Sbellc^'0 poetical Morfta
 
 THE LYRICS AND MINOR POEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley 
 
 [SELECTICD] 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH SKIPSEY. 
 
 ¥ 
 
 LONDON 
 
 Walter Scott, 2i Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row 
 
 AND NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE 
 1887
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 -♦ 
 
 Page 
 Prefatory Notice . , 9 
 
 Alastor ; or, The Spirit of Soliturlc ... 33 
 
 To Coleridge 57 
 
 Stanzas— April 1814 58 
 
 Mutability 60 
 
 On Death 60 
 
 A Summer-Evening Churchyar<l . , . ,62 
 
 To Wordswortli 63 
 
 Feelings of a Republican on the fall of Bonapa; to . 64 
 
 Lines (The r»]d Earth slept below) ... 64 
 
 The Sunset 66 
 
 Ilymn to Intellectual Beauty . , . , 68 
 
 Rlont Blanc ...-.„.. 71 
 
 Julian and Maddalo . . ^ . . .76
 
 vi 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Marianne's Dream . . « . 
 Death • •. 
 
 To Constantia, Singing. , • , 
 Sonnet — Ozymandias .... 
 To the Lord Chancellor 
 To T^illiam Shelley .... 
 Lines (That time is dead for ever, cliiM) 
 On Fanny Godwin .... 
 
 Lines to a Critic 
 
 Passage of the Apennines 
 
 On a Dead Violet . , , , 
 
 The Past ...... 
 
 Sonnet (Lift not the painted veil) . 
 Lines written among the Euganean Hills 
 Stanzas (The sun is warm, the sky is clear) 
 
 Misery 
 
 The Witch of Atlas .... 
 The Masque of Anarchy 
 Lines (Corpses are cold in the tomb) 
 Song — To the Men of England 
 
 England in 1819 
 
 Similes for Two Political Characters of 1819
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 God Save the Queen 
 Ode to the Asserters of Liberty- 
 Ode to Heaven 
 Ode to the West Wind 
 An Exhortation . 
 The Indian Serenade 
 Lines written for I\[iss Sophia Slacey 
 Epips3'cliidion 
 Love's riiilosophy , 
 
 Ode to Liberty 
 Arethusa 
 
 Hymn of Apollo . , 
 Hymn of Pan . , 
 The Question 
 The Sensitive Plant 
 The Cloud . 
 To a Skylark 
 
 To . (I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden) 
 
 The Two Spirits . 
 Song of Proserpine 
 Letter to Maria Gisborne 
 Ode to Naples 
 Summer and Wintcj
 
 ^^iii CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 Paa:e 
 
 Lines to a Reviewer . , , . 
 
 . 259 
 
 Autuma. — A Dirge , . . , 
 
 . 259 
 
 Liberty 
 
 . 260 
 
 The Tower of Famine .... 
 
 . 261 
 
 Time long past ..... 
 
 . 262 
 
 Good-night 
 
 . 262 
 
 Sonnet (Ye hasten to the deadj 
 
 . 263 
 
 Adonais ...... 
 
 . 264 
 
 Dirge for the year 
 
 . 282 
 
 To Night 
 
 . 283 
 
 From the Arabic .... 
 
 . 284 
 
 Song (Rarely, rarely comest thou) 
 
 . 285 
 
 To Emilia Vivian i .... 
 
 . 287 
 
 Lines (Far, far away) .... 
 
 . 287 
 
 Time ...... 
 
 . 288 
 
 A Song ...... 
 
 . 288 
 
 Ariel to Miranda 
 
 . 289
 
 prefatory IRotice. 
 
 F the mighty singer who produced 
 the immortal poems contained in 
 this volume — Shelley, — that "pard- 
 like spirit, beautiful and swift," a 
 few words, and a few words only, 
 by way of preface. Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley was the eldest son of Mr. (afterwards Sir) 
 Timothy and Elizabeth Shelley, and was born at 
 Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, on the 4th of 
 August 1792. " He was a beautiful boy," says his 
 excellent critic and biographer, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, 
 "with ringlets, deep blue eyes, a snowy com- 
 plexion and exquisitely formed hands and feet," and 
 he was remarkable for his gentleness and sweet- 
 ness of disposition. From childhood he was in the 
 highest degree sensitive, and too keenly alive to all
 
 PRE FA TOR V NO TICE. 
 
 discordant influences, physical and mental, to feel 
 at all at ease in mixed and unruly companies^ 
 Mere clownishness of manners he could put up 
 with, but coarseness of language and sordidness of 
 disposition excited his disgust ; and of this he had 
 more than enough at Sion House School, Brent- 
 ford, to which he was sent when he was about ten 
 years old. " The pupils here were mostly boys," 
 says Mr. Rossetti, " numbering about sixty, sons of 
 local tradesmen ; the system of the house was 
 mean," and the reception accorded to Shelley 
 by his school-fellows, and their subsequent treat- 
 ment of him, "full of taunting and petty 
 persecution." Girlish in appearance and averse to 
 rough sports, he was naturally enough deemed a 
 proper butt for the jibes of the ruder boys ; and 
 notwithstanding the fact that, when thoroughly 
 aroused, he would display a courage and determin- 
 ation, before which the boldest of his juvenile 
 opponents for the moment would quail — such a 
 butt he was so often made as to make his 
 " situation one of acute misery." The effect of this 
 upon his after-career was clearly enormous, since 
 he was forced at the very outset of his life 
 to have a powerful dislike for human haunts — for 
 the actual and the real ; and had his soul liot been 
 formed of the very essence of love, he, in all
 
 PRE FA TOR V NO TICK. 1 1 
 
 likelihood, had sunk into a mere sneerer and a 
 man-hater. This, thank God, he could not become ; 
 and the more he suffered the more he only felt for 
 others who suffered likewise, and the more he was 
 impelled to seek out a remedy for the evils of 
 which he and they were the victims. In this 
 search the painful fact burst upon his young mind, 
 that the evils of which he complained were only a 
 specimen of what dominated the world at large, 
 and that only could be a panacea for the one which 
 should embrace the whole. And how was that to 
 be effected ? By a moral warfare, in which he and 
 no other should be the hero 1 " And from that 
 hour " he afterwards sang : — 
 
 " And from that hour did I with earnest thought 
 Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore, 
 Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught, 
 I cared to learn — but from that secret store 
 Wrought linked armour for my soul before 
 It might go forth to war among mankind." 
 
 Thus while yet a boy in years he foresaw, and 
 began to prepare for the struggle— the intellectual 
 war against social, political, and religious wrong — 
 that in later years he was to enter into, and which 
 was to last till the hour of his death. Shelley's 
 career, with some brief intervals of quietude and 
 joy, was indeed one of pain and strife from the
 
 PRE FA TOR Y NO TICE. 
 
 cradle to the grave. A moral hero he was if there 
 ever was one, and when we consider the purity of 
 his motives, and, in general, the nobleness of the 
 objects — truth, justice, and freedom — for which he 
 always strove, it would not be too much to say 
 that he merits the respect of the good and the 
 wise, apart from any honour due to him for the 
 many immortal poems he has left behind for our 
 wonder and delight. In his fourteenth year he went 
 to Eton, where, besides studying the Greek and 
 Roman classics, for which, we are told, he had an 
 especial capacity, he was soon found to be also a 
 student of " mines of forbidden lore." " He 
 studied the occult sciences, watched for spectres, 
 conjured the devil, and speculated on a visit to 
 Africa," says Mr. Rossetti, "for the purpose of 
 searching out the magic arcana which her dusky 
 populations are noted for." Of course this could 
 only be accounted for on the supposition that the 
 youth had a hopelessly perverse disposition — if, 
 indeed, he was not mad. So deemed the graver 
 Etonians, and many freaks are related that had 
 half justified their suspicions, had the rich produce 
 of his gifts not been left to show that, however 
 unusual his conduct may have appeared, such 
 eccentricity was only the natural resrU of a great 
 inner force — a genius in this case of an almost
 
