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(From Rhymes on the Road)
I MAY be cold, may want that glow | |
| Of high romance which bards should know; | |
| That holy homage which is felt | |
| In treading where the great have dwelt,— | |
| This reverence, whatsoe’er it be, | 5 |
| I fear, I feel, I have it not; | |
| For here, at this still hour, to me | |
| The charms of this delightful spot,— | |
| Its calm seclusion from the throng, | |
| From all the heart would fain forget,— | 10 |
| This narrow valley, and the song | |
| Of its small murmuring rivulet,— | |
| The flitting to and fro of birds, | |
| Tranquil and tame as they were once | |
| In Eden, ere the startling words | 15 |
| Of man disturbed their orisons!— | |
| Those little shadowy paths, that wind | |
| Up the hillside, with fruit-trees lined, | |
| And lighted only by the breaks | |
| The gay wind in the foliage makes, | 20 |
| Or vistas here and there, that ope | |
| Through weeping willows, like the snatches | |
| Of far-off scenes of light, which hope, | |
| Even through the shade of sadness, catches!— | |
| All this, which, could I once but lose | 25 |
| The memory of those vulgar ties | |
| Whose grossness all the heavenliest hues | |
| Of Genius can no more disguise | |
| Than the sun’s beams can do away | |
| The filth of fens o’er which they play,— | 30 |
| This scene which would have filled my heart | |
| With thoughts of all that happiest is,— | |
| Of love, where self hath only part, | |
| As echoing back another’s bliss,— | |
| Of solitude, secure and sweet, | 35 |
| Beneath whose shade the Virtues meet; | |
| Which, while it shelters, never chills | |
| Our sympathies with human woe, | |
| But keeps them, like sequestered rills, | |
| Purer and fresher in their flow,— | 40 |
| Of happy days that share their beams | |
| ’Twixt quiet mirth and wise employ,— | |
| Of tranquil nights that give in dreams | |
| The moonlight of the morning’s joy! | |
| All this my heart could dwell on here, | 45 |
| But for those hateful memories near, | |
| Those sordid truths, that cross the track | |
| Of each sweet thought and drive them back | |
| Full into all the mire and strife | |
| And vanities of that man’s life | 50 |
| Who, more than all that e’er have glowed | |
| With Fancy’s flame (and it was his | |
| If ever given to mortal), showed | |
| What an impostor Genius is. | |
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