Volume Ii Part 173 (2/2)
Mary! I want a lyre with other strings, Such aid from Heaven as some have feigned they drew, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new And undebased by praise of meaner things; That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings, I may record thy worth with honor due, In verse as musical as thou art true, And that immortalizes whom it sings: But thou hast little need. There is a Book By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, On which the eyes of G.o.d not rarely look, A chronicle of actions just and bright: There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, s.h.i.+ne; And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.
William Cowper [1731-1800]
”WHY ART THOU SILENT”
Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, Bound to thy service with unceasing care-- The mind's least generous wish a mendicant For naught but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak!--though this soft warm heart, once free to hold A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, Be left more desolate, more dreary cold Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine-- Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!
William Wordsworth [1770-1850]
SONNETS From ”The House of Life”
IV LOVESIGHT When do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes Before thy face, their altar, solemnize The wors.h.i.+p of that Love through thee made known?
Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,) Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies, And my soul only sees thy soul its own?
O love, my love! if I no more should see Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,-- How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, The wind of Death's imperishable wing?
V HEART'S HOPE By what word's power, the key of paths untrod, Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore, Till parted waves of Song yield up the sh.o.r.e Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?
For lo! in some poor rhythmic period, Lady, I fain would tell how evermore Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor Thee from myself, neither our love from G.o.d.
Yea, in G.o.d's name, and Love's, and thine, would I Draw from one loving heart such evidence As to all hearts all things shall signify; Tender as dawn's first lull-fire, and intense As instantaneous penetrating sense, In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.
XV THE BIRTH-BOND Have you not noted, in some family Where two were born of a first marriage-bed, How still they own their gracious bond, though fed And nursed on the forgotten breast and knee?-- How to their father's children they shall be In act and thought of one goodwill; but each Shall for the other have, in silence speech, And in a word complete community?
Even so, when first I saw you, seemed it, love, That among souls allied to mine was yet One nearer kindred than life hinted of.
O born with me somewhere that men forget, And though in years of sight and sound unmet, Known for my soul's birth-partner well enough!
XIX SILENT NOON Your hands lie open in the long fresh gra.s.s,-- The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms 'Neath billowing skies that scatter and ama.s.s.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pa.s.s, Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-gla.s.s.
Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:-- So this winged hour is dropped to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, This close-companioned inarticulate hour When twofold silence was the song of love.
XXVI MID-RAPTURE Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love; Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes, Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise, Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above All modulation of the deep-bowered dove, Is like a hand laid softly on the soul; Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:-- What word can answer to thy word,--what gaze To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere My wors.h.i.+pping face, till I am mirrored there Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays?
What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove, O lovely and beloved, O my love?
x.x.xI HER GIFTS High grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity; A glance like water br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the sky Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall; Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthrall The heart; a mouth whose pa.s.sionate forms imply All music and all silence held thereby; Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal; A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary; Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be, And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:-- These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er.
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