 PREFA TOR Y NO TICE. 13 
 
 incomprehensible magnitude — seeking, and, as yet, 
 seeking in vain for an expression. This the 
 Etonians did not understand, and so felt themselves 
 justified in treating the girlish-faced youth with 
 even a greater degree of harshness and rudeness 
 than it had been his misfortune to endure at Sion 
 House — though this they were not always allowed 
 to do with impunity. If the youth was not mad, 
 the cruelty to which he was so often subjected was 
 enough to make him so ; and we are not surprised 
 on being told that, in a fit of rage caused by some 
 impish persecution on a certain occasion, "he stuck 
 a penknife through the offender's hand." For this 
 offence we are left to suppose that he was expelled 
 from Eton ; and are informed that he had been 
 twice expelled before. If this be true — for the 
 truth of the statement is doubted — then the more 
 shame to the Eton authorities for not having taken 
 steps to put an end to the persecution which 
 reijlted in the scenes of which they complained. 
 The agony v/hich drove the youth to so act xuust 
 have been great indeed, and the effect of its 
 relation becomes doubly painful when we learn 
 that, amid ail this, he was attp.cked by a brain fever, 
 during which he was only ouved from being sent 
 to a madhouse by the interposition of a Dr. Lind, 
 "who posted to Field Place," at the poet's re-
 
 14 PRE FA TOR V NO TICE. 
 
 quest, "satisfied his father" as to the state of 
 affairs, and "cured him" of his affliction. A silver 
 lining is afforded to the black cloud which hung 
 over our poet at this period through the intelligent 
 sympathy of this good doctor. " He loved me," 
 said Shelley, "and I shall never forget our long 
 talks, where he breathed the spirit of kindest 
 tolerance and the purest wisdom." All honour 
 then to the doctor, for what immense debt may we 
 not all owe him for the beneficial results of these 
 " long talks ? " Another drop of honey was let fall 
 into Shelley's cup of gall about this time through 
 a certain tender feeling he had wakened in the 
 heart of his cousin, Harriet Grove. " He loved 
 her," it is said, " and she returned his affections." 
 They corresponded and were to marry ; yet I 
 venture to say that the love on one side was rather 
 pity for the sufferings of the other, and the love 
 on the other was rather a deep sense of thankful- 
 ness at his having found one — and that one of the 
 gentler sex — who could appreciate his troubles, 
 than that passion which in the highest sense can 
 only be called love, and which melts and fuses two 
 souls into one. Generosity or selfishness may cause 
 two human beings to be put together as man 
 and wife, but the passion here spoken of, and that 
 only, can sanctify the marriage knot. This the
 
 PRE FA TOR V NO TICE. i s 
 
 world does not understand, and won't try, and 
 broken hearts are the consequence ; the grey- 
 headed too often laugh the sacredness of the 
 passion to scorn, and even the young are far from 
 being able at all times to set it at its proper value. 
 Even Shelley in his early youth failed to do so. 
 Chivalric feelings or brotherly and sisterly affection 
 were mistaken for the celestial fire, and hence his 
 errors in this way. At a later period no one had 
 ever a clearer conception of the matter, and instead 
 of a promise of marriage, a feeling like that 
 which existed between him and his cousin Harriet 
 would have found ventilation in song, and so have 
 ended, only at the time he left Eton his song 
 gift was not in blossom. Shelley's genius, by the 
 way, could not be said to have had a premature 
 development ; none of his literary efforts up to the 
 time he left Eton are held to possess much 
 merit. This was in the year 1809. In 1810 he 
 went to Oxford, from whence he was expelled in 181 1 
 for what was deemed a much graver offence than 
 any that had been laid to his charge at Eton — viz., 
 that of printing and causing to be circulated a 
 pamphlet entitled. The Necessity for Atheism. In 
 the same year he married — not the cousin Harriet 
 just mentioned, but Harriet Westbrook, a school- 
 girl of sixteen, and a retired hotel-keeper's daughter.
 
 i6 PREFA TOR V NO TICE, 
 
 Of all the misfortunes that ever bf .ell Shelley, that 
 of his early death excepted, this marriage was by 
 far the greatest Harriet Grove, out of sympathy 
 for Shelley's sufferings, had at one time thought her- 
 self sufficiently in love to have been justified in 
 becoming his wife ; Shelley in a similar way, out 
 of pity for certain troubles of Harriet Westbrook, 
 had been induced to become her husband. " Harriet 
 was not only delightful to look at," says Mr. 
 Rossetti, "but altogether most agreeable. She 
 dressed with exquisite neatness and propriety ; her 
 voice was pleasant and aer speech cordial ; 
 her spirits were cheerful and her manners good." 
 She was withal, "well-educated," a "pleasant 
 reader," and well skilled in music. Surely with 
 such a woman the best of men — and Shelley was 
 one of the best of men — might have lived, one 
 -.vould natuii^lly have thought, on the best of .erms ? 
 And for a short time he did so ; then — the world has 
 long 1-mown what after'vards befell, and the re:-3on 
 of the dire calamity lay in the fact that Shelley h*d 
 mistaken pity for something else, and that in 
 reality he had never truly loved .he woman he had 
 taken to be i:is wife. His error was a huge one, 
 and the cooling down of his affection, then dis- 
 cord, then separation, then suicide on the wife's 
 part, was the consequence. The weakest in this
 
 PRE FA TOR V NO TICE, 1 7 
 
 case, as in others, went to the wall ; but let it not 
 for a moment be supposed that the strongest 
 passed on unscathed. An avenging Nemesis 
 followed the young poet's footsteps to the end, and 
 the furies of Regret, Remorse, and Shame threw 
 their raven shadow o'er his life, and his soul — at 
 least so long as it remained tagged to his frail 
 body — his " soul from out that shadow was lifted 
 nevermore ! " Such at least is my conviction, 
 and I would hail with delight any reliable account 
 that would lead me to a happier conclusion. I do 
 not think that Shelley was guilty of any wilful 
 wrong, but the gravity of the errors he committed 
 in his marriage of, and then separation from, 
 Harriet, leading as they did to the most tragic 
 consequences, were such as to smite his sensitive 
 being to the centre ; and if any proofs were wanting 
 for this more than are afforded by the facts of his 
 outer life, we have only to refer to his songs, which 
 in Shelley's case were, even far more than the 
 songs of Byron were in his, a veritable reflection of 
 the inner man. His " sweetest songs" at all times 
 were those which told of " saddest thought ; " but 
 after the tragical death of Harriet, and his union 
 with Mary Godwin, with whom he had eloped on 
 ^ parting from Harriet, the sorrow of his songs, and 
 * more especially of his greatest ones, grew deeper
 
 i8 PRE FA TOR V NO TICK. 
 
 and deeper. The surprising fecundity of his 
 genius after his second marriage is ascribed in 
 some measure to the harmony which prevailed 
 between him and his second wife, and this 
 too may have been without at all affecting the 
 truth of my intimations. Poetry is an art as 
 well as an inspiration, and quietude and social 
 harmony are among the essentials for its success- 
 ful cultivation ; but these may exist while the soul 
 itself is carried away through the force of bitter 
 memories to " look on the past and stare aghast at 
 the spectres wailing pale and ghast, of hopes which 
 thou and I beguiled to death on life's dark river ! " 
 What a sigh ! and what a world of pain and 
 mental torment are discovered by these few words 
 in inverted commas, and 3^et these are from a lyric 
 penned in 1817, and when he was the husband of 
 his truly beloved Mary Godwin. Without casting 
 any aspersions on poor Harriet — for in years she 
 was only a girl (and he was little more than a boy) — 
 during her connection with Shelley, it ought to be 
 said, however, that it is some credit to Alary that 
 our bard's genius found a free, high, and triumph- 
 ant expression under her care. During his 
 connection with Harriet he had produced his first 
 great effort in verse, the " Queen Mab," but after 
 his second marriage every succeeding year had its
 
