Blue sky above, blue sea below,
Far off, the old Nile’s mouth,
’Twas a blue world, wherein did blow
A soft wind from the south.
In great and solemn heaves the mass
Of pulsing ocean beat,
Unwrinkled as the sea of glass
Beneath the holy feet.
With forward leaning of desire
The ship sped calmly on,
A pilgrim strong that would not tire
Or hasten to be gone.
List!—on the wave!—what can they be,
Those sounds that hither glide?
No lovers whisper tremulously
Under the ship’s round side!
No sail across the dark blue sphere
Holds white obedient way;
No far-fled, sharp-winged boat is near,
No following fish at play!
’Tis not the rippling of the wave,
Nor sighing of the cords;
No winds or waters ever gave
A murmur so like words;
Nor wings of birds that northward strain,
Nor talk of hidden crew:
The traveller questioned, but in vain—
He found no answer true.
A hundred level miles away,
On Egypt’s troubled shore,
Two nations fought, that sunny day,
With bellowing cannons’ roar.
The fluttering whisper, low and near,
Was that far battle’s blare;
A lipping, rippling motion here,
The blasting thunder there.
Can this dull sighing in my breast
So faint and undefined,
Be the worn edge of far unrest
Borne on the spirit’s wind?
The uproar of high battle fought
Betwixt the bond and free,
The thunderous roll of armed thought
Dwarfed to an ache in me?
My Room
To G. E. M.
’Tis a little room, my friend—
Baby walks from end to end;
All the things look sadly real
This hot noontide unideal;
Vaporous heat from cope to basement
All you see outside the casement,
Save one house all mud-becrusted,
And a street all drought-bedusted!
There behold its happiest vision,
Trickling water-cart’s derision!
Shut we out the staring space,
Draw the curtains in its face!
Close the eyelids of the room,
Fill it with a scarlet gloom:
Lo, the walls with warm flush dyed!
Lo, the ceiling glorified,
As when, lost in tenderest pinks,
White rose on the red rose thinks!
But beneath, a hue right rosy,
Red as a geranium-posy,
Stains the air with power estranging,
Known with unknown clouding, changing.
See in ruddy atmosphere
Commonplaceness disappear!
Look around on either hand—
Are we not in fairyland?
On that couch, inwrapt in mist
Of vaporized amethyst,
Lie, as in a rose’s heart:
Secret things I would impart;
Any time you would believe them—
Easier, though, you will receive them
Bathed in glowing mystery
Of the red light shadowy;
For this ruby-hearted hue,
Sanguine core of all the true,
Which for love the heart would plunder
Is the very hue of wonder;
This dissolving dreamy red
Is the self-same radiance shed
From the heart of poet young,
Glowing poppy sunlight-stung:
If in light you make a schism
’Tis the deepest in the prism.
This poor-seeming room, in fact
Is of marvels all compact,
So disguised by common daylight
By its disenchanting gray light,
Only eyes that see by shining,
Inside pierce to its live lining.
Loftiest observatory
Ne’er unveiled such hidden glory;
Never sage’s furnace-kitchen
Magic wonders was so rich in;
Never book of wizard old
Clasped such in its iron hold.
See that case against the wall,
Darkly-dull-purpureal!—
A piano to the prosy,
But to us in twilight rosy—
What?—A cave where Nereids lie,
Naiads, Dryads, Oreads sigh,
Dreaming of the time when they
Danced in forest and in bay.
In that chest before your eyes
Nature self-enchanted lies;—
Lofty days of summer splendour;
Low dim eves of opal tender;
Airy hunts of cloud and wind;
Brooding storm—below, behind;
Awful hills and midnight woods;
Sunny rains in solitudes;
Babbling streams in forests hoar;
Seven-hued icebergs; oceans frore.—
Yes; did I not say “enchanted,”
That is, hid away till wanted?
Do you hear a low-voiced singing?
’Tis the sorceress’s, flinging
Spells around her baby’s riot,
Binding her in moveless quiet:—
She at will can disenchant them,
And to prayer believing grant them.
You believe me: soon will night
Free her hands for fair delight;
Then invoke her—she will come.
Fold your arms, be blind and dumb.
She will bring a book of spells
Writ like crabbed oracles;
Like Sabrina’s will her hands
Thaw the power of charmed bands.
First will ransomed music rush
Round thee in a glorious gush;
Next, upon its waves will sally,
Like a stream-god down a valley,
Nature’s self, the formless former,
Nature’s self, the peaceful stormer;
She will enter, captive take thee,
And both one and many make thee,
One by softest power to still thee,
Many by the thoughts that fill thee.—
Let me guess three guesses where
She her prisoner will bear!
On a mountain-top you stand
Gazing o’er a sunny land;
Shining streams, like silver veins,
Rise in dells and meet in plains;
Up yon brook a hollow lies
Dumb as love that fears surprise;
Moorland tracts of broken ground
O’er it rise and close it round:
He who climbs from bosky dale
Hears the foggy breezes wail.
Yes, thou know’st the nest of love,
Know’st the waste around, above!
In thy soul or in thy past,
Straight it melts into the vast,
Quickly vanishes away
In a gloom of darkening gray.
Sinks the sadness into rest,
Ripple like on water’s breast:
Mother’s bosom rests the daughter—
Grief the ripple, love the water;
And thy brain like wind-harp lies
Breathed upon from distant skies,
Till, soft-gathering, visions new
Grow like vapours in the blue:
White forms, flushing hyacinthine,
Move in motions labyrinthine;
With an airy wishful gait
On the counter-motion wait;
Sweet restraint and action free
Show the law of liberty;
Master of the revel still
The obedient, perfect will;
Hating smallest thing awry,
Breathing, breeding harmony;
While the god-like graceful feet,
For such mazy marvelling meet,
Press from air a shining sound,
Rippling after, lingering round:
Hair afloat and arms aloft
Fill the chord of movement soft.
Gone the measure polyhedral!
Towers aloft a fair cathedral!
Every arch—like praying arms
Upward flung in love’s alarms,
Knit by clasped hands o’erhead—
Heaves to heaven a weight of dread;
In thee, like an angel-crowd,
Grows the music,
