Classic Poem

Once more went I to the lake,
Buried in the pinewood brake.
Through the parting clouds the light
Of the afternoon was bright.
Beautiful and gay and green
On my pathway was the scene,—
Gorges full of writhing mist
By the silver sunbeams kissed,
And the mountains all displayed
In a marvellous light and shade.
Close before us there was one,
Clear and tranquil in the sun,
And another on whose breast
Clambering mist-wreaths paused to rest,
And a third along whose side
Snowy cloudbanks seemed to ride,
And like a belt to rock and shine
In a long and level line:
And one there was, veiled all over
With thin mists which seemed to hover
On the mountain-top, and throw
Silky threads from bough to bough;
'Twas lighted up and very fair,
And transparent as the air,
And within it rose the hill
Clothed with sunlight, green and still.
And the booming of the bells
And the hymn that came in swells
Mingled kindly with the mirth
Of the jubilant old earth.
In the lake and in the heaven
Gloom and beauty now had striven;
Changed were all things on the shore,
For the strife at length was o'er.
Mists in serpentine array
Coiled upon the treetops lay;
Truthful symbols did they seem
Of darkness giving way to gleam,
Drawing off in that sweet hour
The outskirts of his vanquished power.
Beauty on the hills was standing,
In the very lake expanding
With a pure and sparkling green;
And the savage pinewood scene
Did the afternoon embrace
With a calm and softening grace.
Stillness was in all her veins,
Earth's thanksgiving after rains,
Tuneful as the stormy praise
Of wild woods on windy days,
Or the benedicite
Of the angry purple sea.
Not a single sound was heard,
Save the voice of one shy bird,
And the woodman's axe on high,
And the drowsy sheepbell nigh.
There was not a fall of wind
From the clover to unbind
Odours that lay fettered there,
And to shed them on the air.
Ruddy-armored perch did press
To the margin motionless.
And the summer afternoon,
Holding court that day of June,
Throned herself with lustre mild
On the blissful Styrian wild.
O how often have I known
Quiet thought herself enthrone,
After tempest, on my mind
Without any breathing wind
Of sweet language, which could bind
In the bonds and links of song
All the glorious regal throng,
Kindled fancy's courtier crowd,
Which came o'er me like a cloud:
Times of quiet thought they are,
Like this very bright mute air,
Filling as a soul the lake
And the odorous pinewood brake,
With the calm and speechless scene
Passive in the sunny green.
They are fancy's afternoons,
Shadows of her leafy Junes,
Shedding, where the heart is calm,
New power in the quiet balm.
Though he fret at fruitless hours
Spent in rapture's voiceless bowers,
Yet the poet oft must bless
His passive spirit's silentness,
As the future salient spring
Of true minstrel murmuring.
Song is an exile from above,
Like a wanderer in love,
Falling both by land and sea
Into strangest company,
Ruling, wheresoever thrown,
With a sweet will of its own.
Fancy, like the earth, hath dew,
Keeping green the spirit's hue,
Falls of moisture which renew
Hearts that falter and grow weary
From the sense that life is dreary,—
With such freshness that the glory
Of our thoughts is never hoary.
There are sabbaths in the mind,
Which in deepest quiet bind
Love and passion and the world
With its glowing landscapes furled,
When the song of vernal bird
Like a common sound is heard,
When the sun and wind and shower
And the rainbows have no power,
And the forest and the lake
Can no inward echo wake.
Memories of smiles and tears
Treasured up in other years,
Sorrow suffered, actions done,
Self-restraints by patience won,
Rights of grief and rights of love,
Things which once the soul could move
With a deeper ebb and flow
Than the freeborn oceans know,
Now are dull and nerveless things,
Like a forest's murmurings
Falling on the unpleased ear
Of a listless traveller.
And from all things there hath passed
Powers they once might have to cast
Shadows, from whose tender gloom
We might free, as from a womb,
Truths that shall outlive the tomb.
Yet shall true-born poet deem
Mental sabbaths but a dream,
Languor, and a falling back
Of the weary soul for lack
Of high hope and strength of wing
In such thin air hovering?
Shall he call such quiet time
Faintings after moods sublime,
As though rapture's light could scathe
Spirits, like a fit of wrath?
Mystery and loveliness
Gender no such wild excess;
Mirth and beauty lay not waste
Flowery paths where they have passed.
In such times of inward sinking
Fancy may perchance be drinking
Waters in some holier spirit,
Out of earth, in Heaven, or near it.
True it is that a sweet spring
Cannot be a self-born thing;
It must have a leafy place
Or a mountain's rocky face.
Its beginning and its going,
And the surety of its flowing
Not a single, rainy day,
Nor at seasons, but always,—
These depend on other things,
The green covert whence it springs,
And the weeping clouds of heaven
Out of which the rain is given,
And the ponderous old hills,
The treasuries of crystal rills.
So the spirit of sweet song
Not entirely doth belong
Unto him who hath been bidden
To let it flow through him unchidden,
And to keep its fountain hidden.