 PREFA TOR V NO TICE. 19 
 
 immortal product. First of that glorious progeny 
 came " Alastor," 1816 ; then the "Revolt of Islam," 
 1817 ; then the " Rosalind and Helen," and " Julian 
 and Maddalo" both 1818; then "The Cenci," 
 1819; the "Witch of Atlas" and the "Prome- 
 theus Unbound,'* 1820; the " Epipsychidion," the 
 "Adonais," and the "Hellas," all in 1821 ; and he 
 was engaged on other works when death by 
 drowning put an end to his career on the 4th of 
 July 1822. Such a career ! Besides the great 
 poems named, he, during the same wonderful 
 period, poured forth a flood of lyrics and lesser 
 pieces which in themselves had won for him a 
 rank only second to the highest in literature. The 
 great poems named raise him among those who 
 occupy the highest rank. In many of his pieces 
 he displayed too strong a predilection for the 
 merely fanciful, but his greatest efforts are noted 
 beyond those of all other poets since Milton for 
 the magnificent and the sublime. In sublimity he 
 was only surpassed by Milton and Shakespeare, and 
 " no, nobody," says Leigh Hunt, " had a style so 
 Orphic. His poetry is so full of mountains, 
 seas, and skies, of light and darkness, and the 
 seasons, and all the elements . of our being, as 
 if Nature herself had written it with the creation 
 and its hopes newly cast around her ; but it
 
 20 PRE FA TOR V NO TICE. 
 
 must be confessed not without too indiscriminate 
 a mixture of great and small, and a want of 
 sufficient shade — a certain chaotic brilliancy, 
 'dark with excess of light.'" Besides this fault, 
 which arises out of a plethora of fancy, there is 
 another which is the offspring of an excessive 
 fondness for knotty mental problems and sub- 
 jects which rather belong to the sphere of the 
 metaphysician than that of the poet, and in the 
 treatment of which he necessarily discarded the 
 example and precept of Milton, who held that 
 poetry ought to be " simple, sensous, and passion- 
 ate" — or "impassioned," as Coleridge has it — and 
 both of these defects infect even the very greatest 
 of his productions — "The Cenci " excepted. These 
 charges may be brought especially and most em- 
 phatically against the " Prometheus Unbound," 
 and yet in despite of all, this must be conceded to 
 be one of the most marvellous poems in the 
 language ! The conception of this drama, and 
 more especially of the characters of the hero, and 
 of Asia, and Panthea, are worthy of Milton, though 
 the execution in detail and throughout is not equal 
 to what we would have expected in a similar work 
 from the hand of that mighty master. If not as a 
 whole, however, yet in long passages, even in the 
 dialogue, he equals the best poets when at their
 
 PRE FA TOR Y NO TICE. 2 1 
 
 best ; while in his choral strains he rises far above 
 what any poet had ever in a similar way attempted 
 before. A yet higher encomium by many of our 
 ablest critics is pronounced upon "The Cenci." 
 Many declare it to be the best drama we have had 
 since the Elizabethan era, and some even regard it 
 quite as a Shakespearean one. It is a great 
 drama, but it is not Shakespearean. Shelley found 
 in the magic mirror of his imagination, indeed, the 
 various characteis reflected in his verse ; yet if 
 these were not meiely reflections of himself they 
 were all too much coloured by his own feelings to 
 be Shakespearean. The Prince of Dramatists 
 undoubtedly, like all other poets, must have incor- 
 porated much of his own personality into his 
 creations, since, as Blake has it, " It is impossible 
 to thought a greater than itself to know ; " but his 
 genius was too supreme to allow this to be seen — 
 or be traceable ! With Shelley, as with Milton, 
 the case was otherwise. " In the 'Paradise Lost,' " 
 says Coleridge, " indeed, in every one of his poems, 
 it is Milton himself whom you see : his Satan, his 
 Raphael, almost his Eve, are all John Milton." 
 And in a similar way, may be said, that nearly all 
 Shelley's characters are in some measure a re- 
 production of himself. Set aside the consideration 
 of sex, even the charming Beatrice, in "The
 
 PRE FA TOR Y NO TICE. 
 
 Cenci," is so. That great poem may be none the 
 worse on that account — only it is not Shakespearean. 
 Shakespeare is often spoken of as being "many- 
 sided." He would be better represented, however, 
 by a circle than a polygon, everything touched by 
 which is touched at a point equi-distant from the 
 centre ; but not so would be such a genius as 
 Shelley or Milton, though both of these rare poets 
 were also, though in a less degree, many-sided, 
 and each in his way gives us a series of characters 
 tender and beautiful, lofty and sublime. Many of 
 these are painted to the life. Those of " The 
 Cenci" are especially so, and the story of that 
 drama is well told. " In all probabilit}'," as Mr. 
 Devey observes in his magnificent essay upon 
 Shelley, "in Shakespeare's hands the plot of 'The 
 Cenci ' would have assumed a wider basis. The 
 facetious element would have been introduced in 
 which Shelley was wofully deficient ; " but when 
 he, nevertheless, adds that "he hardly thinks the 
 story would have been better told," I fail to see the 
 logic of his conclusions. In Shakespeare's hands 
 the story would have been differently told, though 
 whether more effectively is another question ; but 
 surely had he felt the necessity of introducing the 
 " facetious element " (and I presume he would not 
 have introduced it without feeling that necessity),
 
 PRE FA TOR V NO TICE. 23 
 
 the story would most surely have been better for 
 its introduction. But the work as Shelley has 
 |]jiven it is a master-piece, and few can read it 
 without wishing that he had given us many such. 
 And had he lived longer it is just possible that he 
 might have done so, and yet is it likely th?t he 
 would 1 One must admit that this is questionable. 
 Of this one thing we are certain, no sooner had he 
 put the finishing touch to " The Cenci," than he 
 set about writing another poem — "The Witch of 
 Atlas " — in which he returns to the purely ideal 
 with all the rapture with which an eagle that has 
 escaped from a trap might be supposed to return 
 to his aery in the regions of the sun. The effect of 
 this upon his noble-minded wife, who was one 
 of his best critics, was such as to draw from her an 
 animadversion, and to which in turn he playfully 
 replied with the verses commencing : — 
 
 " How, my dear Mary, are you critic-bitten 
 
 (For vipers kill, though dead) by some review, 
 That you condemn these verses I have written, 
 
 Because they tell no story, false or true ? 
 ^What though no mice are caught by a young kitten, 
 
 May it not leap and play as grown cats do, 
 Till its claws come ? Prithee, for this one time 
 Content thee with a visionary rhyme." 
 
