Page:Felicia Hemans in The New Monthly Magazine Volume 7 1823.pdf/12



, I come! ye have call'd me long, I come o'er the mountains with light and song! Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth, By the winds which tell of the violet's birth, By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass, By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chesnut-flowers By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers, And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes, Are veil'd with wreaths on Italian plains. —But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom, To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have pass'd o'er the hills of the stormy North, And the larch has hung all his tassels forth, The fisher is out on the sunny sea, And the rein-deer bounds through the pasture free, And the pine has a fringe of softer green, And the moss looks bright where my step has been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh, And call'd out each voice of the deep blue sky, From the night-bird's lay through the starry time, In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime, To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes, When the dark fir-bough into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain; They are sweeping on to the silvery main,