Wings half open, like a flower
Inly deeply flushing,
Neck and breast as virgin's pure,— Virgin proudly blushing.
Day is dying! Float, O swan,
Down the ruby river;
Follow, song, in requiem
To the mighty Giver.
MARIAN EVANS LEWES CROSS (GEORGE ELIOT)
THE EVENING WIND
SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice: thou That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day! Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow; Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray, And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea! Nor I alone,- a thousand bosoms round Inhale thee in the fullness of delight; And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound Livelier, at coming of the wind of night; And languishing to hear thy welcome sound, Lies the vast inland, stretched beyond the sight. Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,- God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth! Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest ;
Curl the still waters, bright with stars; and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest,
Summoning, from the innumerable boughs, The strange deep harmonies that haunt his breast. Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass. Stoop o'er the place of graves, and softly sway The sighing herbage by the gleaming stone, That they who near the churchyard willows stray, And listen in the deepening gloom, alone, May think of gentle souls that pass'd away, Like thy pure breath, into the vast unknown, Sent forth from heaven among the sons of men, And gone into the boundless heaven again.
The faint old man shall lean his silver head To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread His temples, while his breathing grows more deep; And they who stand about the sick man's bed Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,
And softly part his curtains to allow Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.
Go, but the circle of eternal change,
Which is the life of Nature, shall restore, With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range, Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more. Sweet odors in the sea air, sweet and strange, Shall tell the homesick mariner of the shore ; And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odors plain and hill : Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unwaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy ! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ?
THE THUNDER-STORM
A BODING silence reigns
Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull sound That from the mountain, previous to the storm, Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood, And shakes the forest-leaf without a breath. Prone, to the lowest vale, the aërial tribes Descend; the tempest-loving raven scarce Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens Cast a deploring eye, by man forsook, Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast, Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.
'T is listening fear and dumb amazement all, When to the startled eye the sudden glance Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud; And following slower, in explosion vast, The thunder raises his tremendous voice. At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven, The tempest growls, but as it nearer comes, And rolls its awful burden on the wind, The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more The noise astounds; till overhead a sheet Of livid flame discloses wide, then shuts, And opens wider; shuts and opens still Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze. Follows the loosen'd aggravated roar, Enlarging, deepening, mingling, peal on peal Crush'd horrible, convulsing heaven and earth. Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail, Or prone-descending rain; wide-rent, the clouds Pour a whole flood; and yet, its flame unquenched, The unconquerable lightning struggles through, Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls, And fires the mountains with redoubled rage. Black from the stroke, above, the smouldering pine
Stands a sad shatter'd trunk; and stretch'd below, A lifeless group the blasted cattle lie :
Here the soft flocks, with that same harmless look They wore alive, and ruminating stili
In fancy's eye; and there the frowning bull, And ox half raised. Struck on the castled cliff, The venerable tower and spiry fane
Resign their aged pride. The gloomy woods Start at the flash, and from their deep recess, Wide flaming out, their trembling inmates shake. Amid Carnarvon's mountains rages loud The repercussive roar: with mighty crush, Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks Of Penmanmaur, heaped hideous to the sky, Tumble the smitten cliffs; and Snowdon's peak, Dissolving, instant yields his wintry load.
Far seen, the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze, And Thulé bellows through her utmost isles.
JAMES THOMSON (Summer).
A THUNDER-STORM IN THE ALPS
THE sky is changed! - and such a change! O night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
LORD BYRON (Childe Harold).
THE SNOW-STORM
THE keener tempests rise: and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb A vapory deluge lies, to snow congeal'd.
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;
And the sky saddens with the gather'd storm.
Through the hush'd air the whitening shower descends, At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes Fall broad and wide and fast, dimming the day, With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields
Put on their winter robe of purest white.
'T is brightness all; save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current. Low the woods
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