 But Mary evidently thought that the kitten had
 
 24 PREFA TOR V NO TICE. 
 
 already had sufficient play — that it was all blarney 
 about its claws not being grown, since it had just, 
 at least, caught one very large mouse ; or, to be 
 more serious, that she and the world had already 
 had too many visionary rhymes, and that this was 
 the more to be lamented, since the mighty genius 
 who had penned these rhymes had already dis- 
 played a capacity for the tragic drama such as had 
 not been witnessed for ages. Regrets like these, 
 though natural enough on his noble-minded wife's 
 part, are, however, futile. Shelley, who at this 
 very period, through causes before alluded to, was 
 passing through the fiery furnace of regret and 
 remorse, knew best what to him, for the time being, 
 was his natural and best element ; and when we 
 reflect on what he achieved while in that element, 
 we are awe-struck, abashed, and ashamed at our 
 having been guilty of anything like fault-finding. 
 We must take the great poet for what he was, not 
 for what we in our blindness and weakness would 
 wish him to have been, and in his own sphere he 
 was a demi-god, and without a peer. " Out of the 
 most indefinite terms of a hard, cold, dark, meta- 
 physical system," says Macaulay, " he made a 
 gorgeous Pantheon full of beautiful, majestic, and 
 life-like forms. He turned Atheism itself into a 
 mythology rich with visions as glorious as the gods
 
 PREFA TOR V NOTICE. 25 
 
 that live in the marble of Phidias, or the virgin 
 saints that smile on us from the canvas of Murillo." 
 This being so, what more can we desire ? What, 
 indeed ? Are we to find fault with the tree because, 
 while it has yielded us a rich stock of grapes, it has 
 not yielded us a rich stock of apples also ? Grapes, 
 however, are not, as we have seen, the truest 
 symbols of Shelley's poems, although they all have 
 a fair share of sweetness, and a few of the shorter 
 pieces are laden with it. Subtlety of thought, 
 gorgeousness of imagery — the magnificent or the 
 sublime, linked to the most charming music, are 
 the characteristics of his best work, and that desif 
 means the full half of his multitudinous and multi- 
 farious poems. Such are the dominant qualities of 
 much of the " Revolt of Islam," " Alastor," " The 
 Witch of Atlas," " The A.donais "—which poem is 
 also steeped in deep spiritual pathos — and the other 
 great poems before mentioned. " The Epipsy- 
 chidion," the most impassioned of his narrative 
 poems, is, indeed, a sort of celestial grape, and 
 of such divine virtue, that once having touched our 
 lips, we are set dreaming of visions of the most 
 enchanting loveliness, and of love which satiates 
 not for evermore ! I was about to call this the 
 most precious of all Shelley's precious poems, when 
 lo, into my imagination comes the vision of The
 
 26 PRE FA TOR V NO TICE, 
 
 Sensitive Plant, with its enchanted Garden and its 
 Elf-like Lady Attendant, and anon is the question 
 suggested, Can anything possibly be more precious 
 than that % Most certainly there is nothing more 
 original; and in honied sweetness, ethereal beauty, 
 and in delicacy of workmanship and fairy-like 
 melody united, I know of nothing to be compared 
 with it out of Coleridge. That life-giving power of 
 imagination which can only be possessed by the 
 true poet, and which enabled him to create out of 
 the most abstract terms the most life-like forms, as 
 already spoken of, is exemplified in almost every 
 verse in this glorious creation. Take as a specimen 
 the opening stanza : — 
 
 " A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, 
 And the young wiTidsfed it \nt\x silver dew ; 
 And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light. 
 And closed tfiem, beneath the kisses of night." 
 
 And again in another way : — 
 
 " For Winter came ; the wind was his whip ; 
 Ojie choppy Jinger was on his lip ; 
 He had torn the cataracts from, the hills, 
 And they clanked at his girdle like manacUs." 
 
 That, at least, is a personification of great power, 
 and full of life, and yet it is perhaps excelled by his
 
 PRE FA TOR Y NO TICE. 27 
 
 personification of Time in the " Mask of Anarchy." 
 This other picture is painted in the words of a 
 "maniac maid," the last survivor of the champions 
 of Liberty which had been born to Time, and 
 " whose name was Hope, though she looked more 
 like Despair." Flying before the hideous revellers 
 in the " Mask," she cries 
 
 " My father Time is hoar and grey 
 With waiting for a better day ; 
 See how idiot-like he stands, 
 Fumbling with his palsied hands ! 
 
 He has had child after child, 
 And the dust of death is piled 
 Over every one but me — 
 Misery — O, Misery ! " 
 
 A fine subject for an artist that ! but how is an 
 artist to paint this'? — 
 
 ** Kevenge and wrong bring forth their kind, 
 The foul cubs as their parent are ; 
 Their den is in the guilty mind, 
 And conscience feeds them with despau'." 
 
 This is from "Hellas," a lyrical drama, and a 
 sublime song on behalf of Liberty. Shelley was 
 always inspired and sublime when he sang of 
 Liberty, and in his great odes, those to Naples and 
 to Liberty in particular. His " Ode to the West
 
 28 PRE FA TOR Y NO TICE. 
 
 Wind " is also among his greatest things, and yet 
 he is, perhaps, nowhere so fascinating as in those 
 brief lyrics which come now like wild wails from 
 the forest on the wings of the blast, and now like 
 sighs on the fitful breeze from the reeds on the 
 river brim. Not even " The Question," with its rich 
 bouquet of "pied wind-flowers, and violets," of 
 "faint oxlips," and "tender blue-bells, at whose 
 birth the earth scarce heaved" — ol "wild roses" 
 and the rest of Flora's sweetest children,— not "Ariel 
 to Miranda," in which some of the sweetest opera- 
 tions of the Soul of the Universe are conjured up 
 in the imagination in a strain as purely spiritual, 
 and to deep-souled sage, or to deep-hearted maiden 
 and youth, as delicious as ever flowed from the lips 
 of that " quaint spirit," the " delicate Ariel " of the 
 "still-vexed Bermoothes" himself, — not in "The 
 Cloud," that "gossamer-spun web" of the most 
 brilliant, airy, fantastic, and most delightful fancies 
 — nay, not in "The Skylark," that strain which 
 wells up from the depths of the poet's heart like a 
 pellucid fount whose waters bubble, and flash, and 
 sparkle in the light of the noonday sun, is there a 
 spell so subtle or powerful as that which lurks in 
 the feeling, the sentiment, and the melody of 
 some of his briefest and tiniest lyrics. Read the 
 pieces beginning with the lines, "That time is
 
 PRE FA TOR V NO TICE. 29 
 
 dead for ever, child," " When passion's trance is 
 overpast," "The keen stars were twinkling," "I 
 arise from dreams of thee," " He came like a 
 dream in the dawn of life," "The warm sun is 
 failing," " My faint spirit was sitting in the light," 
 " From the rivers and highlands," " Away ! the 
 moor is dark beneath the moon" :— read any of 
 the songs beginning with these lines — and many 
 others nearly as fine could be added to the list — and 
 you read what goes direct to the heart and remains 
 there. I have repeatedly alluded to the rarity of 
 Shelley's music. Each of the above-named 
 pieces has a melody of its own, and that melody 
 in each case is a perfect reflex in sound of the 
 feeling and sentiment which lies at the root of 
 the lyric. Not so much as a metrical harmonist, 
 however, as a metrical melodist, as Mr. Devey 
 finely suggests, doth Shelley's rare excellence as a 
 singer rest. In metrical harmonies he has been 
 equalled and surpassed, but in pure melody — when 
 we consider the number, the originality, the vast 
 variety and utter perfection of his word-tunes, we 
 are forced to place him at the head of all the verse- 
 melodists who have left any specimens of their gift 
 on record. Shelley is, in verity, the king of verse 
 melodists. That title at least must be conceded to 
 him, though in sheer quality of melody and other
 
