Out from their bounds swell nerve, and pulse, and sense,
The veins in tumult would their shores o'erflow;
Body to body rapt--and charmed thence,
Soul drawn to soul with intermingled glow.
Mighty alike to sway the flow and ebb
Of the inanimate Matter, or to move
The nerves that weave the Arachnean web
Of Sentient Life--rules all-pervading Love!
Ev'n in the Moral World, embrace and meet
Emotions--Gladness clasps the extreme of Care;
And Sorrow, at the worst, upon the sweet
Breast of young Hope, is thaw'd from its despair.
Of sister-kin to melancholy Woe,
Voluptuous Pleasure comes, and with the birth
Of her gay children, (golden Wishes,) lo,
Night flies, and sunshine settles on the earth![15]
The same great Law of Sympathy is given
To Evil as to Good, and if we swell
The dark account that life incurs with Heaven,
'Tis that our Vices are thy Wooers, Hell!
In turn those Vices are embraced by Shame
And fell Remorse, the twin Eumenides.
Danger still clings in fond embrace to Fame,
Mounts on her wing, and flies where'er she flees.
Destruction marries its dark self to Pride,
Envy to Fortune: when Desire most charms,
'Tis that her brother Death is by her side,
For him she opens those voluptuous arms.
The very Future to the Past but flies
Upon the wings of Love--as I to thee;
O, long swift Saturn, with unceasing sighs,
Hath sought his distant bride, Eternity!
When--so I heard the oracle declare--
When Saturn once shall clasp that bride sublime,
Wide-blazing worlds shall light his nuptials there--
'Tis thus Eternity shall wed with Time.
In _those_ shall be _our_ nuptials! ours to share
_That_ bridenight, waken'd by no jealous sun;
Since Time, Creation, Nature, but declare
Love--in our love rejoice, Beloved One!

[15] Literally, "the eye beams its sun-splendour," or, "beams
like a sun." For the construction that the Translator has put
upon the original (which is extremely obscure) in the preceding
lines of the stanza, he is indebted to Mr Carlyle. The general
meaning of the Poet is, that Love rules all things in the
inanimate or animate creation; that, even in the moral world,
opposite emotions or principles meet and embrace each other.
The idea is pushed into an extravagance natural to the youth,