An Ode to Natural Beauty

There is a power whose inspiration fillsNature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought,Like airy dew ere any drop distils,Like perfume in the laden flower, like aughtUnseen which interfused throughout the wholeBecomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul.Now when, the drift of old desire renewing,Warm tides flow northward over valley and field,When half-forgotten sound and scent are wooingFrom their deep-chambered recesses long sealedSuch memories as breathe once moreOf childhood and the happy hues it wore,Now, with a fervor that has never beenIn years gone by, it stirs me to respond, --Not as a force whose fountains are withinThe faculties of the percipient mind,Subject with them to darkness and decay,But something absolute, something beyond,Oft met like tender orbs that seem to peerFrom pale horizons, luminous behindSome fringe of tinted cloud at close of day;And in this flood of the reviving year,When to the loiterer by sylvan streams,Deep in those cares that make Youth loveliest,Nature in every common aspect seemsTo comment on the burden in his breast --The joys he covets and the dreams he dreams --One then with all beneath the radiant skiesThat laughs with him or sighs,It courses through the lilac-scented air,A blessing on the fields, a wonder everywhere.

Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses,Flung like the rose of dawn across the sea,Alone can flush the exalted consciousnessWith shafts of sensible divinity --Light of the World, essential loveliness:Him whom the Muse hath made thy votaryNot from her paths and gentle preceptureShall vulgar ends engage, nor break the spellThat taught him first to feel thy secret charmsAnd o'er the earth, obedient to their lure,Their sweet surprise and endless miracle,To follow ever with insatiate arms.On summer afternoons,When from the blue horizon to the shore,Casting faint silver pathways like the moon'sAcross the Ocean's glassy, mottled floor,Far clouds uprear their gleaming battlementsDrawn to the crest of some bleak eminence,When autumn twilight fades on the sere hillAnd autumn winds are still;To watch the East for some emerging sign,Wintry Capella or the PleiadesOr that great huntsman with the golden gear;Ravished in hours like theseBefore thy universal shrineTo feel the invoked presence hovering near,He stands enthusiastic. Star-lit hoursSpent on the roads of wandering solitudeHave set their sober impress on his brow,And he, with harmonies of wind and woodAnd torrent and the tread of mountain showers,Has mingled many a dedicative vowThat holds him, till thy last delight be known,Bound in thy service and in thine alone.

I, too, among the visionary throngWho choose to follow where thy pathway leads,Have sold my patrimony for a song,And donned the simple, lowly pilgrim's weeds.From that first image of beloved walls,Deep-bowered in umbrage of ancestral trees,Where earliest thy sweet enchantment falls,Tingeing a child's fantastic reveriesWith radiance so fair it seems to beOf heavens just lost the lingering evidenceFrom that first dawn of roseate infancy,So long beneath thy tender influenceMy breast has thrilled. As oft for one brief secondThe veil through which those infinite offers beckonedHas seemed to tremble, letting throughSome swift intolerable viewOf vistas past the sense of mortal seeing,So oft, as one whose stricken eyes might seeIn ferny dells the rustic deity,I stood, like him, possessed, and all my being,Flooded an instant with unwonted light,Quivered with cosmic passion; whether thenOn woody pass or glistening mountain-heightI walked in fellowship with winds and clouds,Whether in cities and the throngs of men,A curious saunterer through friendly crowds,Enamored of the glance in passing eyes,Unuttered salutations, mute replies, --In every character where light of thineHas shed on earthly things the hue of things divineI sought eternal Loveliness, and seeking,If ever transport crossed my brow bespeakingSuch fire as a prophetic heart might feelWhere simple worship blends in fervent zeal,It was the faith that only love of theeNeeded in human hearts for Earth to seeSurpassed the vision poets have held dearOf joy diffused in most communion here;That whomsoe'er thy visitations warmed,Lover of thee in all thy rays informed,Needed no difficulter disciplineTo seek his right to happiness withinThan, sensible of Nature's loveliness,To yield him to the generous impulsesBy such a sentiment evoked. The thought,Bright Spirit, whose illuminings I sought,That thou unto thy worshipper might beAn all-sufficient law, abode with me,Importing something more than unsubstantial dreamsTo vigils by lone shores and walks by murmuring streams.

Youth's flowers like childhood's fade and are forgot.Fame twines a tardy crown of yellowing leaves.How swift were disillusion, were it notThat thou art steadfast where all else deceives!Solace and Inspiration, Power divineThat by some mystic sympathy of thine,When least it waits and most hath need of thee,Can startle the dull spirit suddenlyWith grandeur welled from unsuspected springs, --Long as the light of fulgent evenings,When from warm showers the pearly shades disbandAnd sunset opens o'er the humid land,Shows thy veiled immanence in orient skies, --Long as pale mist and opalescent dyesHung on far isle or vanishing mountain-crest,Fields of remote enchantment can suggestSo sweet to wander in it matters nought,They hold no place but in impassioned thought,Long as one draught from a clear sky may beA scented luxury;Be thou my worship, thou my sole desire,Thy paths my pilgrimage, my sense a lyreAeolian for thine every breath to stir;Oft when her full-blown periods recur,To see the birth of day's transparent moonFar from cramped walls may fading afternoonFind me expectant on some rising lawn;Often depressed in dewy grass at dawn,Me, from sweet slumber underneath green boughs,Ere the stars flee may forest matins rouse,Afoot when the great sun in amber floodsPours horizontal through the steaming woodsAnd windless fumes from early chimneys startAnd many a cock-crow cheers the traveller's heartEager for aught the coming day affordIn hills untopped and valleys unexplored.Give me the white road into the world's ends,Lover of roadside hazard, roadside friends,Loiterer oft by upland farms to gazeOn ample prospects, lost in glimmering hazeAt noon, or where down odorous dales twilit,Filled with low thundering of the mountain stream,Over the plain where blue seas border itThe torrid coast-towns gleam.

I have fared too far to turn back now; my breastBurns with the lust for splendors unrevealed,Stars of midsummer, clouds out of the west,Pallid horizons, winds that valley and fieldLaden with joy, be ye my refuge still!What though distress and poverty assail!Though other voices chide, yours never will.The grace of a blue sky can never fail.Powers that my childhood with a spell so sweet,My youth with visions of such glory nursed,Ye have beheld, nor ever seen my feetOn any venture set, but 'twas the thirstFor Beauty willed them, yea, whatever beThe faults I wanted wings to rise above;I am cheered yet to think how steadfastlyI have been loyal to the love of Love!