To Jane: The Recollection

I

Now the last day of many days,

   All beautiful and bright as thou,

      The loveliest and the last, is dead,

Rise, Memory, and write its praise!

   Up,—to thy wonted work! come, trace

      The epitaph of glory fled,—

For now the Earth has changed its face,

A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

II

We wandered to the Pine Forest

   That skirts the Ocean's foam,

The lightest wind was in its nest,

   The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,

   The clouds were gone to play,

And on the bosom of the deep

   The smile of Heaven lay;

It seemed as if the hour were one

   Sent from beyond the skies,

Which scattered from above the sun

   A light of Paradise.

III

We paused amid the pines that stood

   The giants of the waste,

Tortured by storms to shapes as rude

   As serpents interlaced;

And soothed by every azure breath,

   That under Heaven is blown,

To harmonies and hues beneath,

   As tender as its own,

Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,

   Like green waves on the sea,

As still as in the silent deep

   The ocean woods may be.

IV

How calm it was!—the silence there

   By such a chain was bound

That even the busy woodpecker

   Made stiller by her sound

The inviolable quietness;

   The breath of peace we drew

With its soft motion made not less

   The calm that round us grew.

There seemed from the remotest seat

   Of the white mountain waste,

To the soft flower beneath our feet,

   A magic circle traced,—

A spirit interfused around,

   A thrilling, silent life,—

To momentary peace it bound

   Our mortal nature's strife;

And still I felt the centre of

   The magic circle there

Was one fair form that filled with love

   The lifeless atmosphere.

V

We paused beside the pools that lie

   Under the forest bough,—

Each seemed as 'twere a little sky

   Gulfed in a world below;

A firmament of purple light

   Which in the dark earth lay,

More boundless than the depth of night,

   And purer than the day—

In which the lovely forests grew,

   As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue

   Than any spreading there.

There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,

   And through the dark green wood

The white sun twinkling like the dawn

   Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views which in our world above

   Can never well be seen,

Were imaged by the water's love

   Of that fair forest green.

And all was interfused beneath

   With an Elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,

   A softer day below.

Like one beloved the scene had lent

   To the dark water's breast,

Its every leaf and lineament

   With more than truth expressed;

Until an envious wind crept by,

   Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from the mind's too faithful eye

   Blots one dear image out.

Though thou art ever fair and kind,

   The forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind,

   Than calm in waters, seen.