The Beings of the Mind

“The beings of the mind are not of clay;Essentially immortal, they createAnd multiply in us a brighter ray,And more beloved existence; that which FateProhibits to dull life, in this our stateOf mortal bondage.”Byron.

Come to me with your triumphs and your woes,Ye forms, to life by glorious poets brought!I sit alone with flowers, and vernal boughs,In the deep shadow of a voiceless thought;Midst the glad music of the spring alone,And sorrowful for visions that are gone!

Come to me! make your thrilling whispers heard,Ye, by those masters of the soul endow’dWith life, and love, and many a burning word,That bursts from grief like lightning from a cloud,And smites the heart, till all its chords reply,As leaves make answer when the wind sweeps by.

Come to me! visit my dim haunt!--the soundOf hidden springs is in the grass beneath;The stock-dove’s note above; and all around,The poesy that with the violet’s breathFloats through the air, in rich and sudden streams,Mingling, like music, with the soul’s deep dreams.

Friends, friends!--for such to my lone heart ye are--Unchanging ones! from whose immortal eyesThe glory melts not as a waning star,And the sweet kindness never, never dies;Bright children of the bard! o’er this green dellPass once again, and light it with your spell!

Imogen! fair Fidele! meekly blending,In patient grief, “a smiling with a sigh;”And thou, Cordelia! faithful daughter, tendingThat sire, an outcast to the bitter sky;Thou of the soft low voice!--thou art not gone!Still breathes for me its faint and flute-like tone.

And come to me!--sing me thy willow-strain,Sweet Desdemona! with the sad surpriseIn thy beseeching glance, where still, though vain,Undimm’d, unquenchable affection lies;Come, bowing thy young head to wrong and scorn,As a frail hyacinth by showers o’erborne.

And thou, too, fair Ophelia! flowers are here,That well might win thy footstep to the spot--Pale cowslips, meet for maiden’s early bier,And pansies for sad thoughts,--but needed not!Come with thy wreaths, and all the love and lightIn that wild eye still tremulously bright.

And Juliet, vision of the south! enshriningAll gifts that unto its rich heaven belong;The glow, the sweetness, in its rose combining,The soul its nightingales pour forth in song,Thou, making death deep joy!--but could’st thou die?No!--thy young love hath immortality!

From earth’s bright faces fades the light of morn,From earth’s glad voices drops the joyous tone;But ye, the children of the soul, were bornDeathless, and for undying love alone;And, O ye beautiful! ’tis well, how well,In the soul’s world, with you, where change is not, to dwell!

“Nobly he yokesA smiling with a sigh.”--Cymbeline.

“Here’s pansies for you--that’s for thoughts.” Hamlet.