How should he know all the causes
Of its gushes and its pauses,
How it visits the well-head
Whence it is replenishèd,
What it hears, or what it sees,
How it hath its increases?
Where and whensoe'er it goes,
This one thing the poet knows,
That the spirit, wake or sleeping,
Is not now beneath his keeping.
For, if it should leave him not,
Whence are its fresh pulses got?
After all this seeming dullness,
Whence the beam, the burst, the fulness,—
When the dark and bright of life,
Involutions of its strife,
And the duties complicate
Of this heavy mortal state,
And the gold and purple maze
Which the past is, to our gaze
Looking into other days,
And the passions which have rent
Worse than warring element,
Earth's fair surface where we dwell,—
All within the spirit swell,
And burst from us loud and strong,
Claiming utterance in song.
Whence except from out of heaven
Are the moulds of greatness given,
And the beautiful creations,
And the song-like visitations
Of high thoughts, wherewith we borrow,
Grandeur out of love and sorrow,
When the weight of men's distresses
On our solemn spirit presses,
With a sound in its recesses
When our fellow-mortals call,
And we own a kindred thrall
In responses musical,
When the mystery of things
From our tortured spirit wrings
These loud wails of melody,
As from eagles in the sky?
Whence the fragrant under-growth
Which is springing nothing loth
All around us every hour
With fresh moss and modest flower,
In our fancy's stillest bower,
And those lowlier sweetnesses
Borne to us on every breeze?
After dulness what a thing
Is our heart's awakening,
When a scattering of dew
Unawares makes all things new,
As a bunch of cold wet flowers
On our brow in feverish hours!
Like an unimprisoned boy,
Heaviness encounters joy
In the face of an old mountain,
In the splash of an old fountain,
In the sun and wind and rain,
Like things lost and found again;
Till we own we never know
Common blooms that round us blow,
Common treasures strewn about us,
Close at hand, and scarce without us.
Whence are all these wakenings given,
If it be not out of heaven?
That the might in poet's breast
Wholly in himself doth rest,
Wholly from himself doth come,
As though he could be the home
Of the beautiful bright throng
He but weaveth into song—
Were a creed to disenchant
Music's best and holiest haunt,
And to leave on land or sea
Not a home for minstrelsy.
Beauty is a thing that grows,
Like love or grief; and who knows
If in dulness and in calm
Fancy does not gather balm
In far fields that bud and swell
With spiritual asphodel?
O how beautiful is quiet
After fancy hath run riot,
Waking love and waking mirth
Over all the sleepy earth!
O how beautiful to look
On kind eyes, as on a book,
Reading love that hath been beaming
All the while our hearts were teeming
With unearthly thoughts and visions,
Floating in with sweet collisions!
And how beautiful a thing
Is our dull life's welcoming,
When we learn, while we were ranging,
That household earth hath not been changing,
And that houses, trees, and faces,
Are not wildly shifting places,
That there are domestic blisses,
Which the studious spirit misses,
Still a common human heart,
Though we were awhile apart!
O there is a gracious fulness
In this very seeming dulness,
When the littleness of life
Is more welcome than it strife,
Or we in wise moods confess
That strife is but a littleness!
There is not a choicer bower,
Than the spirit, in the hour
When peace cometh after power;
And what hath the earth of beauty
Like the calms that follow duty?
This hath been a day of joy
Much too simple for alloy,
One pure day that well may shine,
Like stars amid the twilight pine.
Now behold! the tranquil power
Of the summer-evening hour
Is enthroned upon the spot;
And the pageant cometh not
With the gauzy purple veil
Of the English twilight pale,
But winds o'er all the forest scene
With a light of faint blue green,
To a thousand pinetops yielding
Somewhat almost of a gilding.
There is meaning in the face
Of the lake and woodland place.
Something heavenly there must be
In such deep tranquillity.
With meet prayer and gratitude
I went from out the solitude;
And to Mariazell wending,
Up the pine-clad steep ascending,
I beheld the dark clouds drooping,
Once more to the mountains stooping.
Yet along the ridges dim
Lay a luminous gold rim,
Such as makes me think the while
That beyond in brightest smile
Lies a very radiant shore
I have visited before,
In my boyhood, or in gleams,
Shed on my far-travelled dreams.
The one woodless mountain too,
Was of brilliant golden hue,
And its precipices hoary
Touched with sunset's mellow glory.
From a hollow white-mouthed cave
Rose a symbol, calm and grave,—
A broken rainbow—whose bright end
In the cavern did descend,
With mute stationary mirth,
Like a very growth of earth.
The dark clouds now a moment hover—
They descend—the pomp is over!
For the day's exceeding beauty
There must be returns of duty,
And to Christ who thus hath given,
Sights and sounds in earth and heaven,
We must answer at the last
For the pageantry now past.
Hark! how plaintively they sing;—
Never was on natural thing
A more touching commentary
Than the pilgrim's Ave Mary!