INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. And see the children sport upon the shore, Then, sing ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We, in thought, will join your throng, Ye that through your hearts to-day What though the radiance which was once so bright Though nothing can bring back the hour Which having been must ever be, In the faith that looks through death, And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, I only have relinquish'd one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway; I love the brooks which down their channels fret The clouds that gather round the setting sun 123 124 THE POET'S INVOCATION. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, THE POET'S INVOCATION. EARTH, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood! Your love, and recompense the boon with mine; Mother of this unfathomable world, THE POET'S INVOCATION. Keeps record of the trophies won from thee; Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, 125 When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought, Of some mysterious and deserted fane) I wait thy breath, Great Parent; that my strain And motions of the forests and the sea, P. B. Shelley. 126 HYMN TO THE EARTH. HYMN TO THE EARTH. HEXAMETERS. EARTH! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee! Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges― Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions. Travelling the vale with mine eyes-green meadows and lake with green island, Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness Thrilled with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain, Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom! Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses, Green-haired goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger, Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical murmurs, Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly sadness Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving. HYMN TO THE EARTH. 127 Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the sun, the rejoicer! Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget not, Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee! Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation?) Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamoured! Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess, Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was un girdled, Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee! Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning! Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention: Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forth with Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embracement. Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold instincts, Filled, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels; Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swelled upward; Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains, Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches. S. T. Coleridge. |