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Title: To Jenny Lind On Her Re-Appearance In England
Author: Walter R. Cassels [
More Titles by Cassels]
MAY 4th. 1848.
Summer hath come, led on by sunny May
The blue-eyed, round whose brow the first pure ray
That trembles from the opening gates of dawn
Still seems to circle, and the mossy lawn,
As they glide gently onward, ever breathes
A beauty and a fragrance, which enwreathes
Within the being until every thought
With a strange mystery of joy is fraught.
And where the hazel forms a leafy screen
Of verdant matting, the cuckoo, unseen,
Chaunts forth her woodnotes through the stilly air,
Whose silent motions far the accents bear.
And thou hast come, sweet Nightingale! once more
O'er our entranced spirits to outpour
Thy liquid warblings! 'Mid the flow'rets' scent
And summer's gladness rises interblent
Thy loving welcome! Not the bird that sighs
Her thrilling love-tale through the moonlit skies
Of Italy, as erst to Juliet's ear
From the pomegranate tree 'twas wafted near,
Seizes the soul with ravishment more sweet
Than thy soft tones, stealing unto the seat
Of passion, waking echoes in the breast
Of love, and purity, and quiet rest,
Murmuring through the windings of the soul,
Till interpenetrated is the whole
With holy harmonies, and blissful sense
Of joyance, and straightway is refted thence
All baser feeling, and all earthly leaven,
By the dear magic of that voice from heaven.
Fair Priestess of the Beautiful! that bringest
Missions of sweetness from above, and flingest
In a rich flood of song--now faint, yet clear
As Helicon's own murmurs to the ear,
Now swelling till around our being floats
In thrilling cadences thy bell-like notes,--
The poetry of poetry, the deep
Mysterious essences whose wavings steep
Life in the bliss of angels, and the real
In the ethereal hues of the ideal;
A welcome to thee! heartfelt as the lay
Hymn'd by the panting lark to the young day,
Joyous and loving as the sunny beam
That greets the early primrose, when the dream
Of flowery revels through the noontide hours
First steals upon it. Such a joy is ours
Now, as with falt'ring tones our spirits hail
Thy glad return, O sweetest Nightingale!
[The end]
Walter R. Cassels's poem: To Jenny Lind On Her Re-Appearance In England
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