London
Thou first of human feelings, social love!
I must obey thy powerful sympathies,
E'en though I've often found that those my heart
Most prized were creatures of its warm desires,
Rather than aught which other men (less prone
To affections swift, transforming quality)
Might worthy deem or excellent!
Thy scenes,
Thy tainted scenes, proud city, now detain
My restless feet. 'Twill soothe a vacant hour
To trace what dim inexplicable links
Of hidden nature have inclined my soul
To love what heretofore it most abhorred.
When first, a little one, I marked far off
The wreathed smoke that capped thy palaces,
Oh, what a joyous fluttering of the heart,
Oh, what exulting hopes were mine! Methought
Within thy walls there must be somewhat strange,
Surpassing greatly any wondrous dream
Of fairy grandeur which my childhood loved.
And when I heard the busy hum of men
And saw the passing crowd in endless ranks,
The many-coloured equipage, and steeds
Gaily caparisoned, it seemed to me
As though all living things were centred here.
But other feelings soon transformed these shows
To merest emptiness, e'en till my soul
Would sicken at their presence; for I've sought
To cherish quiet musings, and disdained
The idle forms which play upon the sense,
Yet give the heart no comfortable thoughts.
Yes, I have sought the solitary walk
Where I might number every absent friend
And give a tear to each; I've nursed my soul
With strangest contemplation, till it wore
A sad and lonely character, untouched
By th' operation of external shapes.
Yet, London, now thou'rt pleasant — 'tis e'en so!
For I am sick of hopes that stand aloof
From common sympathy; for I am sick
Of pampering delicate exclusive loves,
And silly dreams of rapture that would pull
The shrinking hand from every honest grasp,
The shrinking heart from every honest pledge,
Not tricked in gracefulness poetical!
Sometimes, 'tis true, when I have paced the haunts
Of crowded occupation, I have felt
A sad repression looking all around,
Nor catching one known face amid the throng
That answered mine with cordial pleasantness.
I've often thought upon some absent friend,
E'en till an assured hope that he was nigh
Has made me lift my head and stretch my arm
To gaze upon the form, and grasp the hand
Of him who lived in my wayward dream.
And I have looked, and all has been to me
A crowded desolation! Not one being
Mid that incessant and perturbed throng
Dreamt of my hopes or fears!
Then have I paced
With breathless eagerness, and if an eye
Has met my gaze, wherein some trace remote
Lived of one on whom my heart has leaned,
A gentle thrilling of awakened love
Has warmed my breast, and haply kindled there
A dream of parted days, that so my feet,
It seemed to me, moved on in solitude.
Thus can the heart, by its strange agency,
Extract divine emotion from the scene
Most barren and uncouth, which images
To him who cannot love , who never felt
That ever-active warmth commingling still
Its own existence with all present things,
Nought beside forms and bodily substances.
Methinks he acts the purposes of life,
And fills the measure of his destiny
With best-approved wisdom, who retires
To some majestic solitude — his mind
Raised by those visions of eternal love,
The rock, the vale, the forest and the lake,
The sky, the sea, and everlasting hills.
He best performs the purposes of life
And fills the measure of his destiny
Who holds high converse with the present God
(Not mystically meant), and feels him ever
Made manifest to his transfigured soul.
But few there are who know to prize such bliss,
And he who thus would raise his mortal being
Must shake weak nature off, and be content
To live a lonely uncompanioned thing,
Exiled from human loves and sympathies.
Therefore the city must detain my feet,
For I would sometimes gaze upon a face
That smiles on me, and speaks intelligibly
Of one that answers all my hopes and fears.
Nor is to me the sentiment of life
Less acceptable, when I contemplate
Numberless living and progressive beings
Acting the infinite varieties
Of this miraculous scene. For though the dim
And inharmonious ministrations here
Of heavenly wisdom may confound the sense,
The partial sense of man, my soul is glad —
Trusting that all, yea, every living thing
Shall understand, in the appointed time,
And praise the inwoven mystery of sin,
Losing each hope and each propellant fear
In perfect bliss — and " God be all in all!"
