The gate to fairy ground?He would not for the kingdom lost,
Have changed the kingdom found!
Divine interpreter thou art, O Song!
To thee all secrets of all hearts belong!
How had the lay, as in a mirror, glass'd
The sullen present and the joyless past,
Lock'd in the cloister of that lonely soul!—
Ere the song ceased, to Lucy's side he stole,
And, with the closing cadence, mournfully
Lifted his doubtful gaze:—so eye met eye.
If thou hast loved, re-ope the magic book;
Say, do its annals date not from a look?
In which two hearts, unguess'd perchance before,
Rush'd each to each, and were as two no more;
While all thy being—by some Power, above
Its will constrain'd—sigh'd, trembling, "This is Love."
A look! and lo! they knew themselves alone!
Calantha's place was void—the witness gone;
They had not mark'd her sad step glide away,
When in sweet silence sank, less sweet, the lay;
For unto both abruptly came the hour
When springs the rose-fence round the fairy bower;
When earth shut out, all life transferr'd to one,
Each other life seems cloud before the sun; It comes, it goes, we know if it depart But by the warmer light and quicken'd heart.
And what then chanced? O, leave not told, but guess'd;
Is Love a god?—a temple, then, the breast!
Not to the crowd in cold detail allow
Its delicate worship, its mysterious vow!
Around the first sweet homage in the shrine
Let the veil fall, and but the Pure divine!
Coy as the violet shrinking from the sun,
The blush of Virgin Youth first woo'd and won;
And scarce less holy from the vulgar ear
The tone that trembles but with noble fear:
Near to God's throne the solemn stars that move
The proud to meekness, and the pure to love!
Let days pass on; nor count how many swell
The episode of Life's hack chronicle!
Changed the abode, of late so stern and drear,
How doth the change speak—"Love hath enter'd here!"
How lightly sounds the footfall on the floor!
How jocund rings sweet laughter, hush'd no more!
Wide from two hearts made happy, wide and far,
Circles the light in which they breathe and are;
Liberal as noontide streams the ambient ray,
And fills each crevice in the world with day.
And changed is Lucy! where the downcast eye,
And the meek fear, when that dark man was by?
Lo! as young Una thrall'd the forest-king,
She leads the savage in her silken string;
Plays with the strength to her in service shown,
And mounts with infant whim the woman's throne!
Charm'd from his lonely moods and brooding mind,
And bound by one to union with his kind,
No more the wild man thirsted for the waste;
No more, 'mid joy, a joyless one, misplaced;
His very form assumed unwonted grace,
And bliss gave more than beauty to his face:
Let but delighted thought from all things cull
Sweet food and fair—hiving the Beautiful,
And lo! the form shall brighten with the soul!
The gods bloom only by joy's nectar bowl.
Nor deem it strange that Lucy fail'd to trace }
In that dark brow, the birthright of disgrace, }
And Europe's ban on Earth's primeval race. }
Were she less pure, less harmless, less the child,
Not on the savage had the soft one smiled.
Ev'n as the young Venetian loved the Moor,
Love gains the shrine when Pity opes the door;
Love like the Poet, whom it teaches, where
Round it the Homely dwells, invents the Fair;
And takes a halo from the air it gilds
To crown a Seraph for the Heaven it builds.
And both were children in this world of ours,
Maiden and savage! the same mountain flowers,
Not trimm'd in gardens, not exchanged their hues,
Fresh from the natural sun and hardy dews,
For the faint fragrance and the sickly dyes
Which, Art calls forth by walling out the skies:
So children both, each seem'd to have forgot How poor the maid's—how rich the lover's lot; Ne'er did the ignorant Indian pause in fear, Lest friends should pity, and lest foes should sneer. "What will the world say?"—question safe and sage; The parrot's world should be his gilded cage; But fly, frank wilding, with free wings unfurl'd, Where thy mate carols—there, behold thy world! And stranger still that no decorous pride Warn'd her, the beggar, from the rich man's side. Sneer, ye world-wise, and deem her ignorance art; She saw her wealth (and blush'd not) in her heart!— Saw through the glare of gold his lonely breast; He had but gold, and hers was all the rest.
Pleased in the bliss to her, alas! denied, }
