Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/To a Lady, Gazing on a Beautiful Landscape

To a Lady,

Gazing on a Beautiful Landscape.

Lady, the earnest smiles of living lightThat kindle on thy lips, and in thine eyes,At the fair landscape which surrounds thee,—sires,Groves, glades, and fountains,—all that fairy sightOf beauty and of bliss,—will take their flight,And vanish with the scene from whence they rise.Not so their secret influence. When youth flies,Ceasing to spread its mantle of delightO'er this mysterious world, that sight shall seemLike the remembered face of a dead friend,To smile on thee from heaven. It shall blendWith thy best thoughts, and, like a happy dream,Repeat its silent music, till the streamOf thy pure life hath reached its peaceful end.

Gaze on, then, gaze thy fill! These silent showsOf all-sufficing Nature, speak with voiceMore eloquent than books, bidding rejoice,With purest joy, the heart that wisely knowsTo trust them. As life's rapid river flows,In sunshine or in shade, be but its courseThrough scenes where Art has not put rude divorceBetween thy heart and Nature's, sweet reposeShall ever be within thee and about,—Smiling away all ills. The rabble routOf the world's vulgar pains, and vapid pleasures,Shall never dare approach thee; while new treasuresOf thought and feeling, to thy pure soul given,Shall change this fair earth to another heaven.