 30 PRE FA TOR Y NO TICE. 
 
 essentials of lyric song he has been at least 
 equalled, if not excelled, by Shakespeare. Shelley, 
 to whom the lyric was a channel through which he 
 would pour out his own richest and most precious 
 personal feelings, has indeed left a number of 
 pieces characterised by a beauty of sentiment 
 which is only equalled by two or three of the tiny 
 songlets of Shakespeare, to whom, on the other 
 hand, the lyric was merely the medium through 
 which he would utter the supposed feeling or fancy 
 of the moment of others, but against this must be 
 set an airiness and spontaneity of utterance in all 
 cases unmatched even by Shelley, while the 
 wonderful dramatic propriety of expression dis- 
 played in those utterances is in itself a quality of 
 the highest and most supreme value in song — and 
 one too, by the way, to which Shelley can lay little or 
 no claim. Indeed, in this latter quality I know of no 
 poet who has made the least approach to Shakes- 
 peare, except Burns, and that poet too is also notable 
 for his spontaneity, airiness, and melody ; though 
 in the second and last respect he is far below 
 Shelley, as in spontaniety and all other song- 
 essentials he is below Shakespeare ; and so on the 
 score of sheer quality alone must be put aside in a 
 consideration as to whom shall be assigned the 
 highest honour in lyric song. But if, on the other
 
 PREFA TOR Y NOTICE. 31 
 
 hand, fertility of faculty and quantity of lyric 
 product, that product comprising as it does a 
 series of pictures typical of a vaster number of the 
 various phases of human passion and character 
 than is to be found in any other songsters be con- 
 sidered — and many eminent critics appear to think 
 that these ought on such an occasion to be con- 
 sidered, — then it would be a question if Burns had 
 not as just a claim as either Shelley or Shakespeare 
 themselves to the contested laurel. This is a ques- 
 tion on which critics, in all likelihood, will at all 
 times differ, and on which the mass of readers will 
 exercise their own judgment, whatever critics may 
 think ; but of this we may rest assured, whatever the 
 prevailing opinion as to the relative position as 
 lyrists these bards ought to occupy, that just as the 
 intrinsic value of their songs will remain untouched 
 by such opinion, so just will that intrinsic value 
 cause these songs through all time to be cherished 
 as among the brightest, the purest, the richest, the 
 rarest, and if in size the smallest, in quality the 
 most precious of all the precious jewels that sparkle 
 in the crown of British song. Then to think of 
 some of the larger jewels that were placed in that 
 crown by the same three bards ! Of the addresses 
 to "The Mouse," to "The Deil," "The Mare 
 Maggie," and the "Tam O'Shanter" of the one;
 
 32 
 
 PRE FA TOR Y NO TICE. 
 
 the " Epipsychidion," the " Prometheus," the 
 "Julian and Maddalo," and the "Cenci" of the 
 other ; the " Tempest," the " Macbeth," the 
 "Romeo and Juhet," and of "Hamlet" and 
 many more of the highest value of the third ! 
 and then, as a compliment to our national vanity 
 to think that all these three, among others, were 
 of British blood ! But I must conclude, and shall 
 only add that the lyrics, the lesser poems, and the 
 more perfect of the narrative poems of Shelley are 
 contained in our present volume ; and that it is in 
 view on some fittmg future occasion to also issue 
 the dramas in the same series, 
 
 JOSEPH SKIPSEY. 
 August 1884.
 
 SbeUe^'6 poetical Morhe. 
 
 ALASTOR ; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 
 
 The poem entitled Alastor may be considered as allegorical 
 of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind. 
 It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous 
 genius, led forth, by an imagination inflamed and purified 
 through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic, to 
 the contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of the 
 fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. The magnificence 
 and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into the 
 frame of his conceptions, and affords to their modifications a 
 variety not to be exhausted. So long as it is possible for his 
 desires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, 
 he is joyous and tranquil and seli-possessed. But the period 
 arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at 
 length suddenly awakened, and thirsts for intercourse with an 
 intelligence similar to itself. He images to himself the Being 
 whom he loves. Conversant with speculations of the sublimest 
 and most perfect natures, the vision in which he embodies his 
 own imaginations unites all of wonderful or wise or beautiful 
 which the poet, the philosopher, or the lover, could depicture. 
 The intellectual faculties, the imagination, tlie functions of 
 sense, have their respective requisitions on the sympathy of 
 corresponding powers in other human beings. The Poet is 
 * O
 
 34 ALASTOR. 
 
 represented as uniting these requisitions and attaching them 
 to a single image. He seeks in vain for a prototype of his con- 
 ception. Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an 
 untimely grave. 
 
 The picture is not barren of instruction to actual men. The 
 Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the Furies of an 
 irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin. But that 
 power which strikes the luminaries of the world with sudden 
 darkness and extinction, by awakening them to too exquisite a 
 perception of its influences,' dooms to a slow and poisonous decay 
 those meaner spirits that dare to abjure its dominion. Their 
 destiny is more abject and inglorious, as their delinquency is 
 more contemptible and pernicious. They who, deluded by no 
 generous error, instigated by no sacred thirst of doubtful 
 knowledge, duped by no illustrious superstition, loving nothing 
 on this earth, and cherishing no hopes beyond, yet keep alooi 
 from sympathies with their kind, rejoicing neither in human 
 joy nor mourning with human grief ; these, and such as they, 
 have their apportioned curse. They languish, because none feel 
 ^vith them their common nature. They are morally dead. 
 They are neither friends, nor lovers, nor fathers, nor citizens of 
 the world, nor benefactors of their country. Among those who 
 attempt to exist without human sympathy, the pureWd tender- 
 hearted perish, through the intensity and passion of their search 
 after its communities when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly 
 makes itself felt. All else, selfish, blind, and torjjid, are those 
 unforseeing multitudes who constitute, together with their own, 
 the lasting misery and loneliness of the world. ITiose who love 
 not their fellow-beings live unfruitful lives, and prepare for 
 *heir old age a miserable grave. 
 
 TT^ARTH, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood ! 
 HL If our great Mother has imbued my soul 
 With aught of natural piety to feel 
 Your love, and recompense the boon vdth mine ; 
 If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, 
 "With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, 
 And solemn midnight's tingKng silentness ;
 
 ML AS TOR. 35 
 
 If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, 
 And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns 
 or starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs — 
 If Springs voluptuous pantings when she breathes 
 Her first sweet kisses — have been dear to me ; 
 If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast, 
 I consciously have injured, but still loved 
 And cherished these my kindred — then forgive 
 This boast, belovM brethren, and withdraw 
 No portion of your wonted favour now ! 
 
 Mother of this unfathomable world, 
 
 Favour my solemn song ! for I have loved 
 
 Thee ever, and thee only ; I have watched 
 
 Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps. 
 
 And my heart ever gazes on the depth 
 
 Of thy deep m3^steries. I have made my bed 
 
 In charnels and on coffins, where black Death 
 
 Keeps record of the trophies won from thee ; 
 
 Hoping to still these obstinate questionings 
 
 Of thee and thine by forcing some lone ghost, 
 
 Thy messenger, to render up the tale 
 
 Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, 
 
 When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness. 
 
 Like an inspired and desperate alchemist 
 
 Staking his very life on some dark hope. 
 
 Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks 
 
 With my most innocent love ; until strange tears, 
 
 Uniting with those breathless kisses, made 
 
 Such magic as compels the charmM night 
 
 To render up thy charge. And, though ne'er yet 
 
 Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary, 
 
 Enough from incommunicable dream, 
 
 And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought,
 
 36 ALASTOR. 
 
 Has shone within me, that serenely now 
 
 And moveless (as a long forgotten lyre 
 
 Suspended in the solitary dome 
 
 or some mysterious and deserted fane) 
 
 I wait thy breath, Great Parent ; that my strain 
 
 May modulate with murmurs of the air, 
 
 Aud motions of the forests and the sea, 
 
 And voice of living beings, and woven hjTnns 
 
 Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. 
 
