With my own burning thoughts it burn'd;-- Its silence stirr'd to speech divine;-- Its lips my glowing kiss return'd;-- Its heart in beating answer'd mine! How fair was then the flower--the tree!-- How silver-sweet the fountain's fall! The soulless had a soul to me! My life its own life lent to all! The Universe of Things seem'd swelling The panting heart to burst its bound, And wandering Fancy found a dwelling In every shape--thought--deed, and sound. Germ'd in the mystic buds, reposing, A whole creation slumber'd mute, Alas, when from the buds unclosing, How scant and blighted sprung the fruit! How happy in his dreaming error, His own gay valour for his wing, Of not one care as yet in terror, Did Youth upon his journey spring; Till floods of balm, through air's dominion, Bore upward to the faintest star-- For never aught to that bright pinion Could dwell too high, or spread too far. Though laden with delight, how lightly The wanderer heavenward still could soar, And aye the ways of life how brightly The airy Pageant danced before!-- Love, showering gifts (life's sweetest) down, Fortune, with golden garlands gay, And Fame, with starbeams for a crown, And Truth, whose dwelling is the Day. Ah! midway soon, lost evermore, Afar the blithe companions stray; In vain their faithless steps explore, As, one by one, they glide away. Fleet Fortune was the first escaper-- The thirst for wisdom linger'd yet; But doubts with many a gloomy vapour The sun-shape of the Truth beset! The holy crown which Fame was wreathing, Behold! the mean man's temples wore! And but for one short spring-day breathing, Bloom'd Love--the Beautiful--no more! And ever stiller yet, and ever The barren path more lonely lay, Till waning Hope could scarcely quiver Along the darkly widening way. Who, loving, linger'd yet to guide me, When all her boon companions fled? Who stands consoling still beside me, And follows to the House of Dread? _Thine_, Friendship! _thine_, the hand so tender-- Thine the balm dropping on the wound-- Thy task--the load more light to render, O, earliest sought and soonest found! And _thou_, so pleased with her uniting To charm the soul-storm into peace, Sweet _Toil_![6] in toil itself delighting, That more it labor'd, less could cease: Though but by grains, thou aid'st the pile The vast Eternity uprears-- At least thou strik'st from Time, the while, Life's debt--the minutes, days, and years![7] [Footnote 6: That is to say--the Poet's occupation--The Ideal.]