I must obey thy powerful sympathies,
E'en though I've often found that those my heart
Most prized were creatures of its warm desires,
Rather than aught which other men (less prone
To affections swift, transforming quality)
Might worthy deem or excellent!
Thy scenes,
Thy tainted scenes, proud city, now detain
My restless feet. 'Twill soothe a vacant hour
To trace what dim inexplicable links
Of hidden nature have inclined my soul
To love what heretofore it most abhorred.
When first, a little one, I marked far off
The wreathed smoke that capped thy palaces,
Oh, what a joyous fluttering of the heart,
Oh, what exulting hopes were mine! Methought
Within thy walls there must be somewhat strange,
Surpassing greatly any wondrous dream
Of fairy grandeur which my childhood loved.
And when I heard the busy hum of men
And saw the passing crowd in endless ranks,
The many-coloured equipage, and steeds
Gaily caparisoned, it seemed to me
As though all living things were centred here.
But other feelings soon transformed these shows
To merest emptiness, e'en till my soul
Would sicken at their presence; for I've sought
To cherish quiet musings, and disdained
The idle forms which play upon the sense,
Yet give the heart no comfortable thoughts.
Yes, I have sought the solitary walk
Where I might number every absent friend
And give a tear to each; I've nursed my soul
With strangest contemplation, till it wore
A sad and lonely character, untouched
By th' operation of external shapes.
Yet, London, now thou'rt pleasant — 'tis e'en so!
For I am sick of hopes that stand aloof
From common sympathy; for I am sick
Of pampering delicate exclusive loves,
And silly dreams of rapture that would pull
The shrinking hand from every honest grasp,
The shrinking heart from every honest pledge,
Not tricked in gracefulness poetical!
Sometimes, 'tis true, when I have paced the haunts
Of crowded occupation, I have felt
A sad repression looking all around,
Nor catching one known face amid the throng
That answered mine with cordial pleasantness.
I've often thought upon some absent friend,
E'en till an assured hope that he was nigh
Has made me lift my head and stretch my arm
To gaze upon the form, and grasp the hand
Of him who lived in my wayward dream.
And I have looked, and all has been to me
A crowded desolation! Not one being
Mid that incessant and perturbed throng
Dreamt of my hopes or fears!
Then have I paced
With breathless eagerness, and if an eye
Has met my gaze, wherein some trace remote
Lived of one on whom my heart has leaned,
A gentle thrilling of awakened love
Has warmed my breast, and haply kindled there
A dream of parted days, that so my feet,
It seemed to me, moved on in solitude.
Thus can the heart, by its strange agency,
Extract divine emotion from the scene
Most barren and uncouth, which images
To him who cannot love , who never felt
That ever-active warmth commingling still
Its own existence with all present things,
Nought beside forms and bodily substances.
Methinks he acts the purposes of life,
And fills the measure of his destiny
With best-approved wisdom, who retires
To some majestic solitude — his mind
Raised by those visions of eternal love,
The rock, the vale, the forest and the lake,
The sky, the sea, and everlasting hills.
He best performs the purposes of life
And fills the measure of his destiny
Who holds high converse with the present God
(Not mystically meant), and feels him ever
Made manifest to his transfigured soul.
But few there are who know to prize such bliss,
And he who thus would raise his mortal being
Must shake weak nature off, and be content
To live a lonely uncompanioned thing,
Exiled from human loves and sympathies.
Therefore the city must detain my feet,
For I would sometimes gaze upon a face
That smiles on me, and speaks intelligibly
Of one that answers all my hopes and fears.
Nor is to me the sentiment of life
Less acceptable, when I contemplate
Numberless living and progressive beings
Acting the infinite varieties
Of this miraculous scene. For though the dim
And inharmonious ministrations here
Of heavenly wisdom may confound the sense,
The partial sense of man, my soul is glad —
Trusting that all, yea, every living thing
Shall understand, in the appointed time,
And praise the inwoven mystery of sin,
Losing each hope and each propellant fear
In perfect bliss — and " God be all in all!"
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