 There was a Poet whose untimely tomb 
 Iv'o human hand with pious reverence reared. 
 But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds 
 Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid 
 Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness. 
 A lovely youth, no mourning maiden decked 
 "With weeping flowers or votive cypress wi-eath 
 The lone couch of his everlasting sleep : 
 Gentle, and brave, and generous, no lorn bard 
 Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh : 
 He lived, he died, he sang, in solitude. 
 Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes ; 
 And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined 
 And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes. 
 The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn, 
 Aud silence, too enamoured of that voice, 
 Locks its mute music in her rugged cell. 
 
 By solemn vision and bright silver dream 
 
 His infancy was nurtured. Every sight 
 
 And sound from the vast earth and ambient air 
 
 Sent to his heart its choicest impulses. 
 
 The fountains of divine philosophy 
 
 Fled not his thirsting lips : and all of great
 
 ALASTOR. 37 
 
 Or good or lovely which the sacred past 
 
 In truth or fable consecrates he felt 
 
 And knew. When early youth had passed, he left 
 
 His cold fireside and alienated home, 
 
 To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands. 
 
 Many a wild waste and tangled wilderness 
 
 Has lured his fearless steps ; and he has bought 
 
 With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, 
 
 His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps 
 
 He like her shadow has pursued, where'er 
 
 The red volcano over-canopies 
 
 Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice 
 
 With burning smoke ; or where bitumen lakes 
 
 On black bare pointed islets ever beat 
 
 AYith sluggish surge ; or where the secret caves, 
 
 Rugged and dark, winding among the springs 
 
 Of fire and poison inaccessible 
 
 To avarice or pride, their starry domes 
 
 Of diamond and of gold expand above 
 
 Numberless and immeasurable halls. 
 
 Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines 
 
 Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite. 
 
 Nor had that scene of ampler majesty 
 
 Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven 
 
 And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims 
 
 To love and wonder. He would linger long 
 
 In lonesome vales, making the wild his home ; 
 
 Until the doves and squirrels would partake 
 
 From his innocuous hand his bloodless food, 
 
 Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks — 
 
 And the wild antelope, that starts whenever 
 
 The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend 
 
 Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form 
 
 More graceful than her own.
 
 His wandering step, 
 Obedient to high thoughts, has visited 
 The awful ruins of the days of old : 
 Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste 
 Wliere stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers 
 Of Babylon, the eternal pyravnids, 
 Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange, 
 Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, 
 Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphinx, 
 Dark Ethopia in her desert hills 
 Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, 
 Stupendous columns, and wild images 
 Of more than man, where marble dfemons watch 
 The zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men 
 Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around. 
 He lingered, poring on memorials 
 Of the world's youth ; through the long burning day. 
 Gazed on those speechless shapes ; nor, when the moon 
 Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades, 
 Suspended he that task, but ever gazed 
 And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind 
 Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw 
 The thrilling secrets of the birth of time. 
 
 Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food, 
 
 Her daily portion, from her father's tent, 
 
 And spread her matting for his couch, and stole 
 
 From duties and repose to tend his steps : 
 
 Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe 
 
 To speak her love — and watched his nightly sleep, 
 
 Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips 
 
 Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath 
 
 Of innocent dreams arose. Then, when red morn 
 
 Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home, 
 
 Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.
 
 ALASTOR. 39 
 
 The Poet, wandering on, through Arabia, 
 
 And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, 
 
 And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down 
 
 Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, 
 
 In joy and exultation held his way ; 
 
 Till in the vale of Cachmire, far within 
 
 Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine 
 
 Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, 
 
 Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched 
 
 His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep 
 
 There came, a dream of hopes thar never yet 
 
 Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid 
 
 Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. 
 
 Her voice was like the voice of his own soul 
 
 Heard in the calm of tliought ; its music long. 
 
 Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held 
 
 His inmost sense suspended in its web 
 
 Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues. 
 
 Knowledge, and truth, and virtue were her theme. 
 
 And lofty hopes of divine liberty, 
 
 Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, 
 
 Himself a poet. Soon the solemn mood 
 
 Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame 
 
 A permeating fire. Wild numbers then 
 
 She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs 
 
 Subdued by its own pathos : her fair hands 
 
 Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp 
 
 Strange symphony, and in their branching veins 
 
 The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale. 
 
 The beating of her heart was heard to fill 
 
 The pauses of her music, and her breath 
 
 Tumultuously accorded with those fits 
 
 Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose, 
 
 As if her heart impatiently endured
 
 40 ALASTOR. 
 
 Its bursting burthen. At the sound he turned, 
 
 And saw, by the warm light of their own life, 
 
 Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil 
 
 Of woven wind ; her outspread arms now bare, 
 
 Her dark locks floating in the breath of night, 
 
 Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips 
 
 Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. 
 
 His strong heart sank and sickened with excess 
 
 Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs, and quelled 
 
 His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet 
 
 Her panting bosom — she drew back awhile ; 
 
 Then, yielding to the irresistible joy, 
 
 With frantic gesture and short breathless cry 
 
 Folded his frame in her dissolving arms. 
 
 Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night 
 
 Involved and swallowed up the vision ; sleep. 
 
 Like a dark flood suspended in its course, 
 
 Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain 
 
 Roused by the shock, he started from his trance, 
 
 The cold white light of morning, the blue moon. 
 
 Low in the west, the clear and garish hills. 
 
 The distinct valley and the vacant woods. 
 
 Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled 
 
 The hues of heaven that canopied his bower 
 
 Of yesternight ? the sounds that soothed his sleep, 
 
 The mystery and the majesty of earth, 
 
 The joy, the exultation ? His wan eyes 
 
 Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly 
 
 As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. 
 
 The Spirit of sweet Human Love has sent 
 
 A vision to the sleep of him who spurned 
 
 Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues 
 
 Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade ;
 
 A LAS TOR. 41 
 
 He overleaps the bounds. Alas ! alas ! 
 
 Were limbs, and breath, and being intertwined 
 
 Thus treacherously ? Lost, lost, for ever lost 
 
 In the wide pathless desert of dim Sleep, 
 
 That beautiful shape ! Does the dark gate of Death 
 
 Conduct to thy mysterious paradise, 
 
 Sleep ? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds, 
 
 And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake, 
 
 Lead only to a black and watery depth — 
 
 While Death's blue vault with loathliest vapours hung, 
 
 "Where every shade which the foul grave exhales 
 
 Hides its dead eye from the detested day, 
 
 Conducts, Sleep, to thy delightful realms ? 
 
 This doubt with sudden tide iiowed on his heart : 
 
 Tlie insatiate hope which it awakened stung 
 
 His brain even like despair. 
 
 While daylight held 
 The sky, the Poet kept mute conference 
 With his still soul. At night the passion came, 
 Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, 
 And shook him from his rest, and led him forth 
 Into the darkness. — As an eagle, grasped 
 In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast 
 Burn with the poison, and precipitates, 
 Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud, 
 Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight 
 O'er the wide aery wilderness : thus, driven 
 By the bright shadow of that lovely dream, 
 Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night, 
 Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, 
 Startling with careless step the moonlight snake, 
 He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight, 
 Shedding the mockery of its vital hues 
 Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on
 
 42 ALASTOR. 
 
 Till vast Aornos, seen from Petra's steep, 
 
 Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud ; 
 
 Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs 
 
 Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind 
 
 Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on, 
 
 Day after day, a weary waste of hours, 
 
 Bearing within his life the brooding care 
 
 That ever fed on its decaying flame. 
 
 And now his limbs were lean ; his scattered hair, 
 
 Sered by the autumn of strange suff'ering. 
 
 Sung dirges in the wind ; his listless hand 
 
 Hung like dead bone within its withered skin ; 
 
 Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone. 
 
