Blow, ye winds! lift me with you! I come to the wild. Fold closely, O Nature! Thine arms round thy child. To thee only God granted A heart ever new,-- To all always open, To all always true. Ah! calm me, restore me; And dry up my tears On thy high mountain platforms, Where morn first appears; Where the white mists, forever, Are spread and upfurled,-- In the stir of the forces Whence issued the world. III. A FAREWELL. My horse’s feet beside the lake, Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay, Sent echoes through the night to wake Each glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay. The poplar avenue was passed, And the roofed bridge that spans the stream; Up the steep street I hurried fast, Led by thy taper’s starlike beam. I came! I saw thee rise! the blood Poured flushing to thy languid cheek. Locked in each other’s arms we stood, In tears, with hearts too full to speak. Days flew; ah, soon I could discern A trouble in thine altered air! Thy hand lay languidly in mine, Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare. I blame thee not! This heart, I know, To be long loved was never framed; For something in its depths doth glow Too strange, too restless, too untamed. And women,--things that live and move Mined by the fever of the soul,-- They seek to find in those they love Stern strength, and promise of control. They ask not kindness, gentle ways; These they themselves have tried and known: They ask a soul which never sways With the blind gusts that shake their own. I too have felt the load I bore In a too strong emotion’s sway; I too have wished, no woman more, This starting, feverish heart away. I too have longed for trenchant force, And will like a dividing spear; Have praised the keen, unscrupulous course, Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear. But in the world I learnt, what there Thou too wilt surely one day prove,-- That will, that energy, though rare, Are yet far, far less rare than love. Go, then! till time and fate impress This truth on thee, be mine no more! They will! for thou, I feel, not less Than I, wast destined to this lore. We school our manners, act our parts; But He, who sees us through and through, Knows that the bent of both our hearts Was to be gentle, tranquil, true. And though we wear out life, alas! Distracted as a homeless wind, In beating where we must not pass, In seeking what we shall not find; Yet we shall one day gain, life past, Clear prospect o’er our being’s whole; Shall see ourselves, and learn at last Our true affinities of soul.