  (In Scotland) Where have I been this perfect summer day, —Or fortnight is it, since I rose from bed, Devour’d that kippered fish, the oatmeal bread, And mounted to this box? O bowl away Swift stagers through the dusk, I will not say “Enough,” nor care where I have been or be, Nor know one name of hill, or lake, or lea, Or moor, or glen! Were not the clouds at play Nameless among the hills, and fair as dreams? On such a day we must love things not words, And memory take or leave them as they are. On such a day! What unimagined streams Are in the world, how many haunts of birds, What fields and flowers,—and what an evening Star! II. IN A MOUNTAIN PASS(In Scotland) To what wild blasts of tyrannous harmony Uprose these rocky walls, mass threatening mass, Dusk, shapeless shapes, around a desolate pass? What deep heart of the ancient hills set free The passion, the desire, the destiny Light vanward squadrons of the joyous storm, They gather hither from what untrack’d sea? Primeval kindred! here the mind regains Its vantage ground against the world; here thought Wings up the silent waste of air on broad Undaunted pinion; man’s imperial pains Are ours, and visiting fears, and joy unsought, Native resolve, and partnership with God. III. THE CASTLE(In Scotland) The tenderest ripple touched and touched the shore; The tenderest light was in the western sky;— Its one soft phrase, closing reluctantly, The sea articulated o’er and o’er To comfort all tired things; and one might pore, Till mere oblivion took the heart and eye, On that slow-fading, amber radiancy Past the long levels of the ocean-floor. A turn,—the castle fronted me, four-square, Holding its seaward crag, abrupt, intense Against the west, an apparition bold Of naked human will; I stood aware, With sea and sky, of powers unowned of sense, Presences awful, vast, and uncontrolled. IV. ??s??t??? fa?tas?a(In Ireland) The sound is in my ears of mountain streams! I cannot close my lids but some grey rent Of wildered rock, some water’s clear descent In shattering crystal, pine-trees soft as dreams Waving perpetually, the sudden gleams Of remote sea, a dear surprise of flowers, Some grace or wonder of to-day’s long hours Straightway possesses the moved sense, which teems With fantasy unbid. O fair, large day! The unpractised sense brings heavings from a sea Of life too broad, and yet the billows range, The elusive footing glides. Come, Sleep, allay The trouble with thy heaviest balms, and change These pulsing visions to still Memory. V. ON THE SEA-CLIFF(In Ireland) Ruins of a church with its miraculous well, O’er which the Christ, a squat-limbed dwarf of stone, Great-eyed, and huddled on his cross, has known The sea-mists and the sunshine, stars that fell And stars that rose, fierce winter’s chronicle, Fronting the dawn the elf has ruled alone, And saved this region fair from pagan hell. Turn! June’s great joy abroad; each bird, flower, stream Loves life, loves love; wide ocean amorously Spreads to the sun’s embrace; the dulse-weeds sway, The glad gulls are afloat. Grey Christ to-day Our ban on thee! Rise, let the white breasts gleam, Unvanquished Venus of the northern sea! VI. ASCETIC NATURE(In Ireland) Passion and song, and the adornÈd hours Of floral loveliness, hopes grown most sweet, And generous patience in the ripening heat, A mother’s bosom, a bride’s face of flowers —Knows Nature aught so fair? Witness ye Powers Which rule the virgin heart of this retreat To rarer issues, ye who render meet Earth, purged and pure, for gracious heavenly dowers! The luminous pale lake, the pearl-grey sky, The wave that gravely murmurs meek desires, —These and their beauty speak of earthly fires Long quenched, clear aims, deliberate sanctity,— O’er the white forehead lo! the aureole. VII. RELICS(In Switzerland) What relic of the dear, dead yesterday Shall my heart keep? The visionary light Of dawn? Alas! it is a thing too bright, God does not give such memories away. Nor choose I one fair flower of those that sway To the chill breathing of the waterfall In rocky angles black with scattering spray, Fair though no sunbeam lays its coronal Of light on their pale brows; nor glacier-gleam I choose, nor eve’s red glamour; ’twas at noon Resting I found this speedwell, while a stream, That knew the immemorial inland croon, Sang in my ears, and lulled me to a dream Of English meadows, and one perfect June. VIII. ON THE PIER OF BOULOGNE(A Reminiscence of 1870) A venal singer to a thrumming note Chanted the civic war-song, that red flower Of melody seized in a sudden hour A live light in the storm; and now by rote To a cold crowd, while vague and sad the tide Loomed after sunset and the grey gulls cried, The verses quavered from a hireling throat. Wherefore should English eyes their right forbear, Or droop for smitten France? let the tossed sou, Before they turn, be quittance for the stare. O Lady, who, clear-voiced, with impulse true To lift that cry “To Arms!” alone would dare, My heart received a golden alms from you! IX. DOVER(In a Field) A joy has met me on this English ground I looked not for. O gladness, fields still green! Listen,—the going of a murmurous sound Along the corn; there is not to be seen In all the land a single pilÈd sheaf Or line of grain new-fallen, and not a tree Has felt as yet within its lightest leaf The year’s despair; nay, Summer saves for me Her bright, late flowers. O my Summer-time Named low as lost, I turn, and find you here— Where else but in our blessed English clime That lingers o’er the sweet days of the year, Days of long dreaming under spacious skies Ere melancholy winds of Autumn rise. |
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