 As in a furnace bufning secretly 
 
 From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers, 
 
 Who ministered with human charity 
 
 His human wants, beheld with wondering awe 
 
 Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer, 
 
 Encountering on some dizzy precipice 
 
 That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of Wind, 
 
 With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet 
 
 Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused 
 
 In his career. The infant would conceal 
 
 His troubled visage in his mother's robe 
 
 In terror at the glare of those wild eyes, 
 
 To remember their strange light in many a dream 
 
 Of after times. But youthful maidens, taught 
 
 By nature, would interpret half the woe 
 
 That wasted him, would call him with false names 
 
 Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand 
 
 At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path 
 
 Of his departure from their father's door. 
 
 At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore
 
 ALASTOR. 43 
 
 He paused, a wide and melancholy waste 
 
 Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged 
 
 His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, 
 
 Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. 
 
 It rose as he approached, and with strong wings 
 
 Scaling the upward sk^-, bent its bright course 
 
 High over the immeasurable main. 
 
 His eyes pursued its flight — "Thou hast a home, 
 
 Beautiful bird ! thou voyagest to thine home. 
 
 Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck 
 
 With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes 
 
 Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. 
 
 And what am I that I should linger here, 
 
 With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, 
 
 Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned 
 
 To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers 
 
 In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven 
 
 That echoes not my thoughts ? " A gloomy smile 
 
 Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips. 
 
 For Sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly 
 
 Its precious charge ; and sUent Death exposed. 
 
 Faithless perhaps as Sleep, a shadowy lure. 
 
 With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. 
 
 Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around : 
 There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight 
 Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. 
 A little shallop floating near the shore 
 Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. 
 It had been long abandoned, for its sides 
 Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints 
 Swayed with the undulations of the tide. 
 A restless impulse urged him to embark, 
 And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste ;
 
 44 ALASTOR. 
 
 For well he knew that mighty shadow loves 
 The slimy caverns of the populous deep. 
 
 The day was fair and sunny : sea and sky 
 
 Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind 
 
 Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. 
 
 Following his eager soul, the wanderer 
 
 Leapt in the boat ; he spread his cloak aloft 
 
 On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat, 
 
 And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea 
 
 Like a torn cloud before the hurricane. 
 
 As one that in a silver vision floats 
 
 Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds 
 
 Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly 
 
 Along the dark and ruffled waters fled 
 
 The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on, 
 
 With fierce gusts and precipitating force, 
 
 Through the white ridges of the chafed sea. 
 
 The waves arose. Higher and higher still 
 
 Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's 
 
 scourge, 
 Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp. 
 Calm, and rejoicing in the fearful war 
 Of wave running on wave, and blast on blast 
 Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven 
 With dark obliterating course, he sate : 
 As if their genii were the ministers 
 Appointed to conduct him to the light 
 Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate 
 Holding the steady helm. Evening came on ; 
 The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues 
 High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray 
 That canopied his path o'er the waste deep ;
 
 ALASTOR. 
 
 Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, 
 Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks 
 O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of Day ; 
 Night followed, clad with stars. On every side 
 ISIore horribly the multitudinous streams 
 Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war 
 Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock 
 The calm and spangled sky. The little boat 
 Still fled before the storm ; still fled, like foam 
 Down the steep cataract of a wintry river ; 
 Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave : 
 Now leaving far behind the bursting mass, 
 That fell, convulsing ocean — safely fled — 
 As if that frail and wasted human form 
 Had been an elemental god. 
 
 At midnight 
 The moon arose : and lo ! the ethereal cliflfs 
 Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone 
 Among the stars like sunlight, and around 
 Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves, 
 Bursting and eddying irresistibly. 
 Rage and resound for ever. — Who shall save ? — 
 The boat fled on — the boiling torrent drove — 
 The crags closed round with black and jagged arms 
 The shattered mountain overhung the sea ; 
 And faster still, beyond all human speed, 
 Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave, 
 The little boat was driven. A cavern there 
 Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths 
 Engulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on 
 With unrelaxing speed. ** Vision and Love ! " 
 The Poet cried aloud, ' * I have beheld 
 The path of thy departure. Sleep and Death 
 Shall not divide us long."
 
 46 ALASTOR. 
 
 The boat pursued 
 The bindings of the cavern. Daylight shone 
 At length upon tLat gloomy river's flow. 
 Now, where the fiercest war among the waves 
 Is calm, on the unfathomable stream 
 The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven, 
 Exposed those black depths to the azure sky, 
 Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell 
 Even to the base of Caucasus with sound 
 That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass 
 Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm ; 
 Stair above stair the eddying waters rose. 
 Circling immeasurably fast, and laved 
 With alternating dash the gnarled roots 
 Of mighty trees that stretched their giant arms 
 In darkness over it. I' the midst was left, 
 Reflecting yet distorting every cloud, 
 A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm. 
 Seized by the sway of the ascending stream, 
 With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round, 
 Kidge after ridge the straining boat arose ; 
 Till on the verge of the extremest curve. 
 Where through an opening of the rocky bank 
 The waters overflow, and a smooth spot 
 Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides 
 Is left, the boat paused shuddering. Shall it sink 
 Down the abyss ? shall the reverting stress 
 Of that resistless gulf embosom it ? 
 Now shall it fall ? — A wandering stream of wind, 
 Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded 
 
 sail ; 
 And lo ! with gentle motion, between banks 
 Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, 
 Beneath a woven grove, it sails ; and, hark 1
 
 ALAS TOR. 47 
 
 The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar 
 
 With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods. 
 
 Where the embowering trees recede, and leave 
 
 A little space of green expanse, the cove 
 
 Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers 
 
 For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes 
 
 Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave 
 
 Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task, 
 
 Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind, 
 
 Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay, 
 
 Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed 
 
 To deck with their bright hues his withered hair ; 
 
 But on his heart its solitude returned, 
 
 And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid 
 
 In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame, 
 
 Had yet performed its ministry : it hung 
 
 Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud 
 
 Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods 
 
 Of night close over it. 
 
 The noonday sun 
 Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass 
 Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence 
 A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves, 
 Scooped in the dark base of those aery rocks, 
 Mocking its moans respond and roar for ever. 
 The meeting boughs and implicated leaves 
 Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as, led 
 By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death, 
 He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank, 
 Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark 
 And dark the shades accumulate. The oak, 
 Expanding its immense and knotty arms. 
 Embraces the light beech. The pyramids 
 or the tall cedar, overarching, frame
 
 48 ALASTOR. 
 
 Most solemn domes within ; and far below, 
 
 Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky, 
 
 The ash and the acacia floating hang, 
 
 Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents clothed 
 
 In rainbow and in fire, the parasites, 
 
 Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around 
 
 The grey trunks ; and, as gamesome infants' eyes. 
 
 With gentle meanings and most innocent wiles. 
 
 Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love, 
 
 These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs. 
 
 Uniting their close union ; the woven leaves 
 
 Make network of the dark-blue light of day 
 
 And the night's noontide clearness, mutable 
 
 As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns 
 
 Beneath these canopies extend their swells, 
 
 Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms 
 
 Minute yet beautiful. 0"e darkest glen : 
 
 Sends from its woods of musk-rose twined with jasmine | 
 
 A soul-dissolving odour, to invite I 
 
 To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell, 
 
 Silence and Twilght here, twin sisters, keep 
 
 Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades 
 
 Like vaporous shapes half-seen. Beyond, a well, 
 
 Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave, 
 
 Images all the woven boughs above, 
 
 And each depending leaf, and every speck 
 
 Of azure sky darting between their chasms ; 
 
 Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves 
 
 Its portraiture, but some inconstant star 
 
 Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair, 
 
 Or painted bird sleeping beneath the moon, 
 
 Or gorgeous insect floating motionless. 
 
 Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings 
 
 Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.
 
