Rapt CONTEMPLATION, bring thy waking dreams To this umbrageous vale at noon-tide hour, While full of _thee_ seems every bending flower, Whose petals tremble o'er the shadow'd streams! Give thou HONORA's image, when her beams, Youth, beauty, kindness, shone;--what time she wore That smile, of gentle, yet resistless power To sooth each painful Passion's wild extremes. Here shall no empty, vain Intruder chase, With idle converse, thy enchantment warm, That brings, in all its interest, all its grace, The dear, persuasive, visionary Form. Can real Life a rival blessing boast When thou canst thus restore HONORA early lost? SONNET XLV. [1]From Possibility's dim chaos sprung, High o'er its gloom the Aërostatic Power Arose!--Exulting Nations hail'd the hour, Magnific boast of Science!--Loud they sung Her victory o'er the element, that hung, Pressing to earth the Beings, who now soar Aerial heights;--but Wisdom bids explore This vaunted skill;--if, tides of air among, We know to _steer_ our bark.--Here Science finds Her buoyant hopes burst, like the bubble vain, Type of this art;--guilty, if still she blinds The sense of Fear; persists thy flame to fan, Sky-vaulting Pride, that to the aweless winds Throws, for an idle Show, the LIFE OF MAN! 1: This Sonnet was written when the Balloon enthusiasm was at its height. SONNET XLVI. Dark as the silent stream beneath the night, Thy funeral glides to Life's eternal home, Child of its narrow house!--how late the bloom, The facile smile, the soft eye's crystal light, Each grace of Youth's gay morn, that charms our sight, Play'd o'er that Form!--now sunk in Death's cold gloom, Insensate! ghastly!--for the yawning tomb, Alas! fit Inmate.--Thus we mourn the blight Of Virgin-Beauty, and endowments rare In their glad hours of promise.--O! when Age Drops, like the o'er-blown, faded rose, tho' dear Its long known worth, no stormy sorrows rage; But swell when we behold, unsoil'd by time, Youth's broken Lily perished in its prime. SONNET XLVII. ON MR. SARGENT's DRAMATIC POEM, THE MINE[1]. With lyre Orphean, see a Bard explore The central caverns of the mornless Night, Where never Muse perform'd harmonious rite Till now!--and lo! upon the sparry floor, Advance, to welcome him, each Sister Power, Petra, stern Queen, Fossilia, cold and bright, And call their Gnomes, to marshal in his sight The gelid incrust, and the veined ore, And flashing gem.--Then, while his songs pourtray The mystic virtues gold and gems acquire, With every charm that mineral scenes display, Th' imperial Sisters praise the daring Lyre, And grateful hail its new and powerful lay, That seats them high amid the Muses' Choir.