Summer Lightning
Like a dawn the distant lightning,
Fitful, shadow-crowned,
O’er the twilit ocean brightening
Breaks without a sound.
Softly-fair the clouds are riven
Crimsoning in bliss,
As the heights and depths of heaven
Open to its kiss.
Calm in western lake-like splendour
Floats the star of eve:
All hues opaline and tender
Round about it weave;
And that other crystal ocean
Holds its image clear,
Like a smile with soft emotion
Shining through a tear.
Faintly rings a silver laughter
As the ripples die,
And the rising stars thereafter
Answer, and their cry,
As of love to passion risen,
Passes o’er the strand
From Night’s gloomy eastern prison
To the golden land
Where flushed Eve with shining fingers
For an instant keeps
Back the curtained dark, and lingers,
Lovely, ere she sleeps.
So upon the beachy margent
Love a moment stands,
Takes the ocean and the argent
Starlight on the sands;
Takes the sunset slowly whitening
From its golden bloom,
Takes the cloud-girt summer lightning
And the distant gloom;
Orbs them all from world-mutation,
Whole and unforgot,
Into his divine creation
Of immortal thought;
Where, like essences supernal,
They nor pass nor range,
Lifted high in Love’s eternal
O’er eternal change.
Naples, 1873.