Still, merriest of the merry birds,
Your sparkle is unfading, —
Pied harlequins of June, no end
Of song and masquerading.
What cadences of bubbling mirth
Too quick for bar or rhythm!
What ecstacies, too full to keep
Coherent measure with them!
O could I share, without champagne
Or muscadel, your frolic,
The glad delirium of your joy,
Your fun un-apostolic,
Your drunken jargon through the fields,
Your bobolinkish gabble,
Your fine anacreontic glee,
Your tipsy reveler's babble!
Nay, let me not profane such joy
With similes of folly,—
No wine of earth could waken songs
So delicately jolly!
O boundless self-contentment, voiced
In flying air-born bubbles!
O joy that mocks our sad unrest,
And drowns our earth-born troubles!
Hope springs with you: I dread no more Despondency and dullness;
For Good Supreme can never fail
That gives such perfect fullness.
The Life that floods the happy fields
With song and light and color,
Will shape our lives to richer states,
And heap our measures fuller.
The nations that in darkness sat have seen
The light. The blind receive their sight again.
The querulous old man who stands between
His children and their hopes, with threats insane,
Trembles, as though an earthquake split in twain
The crumbling rock beneath Saint Peter's dome;
And the last hiding-place of tyranny—is Rome.
For Italy, long pining, sad, and crushed, Has hurled her royal despots from the land. Back to her wasted heart the blood has gushed, Her wan cheek blooms, and her once nerveless hand Guides with firm touch the purpose she has planned. Thank God! thank generous France! the battle-smoke Lifts from her bloody fields. See, at her feet her yoke!
Not like a maddened anarch does she rise:
The torch she holds is no destroying flame,
But a clear beacon,-like her own clear eyes
Straining across the war-clouds; and the shame
Of wild misrule has never stained her name.
Calm and determined, politic yet bold,
She comes to take her place,—the Italy of old.
She asks no boon, except to stand enrolled
Among the nations. Give her space and air,
Our Sister! She has pined in dungeons cold.
A little sunshine for our Sister fair,
A little hope to cover past despair,
God's blessing on the long-lost, the unbound!
The earth has waited long; the heavens now answer"Found!"
The nations greet her as some lovely guest
Arriving late, where friends pour out the wine.
Ay, press around, and pledge her in the best
Your table yields, and in her praise combine!
And ye who love her most, press near, and twine
Her locks with wreaths, and in her large dark eyes
See all her sorrowing past, and her great future rise!
LUNA THROUGH A LORGNETTE.
I to-night was at a party
Given by the fair Astarte.
Star-like eyes danced twinkling round me;
Cold they left me, as they found me,
One bright vision, one face only,
Made me happy and yet lonely.
It was hers to whom is given
Rule by night,—the queen of heaven. "Ah, how fair she is!" I muttered,
Like a night-moth as I fluttered
Round her light, but dared not enter
That intensely radiant center,
Whence she filled the clouds about her,
Whence she lit the very outer
Darkness, and the ocean hoary
With her floods of golden glory.
Some one, then, as I stood gazing,
Filled too full of her for praising,
Of the old time vaguely dreaming,
When she took a mortal seeming;
When a shepherd sprang to meet her,
And he felt a kiss, ah, sweeter
Than e'er lips of mortal maiden
Gave her lover passion-laden,-
Some one with a sneer ascetic
Broke in on my dream poetic.
"I see more," he said, "than you, sir;
"Would you like a nearer view, sir?"
And with that, politely handing
A lorgnette, he left me standing,
In her face directly gazing;
And I saw a sight amazing.
Ah, these dreadful magnifiers
Kill the life of our desires.
Shall I tell you what I saw then?
All of you around me draw then.
Can she be as once I thought her,-
Phoebus' sister, Jove's fair daughter?
Whom the night-flowers turn to gaze on,
Whom the sleeping streams emblazon:
Lover's planet, lamp of heaven,
Goddess to whom power is given
Over tides and rolling oceans,
Over all the heart's emotions!
Ah, farewell, my boyish fancies!
Farewell, all my young romances!
As that orb that shone Elysian
On my young poetic vision,
As that crescent boat which lightly
Tilted o'er the cloud-rack nightly,
I again can see her never,
Though I use my best endeavor.
On me once her charms she sprinkled,
Now her face is old and wrinkled.
As Diana chaste and tender,
Can I now as once defend her?
She is full of histories olden
Wrapped up in her bosom golden.
Sorceress of strange beguiling,
Thousands perished by her smiling.—
Girls kept waking, old men saddened,
Lovers lost, and poets maddened.
Now the well-armed eye of science
Bids her magic spells defiance;
Moonstruck brains by moonlight haunted
Telescopes have disenchanted.
Talk not of the brow of Dian,
Gentle bards, you may rely on
What I've seen to-night; 't is clearly
Known the moon's constructed queerly,
Full of wrinkles, warts, and freckles,
Gilded cracks and spots and speckles;
As if in wandering through the void,
Her face were marked with varioloid.
Then her cheeks and eyes so hollow,
That I'm sure the bright Apollo
Ne'er would know her for his sister,
Nor Endymion have kissed her.
Nay, good Moon, I'm loath to slander
Thy mysterious beauty yonder;
Rather as I gaze upon thee,
Truer lines be written on thee.
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