Where the sparkling crystal waters
Shot in music from their cell,
Couched on rose, the fountain's daughters
Watched the working of their spell.
Hylas, hark! the breeze is gushing
Through thy gallant vessel's sail.
Hylas, hark! the tide is rushing—
Hark! the sailors' parting hail!
But a nobler fate has found thee
Than was e'er by valor won;
And a deeper spell has bound thee
Than was e'er by man undone.
O'er the crystal waters bending,
Low he dips the marble urn;
Thoughts of home and anguish blending
With the dreams that in him burn.
Deeper still the charm is stealing—
Forms of beauty crowd the shore,
Till his brain and eye are reeling—
In he plunges-all is o'er !
In the naiads' bosom ever,
Vainly now by hill and grove,
Ocean's marge, and sacred river,
Shalt thou seek him, son of Jove.
WE parted in silence, we parted by night,
On the banks of that lonely river;
Where the fragrant limes their boughs unite,
We met and we parted for ever.
The night-bird sang, and the stars above
Told many a touching story,
Of friends long passed to the kingdom of love,
Where the soul wears its mantle of glory.
We parted in silence—our cheeks were wet
With the tears that were past controlling;
We vowed we would never, no, never forget,
And those vows at the time were consoling;
But those lips that echoed the sounds of mine,
Are as cold as that lonely river;
And that eye, that beautiful spirit's shrine,
Has shrouded its fires forever.
And now on the midnight sky I look,
And my heart grows full of weeping;
Each star is to me a sealed book,
Some tale of that loved one keeping.
We parted in silence, we parted in tears,
On the banks of that lonely river;
But the odor and bloom of those by-gone years
Shall hang o'er its waters forever.
THE stream that hurries by your fixed shore.
Returns no more;
The wind that dries at morn yon dewy lawn
Breathes and is gone;
Those withered flowers to summer's ripening glow
No more shall blow;
Those fallen leaves that strew yon garden bed
For aye are dead;
On shore, or sea, or hill, or vale, or plain,
Naught shall remain;
Vainly for sunshine fled, and joys gone by,
We heave a sigh;
On, ever on, with unexhausted breath,
Time hastes to death;
Even with each word we speak a moment flies-
Is born and dies;
Of all for which poor mortals vainly mourn,
Naught shall return;
Life hath its home in heaven and earth beneath,
And so hath death;
Not all the chains that clank in eastern clime
Can fetter time;
For all the phials in the doctor's store
Youth comes no more;
No drugs on age's wrinkled cheek renew
Life's early hue;
Not all the tears by pious mourners shed
Can wake the dead.
If thus through lesser nature's empire wide
Nothing abide-
If wind, and wave, and leaf, and sun, and flower,
Have all their hour-
He walks on ice whose dallying spirit clings
To earthly things;
And he alone is wise whose well taught love
Is fixed above:
Truths firm and bright, but oft to mortal ear
Chilling and drear;
Harsh as the raven's croak the sounds that tell
Of pleasure's knell.
Pray, reader, that the minstrel's strain
And when thou bend'st to God the suppliant knee,
MOURNFULLY listening to the waves' strange talk,
And marking with a sad and moistened eye
The summer days sink down behind the sea,—
Sink down beneath the level brine, and fall
Into the Hades of forgotten things,—
A mighty longing stealeth o'er the soul;
As of a man who panteth to behold
His idol in another land,—if yet
Her heart be treasured for him,
if her eyes
Have yet the old love in them. Even so,
With passion strong as love and deep as death,
Yearneth the spirit after Wonderland.
Ah, happy, happy land! The busy soul
Calls up in pictures of the half-shut eye
Thy shores of splendor. As a fair blind girl,
Who thinks the roses must be beautiful,
But cannot see their beauty. Olden tones,
Borne on the bosom of the breeze from far,—
Angels that came to the young heart in dreams,
And then like birds of passage flew away,—
Return. The rugged steersman at the wheel
Softens into a cloudy shape. The sails
Move to a music of their own.
Speed well, and bear us unto Wonderland!
Leave far behind thee the vext earth, where men
Spend their dark days in weaving their own shrouds
And Fraud and Wrong are crownèd kings; and Toil
Hath chains for Hire; and all Creation groans,
Crying, in its great bitterness, to God;
And Love can never speak the thing it feels,
Or save the thing it loves,-is succorless.
For if one say, "I love thee," what poor words
They are! Whilst they are spoken, the beloved
Traveleth as a doomed lamb the road of death;
And sorrow blanches the fair hair, and pales
The tinted cheek. Not so in Wonderland.
There larger natures sport themselves at ease
'Neath kindlier suns that nurture fairer flowers,
And richer harvests billow in the vales,
And passionate kisses fall on godlike brows
As summer rain. And never know they there
The passion that is desolation's prey;
The bitter tears begotten of farewells;
Endless renunciations, when the heart
Loseth the all it lived for; vows forgot,
Cold looks, estranged voices, all the woes
That poison earth's delight. For love endures,
Nor fades nor changes, in the Wonderland.
Alas! the rugged steersman at the wheel
Comes back again to vision. The hoarse sea
Speaketh from its great heart of discor.tent,
And in the misty distance dies away.
The Wonderland!-'T is past and gone.
Whilst yet unbodied thou didst summer there,
God saw thee, led thee forth from thy green haunts,
And bade thee know another world less fair,
Less calm. Ambition, knowledge, and desire
Drove from thee thy first worship. Live and learn, Believe and wait.--and it may be that he
Will guide thee back again to Wonderland.
To drum-beat and heart-beat,
A soldier marches by:
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye,
Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat
In a moment he must die.
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