Page:Felicia Hemans in The New Monthly Magazine Volume 20 1827.pdf/14



The power, the beauty, and the majesty, That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and watery depths: all these have vanish'd; They live no longer in the faith of reason! But still the heart doth need a language. 's Wallenstein.

have been holy, O Founts and floods! Ye of the ancient and solemn woods, Ye that are born of the valleys deep, With the water-flowers on your breast asleep, And ye that gush from the sounding caves, Hallow'd have been your waves.

Hallow'd by man in his dreams of old, Unto Beings not of this mortal mould; Viewless and deathless and wondrous powers, Whose voice he heard in his lonely hours, Or sought with its fancied sound to still The heart Earth could not fill.

Therefore the flowers of bright summers gone, O'er your sweet waters, ye Streams! were thrown; Thousands of gifts to the sunny sea Have ye swept along in your wanderings free, And thrill'd to the murmur of many a vow, Where all is silent now.

Nor seems it strange that the heart hath been Thus link'd in love to your margins green; That still, though ruin'd, your early shrines In beauty gleam through the southern vines, And the ivied chapels of colder skies On your wild banks arise.

For the loveliest scenes of the glowing earth Are those, bright Streams! where your springs have birth; Whether their cavern'd murmur fills With a tone of plaint the hollow hills, Or the glad sweet laugh of their healthful flow Is heard midst the hamlets low.

Or whether ye gladden the desert-sands With a joyous music to pilgrim bands, And a flash from under some ancient rock, Where a shepherd-king might have watch'd his flock, Where a few lone palm-trees lift their heads, And a green acacia spreads.

Or whether, in bright old lands renown'd, The laurels thrill to your first-born sound, And the shadow flung from the Grecian pine Sweeps with the breeze o'er your gleaming line, And the tall reeds whisper to your waves Beside heroic graves.

Voices and Lights of the lonely place! By the freshest fern your course we trace; By the brightest cups on the emerald moss Whose fairy goblets the turf emboss. By the rainbow glancing of insect wings, In a thousand mazy rings.