Classic Poem

MORNING

Do I yet press ye, O rushes? though the light
From yonder orient point bursts in full dawn?
Daughter of mists! fair morning, thou dost blush
To find me yet unrisen. Lift up thy veil,
Lift up thy dewy veil, Goddess of Prime!
And smile with all thy luxury of light.
Breathe me a kiss, an earthly lover's kiss,
Such as thou gav'st the hunter-boy, and pour
The perfume of thy sighs around my bed.
This is the hour for Rhapsody. Arise!
Thou slumbering son of Song, and mount the hill.
 A light thin mist hangs o'er the tumbling sea,
Hiding some grand commotion. Look! O look!
The reddening, foaming, thundering ocean swells
With its up-springing birth. Wind, burst the cloud,
That the dread King of Glory may look forth!
He comes! he comes! the purple-flowing waves
Spread him a gorgeous carpet. Hail, O Sun!
Thou who dost shower thy golden benefits,
More liberal than all earth's mightiest kings!
Thou who dost fling exuberant wealth around,
And of thy rich profusion prodigal
Scatterest superfluous bounty o'er the world!
O thou ascending wonder! thou great type
Of thy still greater cause! thou symbol-star
Of intellectual brightness infinite!
How does the eye of rapture flow with joy
As the hills brighten, and the valleys dim
Tinge their dark verdure with thy matin ray!
My soul expands like thy magnificence
As I behold thee rise. This is the time
When the heart pants with over-teeming life
To range the blooming lawns. The dewy glade,
The tender-vested slope, the mossy bank,
The rushy-bosom'd dell are now the haunt
Of the fond Rhapsodist. The foot of ecstasy,
The light, winged foot of ecstasy springs o'er,
Nor crushes the half-waken'd flowers; they think
It but the passing sigh of morn that bows them,
Sweeping the woodland with its soft sweet wing.
Gems of my meek ambition! let me catch
The lustre of your radiance fresh with dew.
Waken, O rose! O fragrant-breasted-rose!
Thou ever-blushing maiden of the field,
Are thy love-dreams so sweet thou fear'st to wake?
Ah! thou young shrewd one! thou dost keep thy breast
Close for yon travelling bee, whose sylvan hum
Taketh thine amorous ear. Thou smilest, ay!
But blush still deeper as you smile. Farewell!
O thou lone blue-bell, sleeping in thy nook
Under the cliff, sleeping the morn away!
Look from thine eyrie, darling of the rock!
Look at thy sister-bud, the mountain-queen,
Turning her little treasure to the sun,
Glistening and gay with dew. Hast thou no charms
In that sweet breast, that pale-blue breast of thine?
Ope thee, fine floweret! Delicate girl of the bank!
Pale primrose, where art thou? Just wakening!
Thine eye half-closed and thy all-beauteous head
Still drooping on thy bosom. O, look up!
The waning moon her crystal light retires
And the red blazonry of morn begins.
The laughing plains, the yellow-coated hills,
The flashing torrent and the sun-bright lake,
The plumy forest fluttering all in sheen,
Lie like a landscape wash'd with swimming gold
Thou that believ'st, unprofitably wise,
This but the waking vision of my soul,
This but the Rhapsodist's bewildered dream,
View thou the morning-dawn—and doubt no more.

