Dost thou still haunt the brink Of yonder river’s tide? And may I ever think That thou art by my side? What bird wilt thou employ To bring me word of thee? For it would give them joy-- ’Twould give them liberty-- To serve their former lord With wing and minstrelsy. A sadder strain mixed with their song, They’ve slowlier built their nests; Since thou art gone Their lively labor rests. Where is the finch, the thrush, I used to hear? Ah, they could well abide The dying year. Now they no more return, I hear them not; They have remained to mourn, Or else forgot. STANZAS Nature doth have her dawn each day, But mine are far between; Content, I cry, for, sooth to say, Mine brightest are, I ween. For when my sun doth deign to rise, Though it be her noontide, Her fairest field in shadow lies, Nor can my light abide. Sometimes I bask me in her day, Conversing with my mate, But if we interchange one ray, Forthwith her heats abate. Through his discourse I climb and see As from some eastern hill, A brighter morrow rise to me Than lieth in her skill. As ’twere two summer days in one, Two Sundays come together, Our rays united make one sun, With fairest summer weather. THE INWARD MORNING Packed in my mind lie all the clothes Which outward nature wears, And in its fashion’s hourly change It all things else repairs. In vain I look for change abroad, And can no difference find, Till some new ray of peace uncalled Illumes my inmost mind. What is it gilds the trees and clouds, And paints the heavens so gay, But yonder fast-abiding light With its unchanging ray? Lo, when the sun streams through the wood, Upon a winter’s morn, Where’er his silent beams intrude The murky night is gone. How could the patient pine have known The morning breeze would come, Or humble flowers anticipate The insect’s noonday hum,-- Till the new light with morning cheer From far streamed through the aisles, And nimbly told the forest trees For many stretching miles? I’ve heard within my inmost soul Such cheerful morning news, In the horizon of my mind Have seen such orient hues, As in the twilight of the dawn, When the first birds awake, Are heard within some silent wood, Where they the small twigs break, Or in the eastern skies are seen, Before the sun appears, The harbingers of summer heats Which from afar he bears. GREECE