To Jane: The Recollection.

1.     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.     2.     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.     3.     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.     4.     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.     5.     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.