NOON

Rapt by her two gray steeds, the car of Morn
Bears her above the lark, his lofty song
Pouring from Heav'n's high crown; yet ere the cope
Be won, she hears thickening upon her steps
The snort and tread of Phœbus' rolling wain
Torn up the road of day; her pale-shod wheels,
Yea, even the flaxen ringlets of the Dame
Are blazing all to hindward! On he whirls,
And scarce a chariot length between! She burns
And chides and pants and cries! Over his team
Hyperion bends, loud-cheering. Phlegon sweats
And Æthon; Pyrois shakes himself to foam,
While fierce Eoüs at the nostril breathes
His dragon-soul, that these gray Matineers,
Their vantage ta'en, should win the goal of Noon
And bear the palm away. 'Tis won! 'tis won!
 Now turn thee from the glorious skies, so bright
The eagle blindfold soars against the sun,
To Earth's refreshing view; yet even her robe
Is golden-green, almost too rich emblazed.
The hills and the wide woodland and the valleys
Burn with excessive day, and light o'erflows
The general horizontal globe terrene.
Now in the meads, ye shepherds, now begin
To charm the listening hours; adown the vale
Let your sweet song go echoing. Where, I pray,
Where now's the woody Muse's worshipper?
The fond-eye'd boy, that stealing summer's breath
Pours it within his pipe, as down the side
Of yon green hill he totters, carolling,
Each break of sunlight? Is he in the plains,
Or basking on the napless mountain-top,
Or treading down the deep grass of the vale?
Hark! from the bushes, all along the stream,
Melody rises, and the small waves steal
With footless motion, underneath the sound
Murmuring to each other. Hark, again!
O silvery pipe! the honey-sucker bends
His course about the rose with double glee,
Chiming his hum to thy sweet thrill, and now
Drawn by the fine attraction of his ear
Along the brook wings up his winding way,
Where the lost waters wander from the song.
How melancholy-wild the sylvan strain!
How sad poor Echo sighs, when to her ears
Come notes her own Narcissus breathed of old
Amid the audient hills. This eloquent air
Trembles again! Saturn once more holds sway!
The time's Arcadian, and the Naiads thus
Moan to their streaming urns, or through their canes
Seven-tubed the Wood-maids sigh: Hark! hark! the sounds
Are true Parnassian, the sweet reeds of Castaly
Do blow their hollow trumpets in the downs,
Waking the tender ear of Pity. O rare!
Apollo sure doth haunt this sacred glen,
Or the Thrax bard, for see! the lithe trees bow
Over the nook that shuts in half his soul
Who breathes it all 'mid their inclining leaves
And wins them downward. Melody hath fill'd
So full a pipe not since the shepherd-reign
Of wood-enamour'd Pan or Sylvan, whom
Echo did answer with so sweet redound
He never sang again. But who is here?
Who but the Rhapsodist amid the shades
Swelling his oat? Amid the sulky shades
That close the brow at the o'er-peering sun,
'Mid their green darkness deep-down in the dale
He sings moss-pillow'd, or beside the elm
Flinging its shadier horror o'er the stream
He leans, whilst the black waters at his feet
Stumble along their rocky way—he leans,
Companion of the listening nightingale,
Who cons her nightly music from his notes
Unseen herself the while and mute. Now forth,
Forth comes the boy, tuning his pastoral flute
To gayer yet as sweet-wild measures. Slow,
And turning oft and piping, up the bourne
He thrids his violet walk, invisible
With many another flower of equal hue,
But scarce so sweet as this. Sudden he stops!
To listen if the charmed valley sings.
A smother'd roar seems to attend his song,
Involuntary harmony, soft-breath'd and low,
Of winds and woods and murmuring birds within,
Of streams and reeds canorous. The dull drone
Fills up his ears of the sand-number'd swarms
That the hot grass engenders, when out-sung
The loud-wing'd bee serves but to lead the choir.
 Now drooping in the fervour of the glade
The wandering minstrel turns. An odorous bank
All willow-grown descends into the stream,
And up its feet the little ripples climb
With emulous struggles, then fall back and laugh
At their own folly, and then glide away.
Hither he hies, his meadow-pipe y-slung
Carelessly from his neck, and lays him down
With head on hand beneath the willow shade,
Curtain so green, and stretches forth his limbs
Athwart the couchant grass, as down as silk
But fresh with unstol'n dew. Here may he lie
And listen to the music of the groves,
And hear the soft waves lapping on the shore,
And catch the whispers wanton Zephyr breathes
Into the ear of love-sick flowers, and mark
The fractious melody the runnel makes
Down, far a-field, where it doth spit its foam
At sturdy rocks and island tufts amidst
Its liquid path, breasting it as it rolls
And wrangles through the bottom of the dell.
 Here in the bosom of the woodland he,
The Rhapsodist, doth ever love to dream
With Silence or the Muse; his summer bower
A Dryad girl doth weave, Oread or Faun,
Smooth-handed Faun, his dale or mountain lair;
Satyr doth pipe for him, when he is tired,
Amid the sounding groves, and those green Maids
(O that he still might see them, but they fled
All to their inner caves when Man unveiled
Their rites mysterious to the vulgar eye
And delicate unseen charms)—the Fountain Nuns,
Immured each one within her crystal cell,
Chant in his ears a never-ceasing song,
The still sweet burthen of their flowing wells.
 Such is the joy of Noon—to him whose soul
Is fitted for Elysium. He who finds
No pleasure in the Noontide hour shall weep
For ever in the doleful shades of Acheron.