Читать книгу The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Various - Страница 4

Silent and swift as the flight of Time,

I’ve come from a far and shadowy clime;

With brow serene and a cloudless eye,

Like the star that shines in the midnight sky;

I check the sigh, and I dry the tear;

Mortals! why turn from my path in fear?

The fair flower smiled on my tireless way,

I paused to kiss it in summer’s day,

That when the storm in its strength swept by

It might not be torn from its covert nigh;

I bear its hues on my shining wing,

Its fragrance and light around me cling.

I passed the brow that had learned to wear

The crown of sorrow—the silver hair;

Weary and faint with the woes of life,

The tempest-breath and fever-strife,

The old man welcomed the gentle friend

Who bade the storm and the conflict end.

I looked where the fountains of gladness start,

On the love of the pure and trusting heart;

On the cheek like summer roses fair,

And the changeful light of the waving hair;

Earth had no cloud for her joyous eye,

But I saw the shade in the future’s sky.

I saw the depths of her spirit wrung,

The music fled, and the harp unstrung;

The love intense she had treasured there,

Like fragrance shed on the desert air:

I bore her to deathless love away;

Oh! why do ye mourn for the young to-day?

I paused by the couch where the poet lay,

Mid fancies bright on their sparing way;

The tide of song in his heaving breast

Flowed strong and free in its deep unrest;

His soul was thirsting for things divine—

I led him far to the sacred shrine.

The sage looked forth on the starry sky,

With aspiring thoughts and visions high,

He sought a gift and a lore sublime

To raise the veil from the shores of Time,

To pierce the clouds o’er the soul that lie;

I bade him soar with a cherub’s eye.

And now, neath my folded wing I bear

A spotless soul like the lily fair;

The babe on its mother’s bosom slept;

Ere I bore it far, I paused and wept;

’Twas an angel strayed from its fairer home:

Peace to the mourner!—I come! I come!