_How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature’s universal throne; Her woods—her wilds—her mountains—the intense Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!_ BYRON. I In youth I have known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held—as he with it, In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth: Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth A passionate light such for his spirit was fit— And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour Of its own fervour, what had o’er it power. II Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o’er, But I will half believe that wild light fraught With more of sovereignty than ancient lore Hath ever told—or is it of a thought The unembodied essence, and no more That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass As dew of the night-time o’er the summer grass? III Doth o’er us pass, when, as th’ expanding eye To the loved object—so the tear to the lid Will start, which lately slept in apathy? And yet it need not be—that object—hid From us in life, but common—which doth lie Each hour before us—but then only bid With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken, To awake us—’Tis a symbol and a token IV Of what in other worlds shall be—and given In beauty by our God, to those alone Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven, Drawn by their heart’s passion, and that tone, That high tone of the spirit, which hath striven Though not with Faith—with godliness—whose throne With desperate energy ’t hath beaten down; Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown. TO ——. [Illustration] The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see The wantonest singing birds, Are lips—and all thy melody Of lip-begotten words— Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined Then desolately fall, O God! on my funereal mind Like starlight on a pall— Thy heart—_thy_ heart!—I wake and sigh, And sleep to dream till day Of the truth that gold can never buy— Of the baubles that it may. TO THE RIVER [Illustration] Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow Of crystal, wandering water, Thou art an emblem of the glow Of beauty—the unhidden heart— The playful maziness of art In old Alberto’s daughter; But when within thy wave she looks— Which glistens then, and trembles— Why, then, the prettiest of brooks Her worshipper resembles; For in his heart, as in thy stream, Her image deeply lies— His heart which trembles at the beam Of her soul-searching eyes. TO —— I heed not that my earthly lot Hath little of Earth in it, That years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute:— I mourn not that the desolate Are happier, sweet, than I, But that _you_ sorrow for _my_ fate Who am a passer-by. SONG [Illustration]