His eyes are bright if mine are dim

* * *

I sat upon the ground

I leaned against an ancient pine

The pleasant breeze

Shook the forest tops like waves of ocean

I felt of the trunk the gentle motion

* * *

Good Charles the spring’s adorer

True worshipper of Flora

Know’st thou the gay Rhodora

That blossoms in the May?

It blooms in dark nooks

By the wood loving brooks

And makes their twilight gay.

* * *

Around the man who seeks a noble end

Not angels but divinities attend.

* * *

In the deep heart of man a poet dwells

Who all the day of life his summer story tells

Scatters on every eye dust of his spells

Scent form & color to the flowers & shells

Wins the believing child with wondrous tales

Touches a cheek with colors of romance

And crowds a history into a glance

Gives beauty to the lake & fountain

Spies over sea the fires of the mountain

When thrushes ope their throat, ’t is he that sings

And he that paints the oriole’s fiery wings

The little Shakspeare in the maiden’s heart

Makes Romeo of a ploughboy on his cart

Opens the eye to Virtue’s starlike meed

And gives persuasion to a gentle deed.

* * *

O what are heroes prophets men

But pipes through which the breath of Pan doth blow

A momentary music. Being’s tide

Swells hitherward & myriads of forms

Live, robed with beauty, painted by the Sun:

Their dust pervaded by the nerves of God

Throbs with an overmastering energy

Knowing & doing. Ebbs the tide, they lie

White hollow shells upon the desart shore.

But not the less the eternal wave rolls on

To animate new millions, & exhale

Races & planets its enchanted foam.

* * *

Yet sometime to the sorrow stricken

Shall his own sorrow seem impertinent

A thing that takes no more root in the world

Than doth the traveller’s shadow on the rock

* * *

The Bohemian Hymn

In many forms we try

To utter God’s infinity

But the boundless hath no form

And the Universal Friend

Doth as far transcend

An angel as a worm.

The great Idea baffles wit

Language falters under it

It leaves the learned in the lurch

Nor art nor power nor toil can find

The measure of the eternal Mind

Nor hymn nor prayer nor church.

* * *

Kind & holy were the words –

O how trustingly they fell!

Music wants such sweet accords –

Sister, this thy perfect spell.

All the woman now was dropt,

All the friend came forth to me,

The beauty I had pictured oft

Was vanished utterly

Before the dearer emanation

Of undefiled affection,

Of earnest, wistful, ancient love,

With clear & liquid eye,

Older than the gods above,

Fountain of their deity.

Yet thou showed me no love

For the sake of love,

That for meaner souls was made

To whom passion is their bread.