PRESENTIMENTS

Presentiments! they judge not right

Who deem that ye from open light

Retire in fear of shame;

All heaven-born Instincts shun the touch

Of vulgar sense,— and, being such,

Such privilege ye claim.

The tear whose source I could not guess,

The deep sigh that seemed fatherless,

Were mine in early days;

And now, unforced by time to part

With fancy, I obey my heart,

And venture on your praise.

What though some busy foes to good,

Too potent over nerve and blood,

Lurk near you — and combine

To taint the health which ye infuse;

This hides not from the moral Muse

Your origin divine.

How oft from you, derided Powers!

Comes Faith that in auspicious hours

Builds castles, not of air:

Bodings unsanctioned by the will

Flow from your visionary skill,

And teach us to beware.

The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,

That no philosophy can lift,

Shall vanish, if ye please,

Like morning mist: and, where it lay,

The spirits at your bidding play

In gaiety and ease.

Star-guided contemplations move

Through space, though calm, not raised above

Prognostics that ye rule;

The naked Indian of the wild,

And haply, too, the cradled Child,

Are pupils of your school.

But who can fathom your intents,

Number their signs or instruments?

A rainbow, a sunbeam,

A subtle smell that Spring unbinds,

Dead pause abrupt of midnight winds,

An echo, or a dream.

The laughter of the Christmas hearth

With sighs of self-exhausted mirth

Ye feelingly reprove;

And daily, in the conscious breast,

Your visitations are a test

And exercise of love.

When some great change gives boundless scope

To an exulting Nation's hope,

Oft, startled and made wise

By your low-breathed interpretings,

The simply-meek foretaste the springs

Of bitter contraries.

Ye daunt the proud array of war,

Pervade the lonely ocean far

As sail hath been unfurled;

For dancers in the festive hall

What ghastly partners hath your call

Fetched from the shadowy world.

‘ Tis said, that warnings ye dispense,

Emboldened by a keener sense;

That men have lived for whom,

With dread precision, ye made clear

The hour that in a distant year

Should knell them to the tomb.

Unwelcome insight! Yet there are

Blest times when mystery is laid bare,

Truth shows a glorious face,

While on that isthmus which commands

The councils of both worlds, she stands,

Sage Spirits! by your grace.

God, who instructs the brutes to scent

All changes of the element,

Whose wisdom fixed the scale

Of natures, for our wants provides

By higher, sometimes humbler, guides,

When lights of reason fail.