POETRY.
A RHYME OF THE WESTERN SEA.
COME, Love, into the radiant eve, That witching page of Renan leave, The western lights are o'er the land, The sun-lit waves chime by the strand, The fragrant rustling woods are there That fringe the estuary fair.
True, tones that ravished youth are dumb (Save when with love's remorse they come), Sharp memories in our souls may be, As fathoms down in sleeping sea Lie those drowned bells of Brittany : But still too much o'er doubt's pale lore And gospels of despair we pore, Too much in suffering hearts we bear The echoes of the Age's care, Too much we heed what wise ones say Who tire with their eternal " nay,"— The 6ynic-scientists who deem That Christ was crazy, Heaven a dream.
See where the Quantocks far away Gleam deep-green in the fading ray, Not thus once there great Wordsworth sang., Not thus the voice of Coleridge rang, Not thus they twain, by this charmed sea, Hymned Nature, Life, and Liberty; No chilling sneer, no hope undone, Dulled the gold harp of Tennyson ; E'en stately Arnold's sadder lyre Breathed strenuous notes of bright desire Well may we rest in what to these Brought solid calm and noble ease.
List that which now to you, to me, Speaks of peace, power, infinity, In upland silence, woodland sound, In channel-deeps that boom around, In lights that touch these waters low, Yet flush earth's pinnacles of snow ; In hope up-rushing fast and far To find hope's goal in some pure star; In love, the martyr, hoping on When the last hopes of life are gone,— And say if all this reverent fire That bids the most abased aspire,— If sanguine exaltation's prayer, Faith's wings that beat heaven-neighbouring air, The ranging thought, the regal will That crowd the brooding brain, and fill The pining breast with loftier breath,— Be burnished bubbles pricked at death.
JOSEPH TRUMAN'.
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