Felt the Spirit Move

TO A BEAUTIFUL QUAKER.

  Sweet girl! though only once we met,
  That meeting I shall ne'er forget;
  And though we ne'er may meet again,
  Remembrance will thy form retain;
  I would not say, "I love," but still,
  My senses struggle with my will:
  In vain to drive thee from my breast,
  My thoughts are more and more represt;
  In vain I check the rising sighs,
  Another to the last replies:
  Perhaps, this is not love, but yet,
  Our meeting I can ne'er forget.

  What, though we never silence broke,
  Our eyes a sweeter language spoke;
  The tongue in flattering falsehood deals,
  And tells a tale it never feels:
  Deceit, the guilty lips impart,
  And hush the mandates of the heart;
  But soul's interpreters, the eyes,
  Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise.
  As thus our glances oft convers'd,
  And all our bosoms felt rehears'd,
  No spirit, from within, reprov'd us,
  Say rather, "'twas the spirit mov'd us."
  Though, what they utter'd, I repress,
  Yet I conceive thou'lt partly guess;
  For as on thee, my memory ponders,
  Perchance to me, thine also wanders.
  This, for myself, at least, I'll say,
  Thy form appears through night, through day;
  Awake, with it my fancy teems,
  In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams;
  The vision charms the hours away,
  And bids me curse Aurora's ray
  For breaking slumbers of delight,
  Which make me wish for endless night.
  Since, oh! whate'er my future fate,
  Shall joy or woe my steps await;
  Tempted by love, by storms beset,
  Thine image, I can ne'er forget.

  Alas! again no more we meet,
  No more our former looks repeat;
  Then, let me breathe this parting prayer,
  The dictate of my bosom's care:
  "May Heaven so guard my lovely quaker,
  That anguish never can o'ertake her;
  That peace and virtue ne'er forsake her,
  But bliss be aye her heart's partaker!
  Oh! may the happy mortal, fated

  To be, by dearest ties, related,
  For her, each hour, new joys discover,

   And lose the husband in the lover!
  May that fair bosom never know
  What 'tis to feel the restless woe,
  Which stings the soul, with vain regret,
  Of him, who never can forget!"

1806.

A Wood-Path, by Bliss Carman

At evening and at morning
By an enchanted way
I walk the world in wonder,
And have no word to say.

It is the path we traversed
One twilight, thou and I;
Thy beauty all a rapture,
My spirit all a cry.

The red leaves fall upon it,
The moon and mist and rain,
But not the magic footfall
That made its meaning plain.

Midst the Wild Carpathians

Forests Everywhere - painting by Tatiana Iliina 

"...Before us lies the valley of the Drave, one of those endless
wildernesses where even the wild beast loses its way. Forests
everywhere, maples and aspens a thousand years old, with their roots
under water; magnificent morasses the surface of which is covered, not
with reeds and water-lilies, but with gigantic trees, from the dependent
branches of which the vivifying waters force fresh roots. Here the swan
builds her nest; here too dwell the royal heron, the blind crow, the
golden plover..."

 -Maurus Jokai, Midst the Wild Carpathians, 1894 (English ed.)

Strings and Stately Chords

"...at last one morning the diffident and delaying dog-rose stepped delicately on the stage, and one knew, as if string-music had announced it in stately chords that strayed into a gavotte, that June at last was here. One member of the company was still awaited; the shepherd-boy for the nymphs to woo, the knight for whom the ladies waited at the window, the prince that was to kiss the sleeping summer back to life and love..."

-Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Proserpine

"...Scene; a beautiful plain, shadowed on one side by an overhanging rock, on the other a chesnut wood. Etna at a distance. Enter Ceres, Proserpine, Ino and Eunoe. Pros. Dear Mother, leave me not! I love to rest Under the shadow of that hanging cave And listen to your tales. Your Proserpine Entreats you stay; sit on this shady bank, And as I twine a wreathe tell once again The combat of the Titans and the Gods; Or how the Python fell beneath the dart Of dread Apollo; or of Daphne’s change,— That coyest Grecian maid, whose pointed leaves Now shade her lover’s brow. And I the while Gathering the starry flowers of this fair plain Will weave a chaplet, Mother, for thy hair. But without thee, the plain I think is vacant, Its blossoms fade,—its tall fresh grasses droop, Nodding their heads like dull things half asleep;— Go not, dear Mother, from your Proserpine..."

-Mary Shelley, Proserpine




Not sure if Mary Shelley's Proserpine has been performed. (The work was "discovered" after her death) Below is the Ouverture of Jean Baptiste Lully's "Proserpine", from 1680.

Mighty Harmonies

 

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

-Percy Shelley

Alluring Song

"...The pupils of her eyes were deep and liquid; her cheeks
showed a flush of red. Her lips were soft—like a beast's—large,
sensuous and rosy. She walked slowly, moving her long straight legs
evenly, and slightly swaying from her hips….

...She joined the maidens on the river slope.

They were singing their mysterious, alluring and illusive songs...."

-Boris Pilniak, A Year of Their Lives