Page:Papers on Literature and Art (Fuller).djvu/148

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And thou, mountain-realm of ancient wood,

 Where my feet and thoughts have strayed so long,

Now thy old gigantic brotherhood

 With a ghostlier vastness round me throng.

Mound, and cliff, and crag, that none may scale

 With your serried trunks and wrestling boughs,

Like one living presence ye prevail,

 And o’erhang me with Titanian brows.

In your Being’s mighty depth of Power,

 Mine is lost and melted all away.

In your forms involved I seem to tower,

 And with you am spread in twilight grey.

In this knotted stem whereon I lean,

 And the dome above of countless leaves,

Twists and swells, and frowns a life unseen,

 That my life with it resistless weaves.

Yet, O nature, less is all of thine

 Than thy borrowings from our human breast;

Thou, O God, hast made thy child divine,

 And for him this world thou hallowest.

The Rose and the Gauntlet we much admire as a ballad, and the tale is told in fewest words, and by a single picture; but we have not room for it here. In Lady Jane Grey, though this again is too garrulous, the picture of the princess at the beginning is fine, as she sits in the antique casement of the rich old room.

The lights through the painted glass

Fall with fondest brightness o’er the form

 Of her who sits, the chamber’s lovely dame,

And her pale forehead in the light looks warm,

 And all these colors round her whiteness flame.

Young is she, scarcely passed from childhood’s years,

 With grave, soft face, where thoughts and smiles may play,

And unalarmed by guilty aims or fears,

 Serene as meadow flowers may meet the day.