YOUNG LOVE.
Reading edition
AN EXTRACT: BY J. G. PERCIVAL.
Why are we not like Nature, ever new, Freshening with every season? It is pain To gaze, when sick and wasted, on the blue Arching as purely o'er us, and the stain Of the curled clouds, that gather in the train, Which the low sun makes glorious with his smile; To see the light Spring weave her rosy chain, And sow her pearls, no longer can beguile, When age, and want, and sin, our sinking hearts defile.
Youth is the season when we most enjoy, If we would know the sweets of life; the mind Is then pure feeling, for no base alloy Of gain hath blended with the ore refined By the wise hand of Nature, who designed The beautiful years to be alone the time When we can fondly love, and loving find In the adored the same glad passion chime, As if two spirits met in one most tuneful rhyme.
O! there are eyes that have a language—sweet Comes their soft music round us, till the air Is one intensest melody; we beat Through every pulse, as if a spring were there To buoy us into upper worlds, and bear Our fond hearts with link'd arms, on whitest wings, To a far island, where we two may share Eternal looks, such as the live eye flings When it collects all fire, and as it blesses, stings.
O! could we stop at this glad hour the wheels Of Time, and make this point eternity; Could check that onward flight, which ever steals Hues, forms, and soul, as the twined colors flee, Which are above the seven-fold Harmony, Whose perfect concord meets in the soft light That sits upon a wave of clouds—a sea Of rolling vapor, pearled and purely white, That as a curtain hangs the pale-lit throne of Night.
O! could we dwell in rapture thus forever, Hearts burning with a high empyreal flame, Whose blended cones no reckless storm could sever, But they should tremble upward, till the same Fine point of centred heat should ever aim Higher and higher to the perfect glow; As Dante saw from that celestial Dame Once loved, now worshipped, Heaven's own splendors flow, And gather in her smile, that looked so calm below.
It is not in us; we were fashioned here For a more tranquil feeling, such as home Sheds on two hearts, whose true and lasting sphere Is round the holy hearth; hearts do not roam, When they are pledged by the young shoots that come, Like the green root-twigs, sweetly to renew Our life in their dear lives, which are the sum Of all our after being, where we view Heaven, as the soul's fond smile those rose-lips tremble through.