform the giant frame with soul, and make
Oblation voiceful to the One around,
Above, beneath? List, o'er the breezy lake
A creeping murmur! List, the woods of June
Alive with Song! the far rill's spirit moan,
The mingling melodies of Summer noon,
And solemn Night's majestic monotone!
The fast waves, knit in close-infolded dance,
To their own choral song for evermore advance,

A multitudinous symphony!—

Forbear

The specious dream! the soft idolatry

Of pensive souls, too feebly falsely fair

For the stern hour of man's true agony!

Not thus FAITH wakes to life her worse than dead,

* "I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat," &c.-Levit. xvi. 2.

Misnatured thoughts! begot in Solitude,
From the heart's lingering hopes that will be fed,
And frame of things insensate a false food

To still their own deep wants, till-half adored-
The gorgeous World is throned the Rival of its Lord!

And yet-ah, yet! though holier thoughts may shower
O'er me the bright calm of yon slumbering sea,
Glowing and glittering in the moon-light hour,
Mid ceaseless murmurs of lone harmony,
The deep hush'd sighings of its mystic dream,—
Though heavenlier visions winning, wildering pour
Around my hope-raised soul this gushing gleam
Of purest peace and joys unknown before,-
Even yet Remembrance hath a spell to cast,

And tears for Future joy flow sometimes for the PAST!