Ye watch-fires of the skies!
The stillness of your eyes
Looks too intensely thro' my troubled soul;
I feel this weight of rest
An earth-load on my breast—
Wake, rushing winds, awake! and dark clouds, roll!
I am your own, your child,
O ye, the fierce and wild
And kingly tempests! Will ye not arise?
Hear the bold Spirit's voice,
That knows not to rejoice,
But in the peal of your strong harmonies!
By sounding Ocean-waves,
And dim Calabrian caves,
And flashing torrents, I have been your mate;
And with the rocking pines
Of the olden Apennines,
In your dark path stood fearless and elate!
Your lightnings were as rods
That smote the deep abodes
Of thought within me, and the stream gush'd free;
Come, that my soul again
May swell to burst its chain—
Bring me the music of the sweeping sea!
Within me dwells a flame,
An eagle caged and tame,
Till call'd forth by the harping of the blast;
Then is its triumph's hour,
It springs to sudden power,
As mounts the billow o'er the quivering mast.
Then, then, the canvass o'er,
With hurried hand I pour
The lava-floods and gusts of my own soul;
Kindling to fiery life
Dreams, worlds, of pictured strife;—
Wake, rushing winds, awake! and dark clouds, roll!
Wake, rise!—the reed may bend,
The trembling leaf descend,
The forest branch give way before your might;
But I, your strong compeer,
Call, summon, wait you here—
Answer, my Spirit, answer! Storm and Night!
F.H.
Page:Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 25 1829.pdf/6
This page has been validated.
