That truth informing mind and heart, Ungrieved, with charm and spell; And yet, lost Wishing-gate, to thee The voice of grateful memory Shall bid a kind farewell! * XLIII. THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK. A ROCK there is whose homely front Yet there the glowworms hang their lamps, And one coy Primrose to that Rock The vernal breeze invites. What hideous warfare hath been waged, What kingdoms overthrown, Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft A lasting link in Nature's chain The flowers, still faithful to the stems, *See Note at the end of this Volume. The stems are faithful to the root, Close clings to earth the living rock, So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads Here closed the meditative strain ; But air breathed soft that day, * The hoary mountain-heights were cheered, The sunny vale looked gay; And to the Primrose of the Rock I gave this after-lay. I sang, Let myriads of bright flowers, - Like thee, in field and grove Revive unenvied; mightier far Than tremblings that reprove Our vernal tendencies to hope, Is God's redeeming love ; That love which changed, for wan disease, For sorrow that had bent O'er hopeless dust, for withered age, Their moral element, And turned the thistles of a curse Sin-blighted though we are, we too, Our threescore years and ten. To humbleness of heart descends And makes each soul a separate heaven, XLIV. 1881. PRESENTIMENTS. PRESENTIMENTS! they judge not right All heaven-born Instincts shun the touch The tear whose source I could not guess, And now, unforced by time to part And venture on your praise. What though some busy foes to good, To taint the health which ye infuse ; How oft from you, derided Powers! And teach us to beware. The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift, That no philosophy can lift, Shall vanish, if ye please, Like morning mist: and, where it lay, The spirits at your bidding play In gayety and ease. Star-guided contemplations move Through space, though calm, not raised above Prognostics that ye rule; The naked Indian of the wild, And haply, too, the cradled Child, But who can fathom your intents, A subtle smell that Spring unbinds, The laughter of the Christmas hearth And daily, in the conscious breast, Your visitations are a test And exercise of love. When some great change gives boundless scope To an exulting Nation's hope, Oft, startled and made wise By your low-breathed interpretings, The simply-meek foretaste the springs Of bitter contraries. Ye daunt the proud array of war, As sail hath been unfurled; For dancers in the festive hall Fetched from the shadowy world. |