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Poems

Год написания книги
2017
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Passions which float upon the heart like foam,
Bitter remembrances which o'er us come,
And Shame's red spot spread sudden o'er the brow.

I know life better! when thou'rt older grown
I'll tell thee – it is needful to be known —
Of the pursuit of wealth – art, power; the cost.
That it is folly, nothingness: that shame
For glory is oft thrown us in the game
Of Fortune; chances where the soul is lost.

The soul will change. Although of everything
The cause and end be clear, yet wildering
We roam through life (of vice and error full).
We wander as we go; we feel the load
Of doubt; and to the briars upon the road
Man leaves his virtue, as the sheep its wool.

Then go, go pray for me! And as the prayer
Gushes in words, be this the form they bear: —
"Lord, Lord, our Father! God, my prayer attend;
Pardon! Thou art good! Pardon – Thou art great!"
Let them go freely forth, fear not their fate!
Where thy soul sends them, thitherward they tend.

There's nothing here below which does not find
Its tendency. O'er plains the rivers wind,
And reach the sea; the bee, by instinct driven,
Finds out the honeyed flowers; the eagle flies
To seek the sun; the vulture where death lies;
The swallow to the spring; the prayer to Heaven!

And when thy voice is raised to God for me,
I'm like the slave whom in the vale we see
Seated to rest, his heavy load laid by;
I feel refreshed – the load of faults and woe
Which, groaning, I drag with me as I go,
Thy wingèd prayer bears off rejoicingly!

Pray for thy father! that his dreams be bright
With visitings of angel forms of light,
And his soul burn as incense flaming wide,
Let thy pure breath all his dark sins efface,
So that his heart be like that holy place,
An altar pavement each eve purified!

And then they sleep, and golden dreams anon,
Born as the busy day's last murmurs die,
In swarms tumultuous flitting through the gloom
Their breathing lips and golden locks descry.
And as the bees o'er bright flowers joyous roam,
Around their curtained cradles clustering come.

    C., Tait's Magazine

LES CHANTS DU CRÉPUSCULE. – 1849.

PRELUDE TO "THE SONGS OF TWILIGHT."

("De quel non te nommer?")

{PRELUDE, a, Oct. 20, 1835.}

How shall I note thee, line of troubled years,
Which mark existence in our little span?
One constant twilight in the heaven appears —
One constant twilight in the mind of man!

Creed, hope, anticipation and despair,
Are but a mingling, as of day and night;
The globe, surrounded by deceptive air,
Is all enveloped in the same half-light.

And voice is deadened by the evening breeze,
The shepherd's song, or maiden's in her bower,
Mix with the rustling of the neighboring trees,
Within whose foliage is lulled the power.

Yet all unites! The winding path that leads
Thro' fields where verdure meets the trav'ller's eye.
The river's margin, blurred with wavy reeds,
The muffled anthem, echoing to the sky!

The ivy smothering the armèd tower;
The dying wind that mocks the pilot's ear;
The lordly equipage at midnight hour,
Draws into danger in a fog the peer;

The votaries of Satan or of Jove;
The wretched mendicant absorbed in woe;
The din of multitudes that onward move;
The voice of conscience in the heart below;

The waves, which Thou, O Lord, alone canst still;
Th' elastic air; the streamlet on its way;
And all that man projects, or sovereigns will;
Or things inanimate might seem to say;

The strain of gondolier slow streaming by;
The lively barks that o'er the waters bound;
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