Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MENTAL HARMONY, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL Poet's Biography First Line: We have had pleasant hours, but they are gone Last Line: One volume from its treasures, into day. Subject(s): Past; Togetherness | ||||||||
WE have had pleasant hours, but they are gone; And we shall never meet again, to spend Glad moments in the kindly intercourse Of blended thought and feeling; they are gone, Those festivals of fancy and of hope, Those may-days of the spirit, when the voice Of nature had a sweetness wholly new And most delightful to me, and the form And fashion of all creatures took a tint From the fair light within me; when we gave Days to such higher thoughts, as lend to life A swifter pinion, that the flow of hours Be as the falling of a quiet stream, Whose current has no sound or sign to tell It hath an onward motion, and the sun Go to his setting, and we know it not, Time steals on such a silent wing away. There is a holy feeling in the trance Of thought; it is a calm and quiet sense Of purer being; we have known such hours, And they shall be remembered. Who would lose The memory of our blessings, and the light, The recollection of departed days Of a serener pleasure, and a deep And happy friendship, tranquillized and raised To more exalted union, such as bound Two intellects in elder time, who loved To meet in fond endearment, and to lend In mutual talk their fullest thoughts -- the light, Such recollection pours into the heart, Till we are circled with a hallowed sphere Of bright emotions, who would lose, one day, Remembrances so gracious, for the wild Mad tempest of ambition, or the gay And glittering dance of pleasure, or the pomp The rich man piles around him. I could walk, At the pale hour of twilight, on the path The willow-tree overshadows, by the brink Of a small run of water, and be wrapped In a deep loneliness, and yet find more That has in it an ecstasy, in thoughts Cast back upon the quick hours we have known In our long woodland wanderings, and the sights That we have mutely gazed on, spread o'er hill, And plain, and sheeted ocean, than in all Hope ever promised to my ardent youth In the bright path of honour, or the way That winds through roses, sweetly leading on Its eager victim to the Bower of Love. Nature hath lent us with a bounteous hand, Wherewith to make us happy, and if we Take not the kindly offer, 't is the fault Of our perverted hearts, which cannot find Beauty is what is open unto all. I have resolved within me, that the still And pure possession of my own free thoughts Surpasses earthly treasures, and is life Heightened to a superior essence; hence The wild woods are my chosen haunt, and there I read a fairer tome, a richer page, Than pen of man has traced with characters Of reason or of fancy. I become, In the society of untaught things, Drawn from my duller and my grosser sense, And lifted in my longings, and I learn How little there is great in the pursuit Of riches or of honour, how the mind, Let in the channel of heroic thought To flow in freedom onward, and pervade The purer regions of philosophy, And tasteful and impassioned poesy -- How mind alone is the true worth of man, And that which raises him above the sense Of meaner creatures, and permits a hope Of unembodied being, in a high And holy dwelling, lifted far above The reach of tempest, with essential light Encircled, and with fairest wings of love Overshadowed, the reward and resting place Of such as hold their journey patiently, And pause and faint not on their weary way. The recollection of one upward hour Hath more in it to tranquillize and cheer The darkness of despondency, than years Of gaiety and pleasure. Then, alone We wander not in solitude, but find Friends in all things around us, for the heart Sinks not, and in its sinking bends the mind From its true lofty region, where it lives Rejoicing in bright energy; and so All things are open to the searching eye Of an unclouded intellect, and bring Their several treasures to it, and unfold Their fabric to its scrutiny. All life, And all inferior orders, in the waste Of being spread before us, are to him, Who lives in meditation, and the search Of wisdom and of beauty, open books, Wherein he reads the Godhead, and the ways He works through his creation, and the links That fasten us to all things, with a sense Of fellowship and feeling, so that we Look not upon a cloud, or falling leaf, Or flower new blown, or human face divine, But we have caught new life, and wider thrown The door of reason open, and have stored In memory's secret chamber, for dark years Of age and weariness, the food of thought, And thus extended mind, and made it young, When the thin hair turns gray, and feeling dies. But this communion with inferior things Still leaves a void behind it, and we seek The kindred thoughts of other men, and bend Attentive o'er their written souls, wherein We see their better moments, when they cast The slough of earth aside, and tried a flight On an ascending pinion, and renewed Their purer being, as the insect bursts The walls that bound it in its second state -- It might be a gilded prison-house; But yet it was a prison: When its wing Unfolded, and it knew the bliss of air, And free and rapid motion, it had life, And floated as a spirit floats away, And wandered gaily on from flower to flower, And was so light and so ethereal, Man Selected it the symbol of the soul, And its free flight through ether on a wing, That, moving through eternity, will ever Be active and unwearied, and as bright In its unruffled plumage, after years Have gathered into ages, and have gone Beyond the eldest memory of time. But yet the pen of Genius cannot cheer And heighten, like the spirit-speaking eye; And so we seek the living, and we find That there are spirits that commune with ours, As if they were our kindred, and were formed In the same mould; and when we meet with them, We cling with child-like fondness, as if life Had not a charm without them, and the sky With its ethereal beauty, and the earth Flowering or fading, and the fairest flow Of pure and tranquil waters, and the words Of the departed with their might of thought, Could be to us no solace, and have power To lend no high conception, nor subdue The spirit unto meekness; so we lean On an accordant bosom, and we love The beating of a heart, that beats as ours, The speaking of an eye, that tells us thoughts Which harmonize with what we feel, and all The light of beauty, passion, tenderness, And purity, and love of great, and fair, And fitly fashioned things, until we deem A sole existence is a wilderness, That yieldeth only terror, and a curse. We two have met a little while, and known How time may glide unnoticed, in the flow Of thoughts that have a sympathy; we part, But this shall be a token, thou hast been A friend to him who traced these hurried lines, And gave them as a tribute to a friend, And a remembrance of the few kind hours Which lightened on the darkness of my path, And gave a pleasantness to some bright days, Bright in the light thou gavest them, and warmed Feelings, that sank in chilliness, and waked My fancy from its slumber, and thus drew One volume from its treasures, into day. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A WOMAN WITH FLAXEN HAIR IN NORFOLK HEARD by ROBERT KELLY YESTERDAY FROM MY FEVER by GALWAY KINNELL IF YOU COULD COME SOFTLY by AUDRE LORDE MISGIVINGS by WILLIAM MATTHEWS NOW THAT YOU'RE HERE by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS SILENT IN THE MOONLIGHT by ROBERT BLY THE CORAL GROVE by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL |
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