V. Large dowries doth the raptured eye To the young spirit present When first she is wed; And like a bride of old In triumph led, With music and sweet showers Of festal flowers, Unto the dwelling she must sway. Well hast thou done, great artist Memory, With royal frame-work of wrought gold; Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay, And foremost in thy various gallery Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls For the discovery And newness of thine art so pleased thee, Or boldest since, but lightly weighs With thee unto the love thou bearest The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like, Ever retiring thou dost gaze On the prime labour of thine early days : Whether the high field on the bushless Pike, Or even a sand-built ridge Of heaped hills that mound the sea, Overblown with murmurs harsh, Or even a lowly cottage whence we see Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh, Where from the frequent bridge, Like emblems of infinity, The trenched waters run from sky to sky; Or a garden bower'd close With plaited alleys of the trailing rose, Long alleys falling down to twilight grots, Or opening upon level plots Of crowned lilies, standing near Purple-spiked lavender : Whither in after life retired From brawling storms, From weary wind, With youthful fancy reinspired, We may hold converse with all forms Of the many-sided mind, And those whom passion hath not blinded, My friend, with you to live alone, Thou dewy dawn of memory. SONG. I. A SPIRIT haunts the year's last hours Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers: To himself he talks ; For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh In the walks ; Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers: Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. II. The air is damp, and hush'd, and close, My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves Of the fading edges of box beneath, And the year's last rose. Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. |