Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, And I fear, I fear, my Master dear! We shall have a deadly storm. BALLAD OF SIR PATRICK SPENCE. I. WELL! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made Which better far were mute. For lo! the New-moon winter-bright! (With swimming phantom light o'erspread But rimmed and circled by a silver thread) I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling The coming on of rain and squally blast. And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast! Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed, And sent my soul abroad, Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give, II. A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear, In word, or sigh, or tear— O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood, And its peculiar tint of yellow green : Those stars, that glide behind them or between, grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; I see, not feel how beautiful they are! III. My genial spirits fail, And what can these avail To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavour, Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west : I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within. IV. O Lady! we receive but what we give, And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element! V. O pure This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given, Life, and Life's Effluence, Cloud at once and Shower, Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud- And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colours a suffusion from that light. VI. There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness: For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine. Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth, Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, For not to think of what I needs must feel, From my own nature all the natural Man― VII. Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, I turn from you, and listen to the wind, Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream Of agony by torture lengthened out That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that ravest without, Bare crag, or mountain-tairn,* or blasted tree, Tairn is a small lake, generally if not always applied to the lakes up in the mountains, and which are the feeders of those in the vallies. This address to the Storm-wind will not appear ex |