Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath. LI. Here pause these graves are all too young as yet To have outgrown the sorrows which consigned Its charge to each; and if the seal is set, Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind, Break it not thon! too surely shalt thou find Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. What Adonais is, why fear we to become? LII. The One remains, the many change and pass; Follow where all is fled!-Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music,-words are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. LIII. Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart? Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here No more let Life divide what Death can join together. LIV. That Light whose smiles kindle the universe, That Beauty in which all things work and move, That Benediction which the eclipsing curse Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love Which through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast, and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. LV. The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given; The massy earth and spheréd skies are riven: I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; While, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the eternal are. INVOCATION TO NATURE. FROM "ALASTOR; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE." Earth, ocean, air, belovéd brotherhood! SONNET. Ye hasten to the dead! What seek ye there, And that which never yet was known wouldst know Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press A refuge in the cavern of gray death? O heart, and mind, and thoughts! What thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below? Is it that now my inexperienced fingers But strike the prelude to a loftier strain? Reply in hope-but I am worn away, And what art thou? I know, but dare not speak: Is whispered to subdue my fondest fears: They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth, Shines on thee, through the tempests dark and wild Which shake these latter days; and thou canst claim The shelter from thy sire of an immortal name. One voice came forth from many a mighty spirit, Which was the echo of three thousand years; And the tumultuous world stood mute to hear it, As some lone man, who in a desert hears The music of his home:-unwonted fears Fell on the pale oppressors of our race, And faith and custom and low-thoughted cares, Like thunder-stricken dragons, for a space Left the torn human heart, their food and dwelling-place. Truth's deathless voice pauses among mankind! That burn from year to year with unextinguished light. HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. The awful shadow of some unseen Power It visits with inconstant glance Like aught that for its grace may be Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim, vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? Ask why the sunlight not forever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river; Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown; Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, why man hath such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope? No voice from some sublimer world hath ever From all we hear and all we see, Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds, depart Thou messenger of sympathies That wax and wane in lovers' eyes; Thou, that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame! Depart not as thy shadow came: Depart not, lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality. While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed: I was not heard: I saw them not: When musing deeply on the lot Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatched with me the envious night: They know that never joy illumed my brow, Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou, O awful LOVELINESS, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past: there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply Its calm, to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind. LINES TO A REVIEWER. Alas! good friend, what profit can you see In hating such a hateless thing as me? There is no sport in hate where all the rage Is on one side. In vain would you assuage Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, John Keble. Keble (1792-1866), the son of a Gloucestershire clergyman, was educated at Oxford, where he took first-class honors. After discharging the duties of Professor of Poetry, he was preferred to the rectory of Hursley, near Winchester, in 1835, which he held until his death. His "Christian Year" was published in 1827, and had a marvellous success, having gone through some seventy edi tions in England, and about as many in the United States. His "Lyra Innocentium" appeared in 1847. Keble was one of the originators of the "Tractarian Movement," inculcating reverence for Catholic tradition, and belief in the divine prerogatives of the priesthood. MORNING. FROM "THE CHRISTIAN YEAR." Hues of the rich unfolding morn, Around his path are taught to swell;— Thou rustling breeze, so fresh and gay, That dancest forth at opening day, And, brushing by with joyous wing, Wakenest each little leaf to sing; Ye fragrant clouds of dewy steam, Why waste your treasures of delight Upon our thankless, joyless sight, Who day by day to sin awake, Seldom of heaven and you partake? Oh! timely happy, timely wise, |