"PHILIP my king", ay, still thou art a king,
Though storms of sorrow on thy suffering head
Have flashed and thundered through the midnight's dread;
Ah, lofty soul! fraught with the sky-lark's wing
To capture heaven, the sky-lark's voice to sing
Such notes ethereal through veiled brightness shed
Their gracious power to liquid pathos wed,
Thrills like the soft rain-pulses of the spring:
Banned from earth's day--thine inward sight expands
Above the night-bound senses' birth or bars;
Lord of a larger realm, of subtler scope,
Where thou at last shalt press the lips of Hope,
And feel God's angel lift in radiant hands
Thy life from darkness to a place of stars!
Meanwhile, alas! despite these inward spells
Of voice and vision, and fond hope to be,
Perchance,--though vaguely shadowed forth to thee,--
Oft-times thy thought but echoes the deep knells
Of buried joy; oft-times thy spirit swells
With moaning memories, like a smitten sea,
When the worn tempest wandering up the lea,
Leaves a low wind to breathe its wild farewells.
brother!--pondering dreary and apart
O'er the dead blossoms of deciduous years:
O poet! fed too long on bitter tears!
I waft, o'er seas, a white-winged courier-dove,
Bearing to thee this balmy spray of love,
Warm from the nested fragrance of my heart.
