SD353. Autograph Manuscript by Daniel McSwiney
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 1, 323.
[Hope End]
Sepr 19. 20.
Lines produced by the scenic beauties of Hope End
To Miss Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
The shades of night are hastening down
To steep in blue the mountains brown
The sky is cloudless and serene:
The winds are pillowed and the scene
So beautiful, so wild, so sweet
When forests, fields, and waters meet,
Is bathed in such delicious hues,
Beneath the twilights falling dews,
That man afar from sorrows sphere
Might muse away his anguish here:
While o’er his erring thoughts subdued
That quiet tranquilizing mood,
That tone of harmony would steal
Which Poets feign and Angels feel.
Lo, in the south a silver star
With amber radiance shines afar
The eldest daughter of the night
In glory warm in beauty bright
Thou diamond in the pathless dome
Of azure, whither dost thou come?
Far, far within the orbless blue
A tiny lustre twinkles thro’
With distant and unsteady light
To catch the eyes then mock the sight
Till as the shades of darkness frown
And throw their viewless curtains down
The very veil that mantled earth
Awakens thee to brighter birth
And bids thee glow with purer ray
A Lily on the tomb of day.
The blue horizon circles round
This silent spot of fairy ground
So hushed, that e’en my very breath
Intrudes upon the still of death
No trace of mind or man is here
The sight to win, or heart to cheer;
Like him who on Fernandez sate
Lamenting o’er his lonely fate
While in the hush of winds, the roar
Of ocean thundering on the shore
Was heard, the only living sound
To break the deep and dull profound—
So here I rest no tempests roll
Above my head or in my soul
Amusing heart a watchful eye
Conversing with the earth and sky.
Daniel McSwiney
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
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