FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   >>  
ons, was wind over flame. And deep were my musings in life's early blossom, Mid the twilight of mountain groves wandering long; How thrilled my young veins, and how throbbed my full bosom, When o'er me descended the spirit of song. 'Mong the deep-cloven fells that for ages had listened To the rush of the pebble-paved river between, Where the kingfisher screamed and gray precipice glistened, All breathless with awe have I gazed on the scene; Till I felt the dark power o'er my reveries stealing, From his throne in the depth of that stern solitude, And he breathed through my lips, in that tempest of feeling, Strains lofty or tender, though artless and rude. Bright visions! I mixed with the world, and ye faded; No longer your pure rural worshipper now; In the haunts your continual presence pervaded, Ye shrink from the signet of care on my brow. In the old mossy groves on the breast of the mountain, In deep lonely glens where the waters complain, By the shade of the rock, by the gush of the fountain, I seek your loved footsteps, but seek them in vain. Oh, leave not, forlorn and for ever forsaken, Your pupil and victim to life and its tears! But sometimes return, and in mercy awaken The glories ye showed to his earlier years. TO A MUSQUITO. Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out, And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing, Does murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about, In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing, And tell how little our large veins should bleed, Would we but yield them to thy bitter need. Unwillingly, I own, and, what is worse, Full angrily men hearken to thy plaint; Thou gettest many a brush, and many a curse, For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and faint: Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could. I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween, Has not the honour of so proud a birth,-- Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green, The offspring of the gods, though born on earth; For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she, The ocean nymph that nursed thy infancy. Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung, And when, at length, thy gauzy wings grew strong, Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung, Rose in the sky and bore thee soft along; The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way, And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay. Calm rose afar the city spires, and
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   >>  



Top keywords:

groves

 

breathed

 

stranger

 

mountain

 

bitter

 

Unwillingly

 

plaint

 

hearken

 

gettest

 
angrily

spires
 

murmur

 

danced

 
spread
 

extracting

 

slowly

 
plaintive
 

pitiless

 
billowy
 

offspring


nursed
 

infancy

 

strong

 

beneath

 

length

 

rushes

 

Beneath

 

cradle

 

meadows

 

hapless


starved

 

beggar

 

gentle

 
Jersey
 

honour

 

threadlike

 

Abroad

 
breathless
 

glistened

 
kingfisher

screamed
 
precipice
 

tempest

 

feeling

 

Strains

 

solitude

 

reveries

 

stealing

 
throne
 

wandering