I.
I SAW thee in the streets, so wan and pale;
My heart, it shivered at the saddening sight;
Like a thin cloud thou wert, that though the sky doth sail,
And threatens to dissolve, each moment, on its flight.
But through that thinly textured cloud, the moon
Can pour her splendour with a radiant sweep;
While its strong brethren make her silver light to swoon,
And quench her lustre in their dense and gloomy deep.
Thus, through thy wan and weak and worn-out clay,
The full-orbed soul floods her ethereal light;
Purer than pure moonbeams shineth her wondrous ray;
For, through the racking fire, she winged her upward flight.
II.
Each word that falleth from thy lips,
Is like a seed that lieth long;
Then sprouts within my spirit's deeps,
And buds and blossoms forth in song.
III.
Weeping, weary, did I wander
Thro' the world's wide weird wood;
Wet my cheeks with drops of sorrow;
Wet my soles with drops of blood;
Tumbling here, and stumbling yonder,
Bramble-bruised, with thorns all torn,
For the path I groped despairing,
For a light I sighed forlorn.
But thou took'st me, strong and tender,
Oh my master, by the hand;
Pity, cheer, reproach, and rousing
In thy words did sweetly blend.
Tho' the way is wild as ever,
Still I falter not, nor fear;
Led by thee, I'll pierce the forest,
See the vaulting skies appear.
IV.
Am I, indeed, th' Æolian harp,
That to each breeze responsive swells;
Within whose slight and quiv'ring strings,
No deep and inborn music dwells?
Am I the pool, where flower, and leaf,
And wand'ring cloud, and flitting beam,
Are glassed in beauty and in joy,
Then pass away, a silent dream?
Oh, wert thou then the constant wind,--
To wake my echoes, and to play
The measures of thy own soul out
Upon my chords, for aye and aye!
Wert thou the flower, the leaf, the cloud,
The ray of a transcendent sun!
Casting thy splendour in my deeps,
And flaming grandly on and on.
V.
I move amid a golden cloud;
The green earth springs beneath my tread;
My thoughts like birds with joy are loud;
And every throbbing pulse is glad.
This very day, this blessed day,
Thee face to face shall I behold;
Like seas, when storms have ebbed away,
And hills, when thunders on have rolled,
That lie like babes all hushed and bright,
And suck in sun and rainbow-skies;
Thus will I drink the words of light,
Falling adown thy lips and eyes.
Oh dewy calm! Oh peace divine!
More still than fragrant summer-air;
To feel my spirit kneel to thine,
In hushed and reverential prayer.
VI.
My soul is like a fragile flower,
Whose cup the sky so full has filled
With dew, that earthwards it must lower
Its head, till half the wealth is spilled.
Thus hast thou showered on me, my Heaven,
Such glorious bliss without alloy;
My heart, it bends 'neath bounty given,
And overbrims in tears of joy.
VII.
Like to the echoes, clear and light,
The sounding horn arouses,
That flit from height to Alpine height,
In elfin-like carouses;
Then float away,
With flamings of the forward-speeding day.
Thus, in my soul, thy words awake
Ideal aspirations,
That heavenwards their pulsion take:
Swift dawn-lit exhalations,
And swell and rise
To steep their being in the infinite skies.
VIII.
My heart is hushed and holy,
And pure and calm my soul,
Like aisles in old cathedrals,
Where organ billows roll.
And o'er my fancy flitteth
A dim and lovely light,
Like beams that fall and quiver
Through oriel windows bright.
Oh thou, thou art the music
That, like a tide, sweeps in,
Waking the sacred echoes
My spirit's deeps within.
And thou, thou are the splendour,
Mysteriously divine,
That overfloods with glory
That twilight soul of mine.
IX.
Sometimes, in the summer night,
Floating o'er the silent deep,
Did my fingers in their flight
Through the slumbering waters sweep.
Raising then my hand, I spied
Drops of ocean-fire and light
From my gleaming fingers slide,
Like the shooting-stars of night.
Thus I dipped, with gliding thought
Thro' thy deep, mysterious soul;
Now, with light and fire full-fraught,
O'er me dazzling doth it roll.
X.
Like Jove's great eagle, who on giant wings
Bore the Greek Ganymede unto the skies,
Thus on thy wingèd words, oh let me rise
Unto the ether of perennial things.
Till my whole soul on her aërial flight
Staggers, and reels, and pants, divinely drunk,
And in the infinite of Spirit sunk,
Swallowed and lost my life in vast whirlpools of light.
XI.
Blossoms rain upon the lea;
Moonbeams on the silent sea;
Dewdrops on the linden-tree;
And my fancies upon thee.
Milk-white blossoms fade away;
Quenched in night the moony ray;
Dews are dead at break of day;
Fancies droop all wan and gray.
But the lea blooms fair and bright;
And the sea rolls on in might;
And the lime waves day and night;
And thou standest in thy height.
XII.
Creature of moods and changes manifold:
Mutable as the film of fleeting cloud;
Transfusèd now with heaven's purest gold,
And now the lightning's dread and gloomy shroud;
Dissolvèd, with keen bliss, in the blue sky;
'Mid storms of tears weeping thyself away;
When, when, immovable, and calm and high,--
Soul, like a star, wilt thou pursue thy way?
