with gods
     Can boast a majesty like thine,
     O Mountain! hid from peak to base,
     And image of the awful power
     With which the secret of all things,
     That stoops from heaven to garment earth,
     Can speak to any human soul,
     When once the earthly limits lose
     Their pointed heights and sharpened lines,
     And measureless immensity
     Is palpable to sense and sight.

     Song

     No, no, the falling blossom is no sign
     Of loveliness destroy’d and sorrow mute;
     The blossom sheds its loveliness divine; —
     Its mission is to prophecy the fruit.

     Nor is the day of love for ever dead,
     When young enchantment and romance are gone;
     The veil is drawn, but all the future dread
     Is lightened by the finger of the dawn.

     Love moves with life along a darker way,
     They cast a shadow and they call it death: 
     But rich is the fulfilment of their day;
     The purer passion and the firmer faith.

     The two blackbirds

     A blackbird in a wicker cage,
     That hung and swung ’mid fruits and flowers,
     Had learnt the song-charm, to assuage
     The drearness of its wingless hours.

     And ever when the song was heard,
     From trees that shade the grassy plot
     Warbled another glossy bird,
     Whose mate not long ago was shot.

     Strange anguish in that creature’s breast,
     Unwept like human grief, unsaid,
     Has quickened in its lonely nest
     A living impulse from the dead.

     Not to console its own wild smart, —
     But with a kindling instinct strong,
     The novel feeling of its heart
     Beats for the captive bird of song.

     And when those mellow notes are still,
     It hops from off its choral perch,
     O’er path and sward, with busy bill,
     All grateful gifts to peck and search.

     Store of ouzel dainties choice
     To those white swinging bars it brings;
     And with a low consoling voice
     It talks between its fluttering wings.

     Deeply in their bitter grief
     Those sufferers reciprocate,
     The one sings for its woodland life,
     The other for its murdered mate.

     But deeper doth the secret prove,
     Uniting those sad creatures so;
     Humanity’s great link of love,
     The common sympathy of woe.

     Well divined from day to day
     Is the swift speech between them twain;
     For when the bird is scared away,
     The captive bursts to song again.

     Yet daily with its flattering voice,
     Talking amid its fluttering wings,
     Store of ouzel dainties choice
     With busy bill the poor bird brings.

     And shall I say, till weak with age
     Down from its drowsy branch it drops,
     It will not leave that captive cage,
     Nor cease those busy searching hops?