| |
| A GUSH of waters! faint and sweet and wild, | |
| Like the far echo of the voice of years,— | |
| The ancient Nature, singing to her child | |
| The selfsame hymn that lulled the infant spheres! | |
| A spell of song not louder than a sigh, | 5 |
| Yet speaking like a trumpet to the heart, | |
| And thoughts that lift themselves triumphingly | |
| O’er time, where time has triumphed over art, | |
| As wild-flowers climb its ruins, haunt it still; | |
| While still above the consecrated spot | 10 |
| Lifts up its prophet voice the ancient rill, | |
| And flings its oracles along the grot. | |
| But where is she, the lady of the stream, | |
| And he whose worship was and is—a dream? | |
| |
| Silent, yet full of voices!—desolate, | 15 |
| Yet filled with memories, like a broken heart! | |
| O for a vision like to his who sate | |
| With thee, and with the moon and stars, apart, | |
| By the cool fountain, many a livelong even, | |
| That speaks, unheeded, to the desert now, | 20 |
| When vanished clouds had left the air all heaven, | |
| And all was silent save the stream and thou, | |
| Egeria!—solemn thought upon his brows, | |
| For all his diadem; thy spirit-eyes | |
| His only homage; and the flitting boughs | 25 |
| And birds alone between him and the skies! | |
| Each outward sense expanded to a soul, | |
| And every feeling tuned into a truth; | |
| And all the bosom’s shattered strings made whole, | |
| And all its worn-out powers retouched with youth, | 30 |
| Beneath thy spell, that chastened while it charmed, | |
| Thy words, that touched the spirit while they taught, | |
| Thy look, that uttered wisdom while it warmed, | |
| And moulded fancy in the stamp of thought, | |
| And breathed an atmosphere below, above, | 35 |
| Light to the soul, and to the senses love! | |
| |
| Beautiful dreams! that haunt the younger earth, | |
| In poet’s pencil or in minstrel’s song, | |
| Like sighs or rainbows, dying in their birth, | |
| Perceived a moment, and remembered long! | 40 |
| But, no!—bright visions! fables of the heart! | |
| Not to the past alone do ye belong; | |
| Types for all ages, wove when early art | |
| To feeling gave a voice, to truth a tongue! | |
| O, what if gods have left the Grecian mount, | 45 |
| And shrines are voiceless on the classic shore, | |
| And long Egeria by the gushing fount | |
| Waits for her monarch-lover nevermore! | |
| Who hath not his Egeria?—some sweet thought, | |
| Shrouded and shrined within his heart of hearts, | 50 |
| More closely cherished and more fondly sought | |
| Still as the daylight of the soul departs; | |
| The visioned lady of the spring, that wells | |
| In the green valley of his brighter years, | |
| Or gentle spirit that forever dwells | 55 |
| And sings of hope beside the fount of tears. | |
| In the heart’s trance,—the calenture of mind | |
| That haunts the soul-sick mariner of life, | |
| And paints the fields that he has left behind, | |
| Like green morganas, on the tempest’s strife; | 60 |
| In the dim hour when memory, whose song | |
| Is still of buried hope, sings back the dead | |
| And perished looks and forms,—a phantom-throng,— | |
| With melancholy eyes and soundless tread, | |
| Like lost Eurydices, from graves, retrack | 65 |
| The long-deserted chambers of the brain, | |
| Until the yearning soul looks fondly back | |
| To clasp them, and they vanish once again; | |
| At even, when the fight of youth is done, | |
| And sorrow, like the “searchers of the slain,” | 70 |
| Turns up the cold, dead faces, one by one, | |
| Of prostrate joys and wishes,—but in vain! | |
| And finds that all is lost, and walks around | |
| Mid hopes that each has perished of its wound; | |
| Then, pale Egeria! to thy moonlit cave | 75 |
| The maddened and the mourner may retire, | |
| To cool the spirit’s fever in thy wave, | |
| And gather inspiration from thy lyre; | |
| In solemn musings, when the world is still, | |
| To woo a love less fleeting to the breast, | 80 |
| Or lie and dream, beside the prophet-rill | |
| That resteth never, while it whispers rest; | |
| Like Numa, cast earth’s cares and crowns aside, | |
| And commune with a spiritual bride! | |
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