Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/201
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183
Lines Written in a Severe Frost and Strong Haze, on Sunday Morning.
How drear and awful is this solitude!
Nature herself is surely dead, and o'er
Her cold and stiffened corse a winding sheet,
Of bright unsullied purity, is thrown.
How still she lies! she smiles, she breathes no more;
Yon drooping elm, whose pale and leafless boughs
O'erhang the stream, hath wept itself to death.
The stream that once did gaily dance and sing
The livelong day, now, stiff and silent, lies
Immovable—congealed to glittering shingles,
'Tis beautiful in death! That grove, which late
Did woo the merry stream with ceaseless music,
From morn till eve, with notes of thousand songsters,
And all the night with those melodious strains
With which lone Philomela tells her love,
Now silent stands a bleached skeleton.
The sky itself is shrouded; now no more
The rosy blush of health, the glow of rapture,
Or cheerful smile of peace her face illumines;
One sickly livid hue is spread o'er all.
The veil of air, wont not to hide, but show
With mild and softening azure tint more sweet
The beauteous aspect of the varying heaven,
Is now become a foul and dense disguise.
The sun, that glorious source of warmth and light,
Arrested in his course, flares through the dun
And turbid atmosphere, as if expiring.
Nought else appears—it seems as though this spot
Were all creation, and myself the sole
Survivor. Oh! how awful thus to find
Myself alone with God—to know and feel
That His all-seeing, His all-searching eye,
Surveys my inmost thoughts! How little, now,
Appears the mighty joys, the hopes and fears,
Pursuits and pleasures of a transient world!
A world within, till now, like other men,
I've toiled and grieved, with many anxious cares,
But where I too have loved and been beloved,
With more of happiness than oft is found
In this probationary state. With Him
Who gave me all and day by day, hath still,
With kind parental care, my life preserved;
To stand alone is awful, but not dreadful.
Nature herself is surely dead, and o'er
Her cold and stiffened corse a winding sheet,
Of bright unsullied purity, is thrown.
How still she lies! she smiles, she breathes no more;
Yon drooping elm, whose pale and leafless boughs
O'erhang the stream, hath wept itself to death.
The stream that once did gaily dance and sing
The livelong day, now, stiff and silent, lies
Immovable—congealed to glittering shingles,
'Tis beautiful in death! That grove, which late
Did woo the merry stream with ceaseless music,
From morn till eve, with notes of thousand songsters,
And all the night with those melodious strains
With which lone Philomela tells her love,
Now silent stands a bleached skeleton.
The sky itself is shrouded; now no more
The rosy blush of health, the glow of rapture,
Or cheerful smile of peace her face illumines;
One sickly livid hue is spread o'er all.
The veil of air, wont not to hide, but show
With mild and softening azure tint more sweet
The beauteous aspect of the varying heaven,
Is now become a foul and dense disguise.
The sun, that glorious source of warmth and light,
Arrested in his course, flares through the dun
And turbid atmosphere, as if expiring.
Nought else appears—it seems as though this spot
Were all creation, and myself the sole
Survivor. Oh! how awful thus to find
Myself alone with God—to know and feel
That His all-seeing, His all-searching eye,
Surveys my inmost thoughts! How little, now,
Appears the mighty joys, the hopes and fears,
Pursuits and pleasures of a transient world!
A world within, till now, like other men,
I've toiled and grieved, with many anxious cares,
But where I too have loved and been beloved,
With more of happiness than oft is found
In this probationary state. With Him
Who gave me all and day by day, hath still,
With kind parental care, my life preserved;
To stand alone is awful, but not dreadful.