 ALAS TOR. 49 
 
 Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld 
 
 Their own wan light through the reflected lines 
 
 Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth 
 
 Of that still fountain ; as the human heart, 
 
 Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, 
 
 Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard 
 
 The motion of the leaves ; the grass that spruug 
 
 Startled, and glanced, and trembled, even to feel 
 
 An unaccustomed presence : and the sound 
 
 Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs 
 
 Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed 
 
 To stand beside him — clotliod in no bright robes 
 
 Of shadowy silver or enshrining light 
 
 Borrowed from aught the visible world affords 
 
 Of grace, or majesty, or mystery ; 
 
 But — undulating woods, and silent *well, 
 
 And rippling rivulet, and evening gloom 
 
 Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming — 
 
 Held commune with him, as if he and it 
 
 "Were all that was. Only — when his regard 
 
 "Was raised by intense pensiveuess — two eyes. 
 
 Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought. 
 
 And seemed with their serene and azure smiles 
 
 To beckon him. 
 
 Obedient to the light 
 That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing 
 The windings of the delL The rivulet, 
 "Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine 
 Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell 
 Among the moss, with hollow harmony 
 Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones 
 It danced : like childhood, laughing as it went : 
 Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept, 
 Reflecting every herb and drooping bud
 
 50 ALASTOR. 
 
 That overhang its quietness. — "0 stream, 
 
 "WTiose source is inaccessibly profound, 
 
 "Wl ithtT do thy mysterious vraters tend ? 
 
 Thou imagest my lif o. Thy darksome stillness, 
 
 Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs. 
 
 Thy searchless fountain and invisible course, 
 
 Have each their type in me. And the wide sky 
 
 And measureless ocean may declare as soon 
 
 "What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud 
 
 Contains thy waters as the universe 
 
 Tell where these living thoughts reside, when, 
 
 stretched 
 Upon thy flowers, my bloodless limbs shall waste 
 r the passing wind ! " 
 
 Beside the grassy shore 
 Of the small stream he went ; he did impress 
 On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught 
 Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one 
 Roused by some joyous madness from the couch 
 Of fever, he did move ; yet not (like him) 
 Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame 
 Of his frail exultation shall be spent, 
 He must descend. With rapid steps he went 
 Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow 
 Of the wild babbling rivulet ; and now 
 The forest's solemn canopies were changed 
 For the uniform and lightsome evening sky. | 
 
 Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed \ 
 The struggling brook ; tall spires of windlestrae 
 Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope ; 
 And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pines. 
 Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots 
 The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here, 
 Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,
 
 ALASTOR. 51 
 
 The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin 
 
 And white, and, where irradiate dewy eyes 
 
 Had shone, gleam stony orbs ; so from his steps 
 
 Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade 
 
 Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds 
 
 And musical motions. Calm he still pursued 
 
 The stream, that with a larger volume now 
 
 Rolled through the labyrinthine dell, and there 
 
 Fretted a path through its descending curves 
 
 With its wintry speed. On every side now rose 
 
 Rocks which in unimaginable forms 
 
 Lifted their black und Darren pinnacles 
 
 In the light of evening, and its precipice. 
 
 Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above, 
 
 'Mid toppling stones, black gulfs, and yawning caves 
 
 Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues 
 
 To the loud stream. Lo ! where the pass expands 
 
 Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks, 
 
 And seems with its accumulated crags 
 
 To overhang the world : for wide expand, 
 
 Beneath the wan stars and descending moon, 
 
 Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, 
 
 Dim tracks and vast robed in the lustrous gloom 
 
 Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills 
 
 Mingling their flames with twilight on the verge 
 
 Of the remote horizon. The near scene. 
 
 In naked and severe simplicity, 
 
 Made contrast with the universe. A pine. 
 
 Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy 
 
 Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast 
 
 Yielding one only response at each pause. 
 
 In most familiar cadence — with the howl. 
 
 The thunder, and the hiss, of homeless streams, 
 
 Mingling its solemn song ; whilst the broad river,
 
 52 ALASTOR, 
 
 Foaming and hurrying o'er its nigged path, 
 Fell into that immeasurable void, 
 Scattering its waters to the passing- winds. 
 
 Yet the grey precipice and solemn pine 
 
 And torrent were not all — one silent nook 
 
 Was there, Even on the edge of that vast mountain, 
 
 Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks, 
 
 It overlooked in its serenity 
 
 The dark earth and the bending vault of stars. 
 
 It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile 
 
 Even in the lap of horror. . Ivy clasped 
 
 The fissured stones with its entwining arms, 
 
 And did embower, with leaves forever green 
 
 And berries dark, the smooth and even space 
 
 Of its inviolated floor ; and here 
 
 The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore 
 
 In wanton sport those bright !' eaves whose decay — 
 
 R-rd, yellow, or ethereally pale — 
 
 Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the haunt 
 
 Of every gentle wind whose breath can teach 
 
 The wilds to love tranquillity. One step, 
 
 One human step alone, has ever broken 
 
 The stillness of its solitude — one voice 
 
 Alone inspired its echoes ; — even that voice 
 
 "Which hither came, floating among the winds, 
 
 And led the loveliest among human forms 
 
 To make their wild haunts the depository 
 
 Of all the grace and beauty that endued 
 
 Its motions, render up its majesty, 
 
 Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm. 
 
 And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould, 
 
 Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss, 
 
 Commit the colours of that varving cheek.
 
 ALASTOR, S3 
 
 That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes. 
 The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured 
 A sea of lustre oij the horizon's verge 
 That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist 
 Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank 
 Wan moonlight even to fulness : not a star 
 Shone, not a sound was heard ; the very Winds, 
 Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice 
 Slept, clasped in his embrace, — storm of Death, 
 Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night ! 
 And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, stni 
 Guiding its irresistible career, 
 In thy devastating omnipotence. 
 Art king of this frail world ! from the red field 
 Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital. 
 The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed 
 Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne, 
 A mighty voice invokes thee ! Ruin calls 
 His brother Death ! A rare and regal prey 
 lie hath prepared, prowling around the world ; 
 Glutted with which, thou mayst repose, and men 
 Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms, 
 Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine 
 The unheeded tribute of a broken heart. 
 
 When on the threshold of the green recess 
 
 The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death 
 
 Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled, 
 
 Did he resign his high and holy soul 
 
 To images of the majestic past, 
 
 That paused within his passive being now. 
 
 Like winds that bear sweet music when they breathe 
 
 Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place 
 
 His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
 
 54 ALASTOR. 
 
 Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone 
 
 Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest, 
 
 Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink 
 
 Of that obscurest chasm— and thus he lay, 
 
 Surrendering to their final impulses 
 
 The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair, 
 
 The torturers, slept : no mortal pain or fear 
 
 Marred his repose ; the influxes of sense, 
 
 And his own being unalloyed by pain. 
 
 Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed 
 
 The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there 
 
 At peace, and faintly smiling. His last sight 
 
 Was the great moon, which o'er the western line 
 
 Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, 
 
 "With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed 
 
 To mingle. Now upon the jaggM hills 
 
 It rests ; and still, as th,e divided frame 
 
 Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood, 
 
 That ever beat in mystic sympathy 
 
 With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler stilL 
 
 And, when two lessening points of light alone 
 
 Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp 
 
 Of his faint respiration scarce did stir 
 
 The stagnate night — till the minutest ray 
 
 Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart. 
 
 It paused — it fluttered. But, when heaven remained 
 
 Utterly black, the murky shades involved 
 
 An image silent, cold, and motionless, 
 
 As their own voiceless earth und vacant air. 
 
 Even as a vapour, fed with golden beams 
 
 That ministered on sunlight ere the west 
 
 Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame — 
 
 No sense, no motion, no divinity — 
 
 A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
 
 ALASTOR. 55 
 
 The breath of heaven did wander — a bright stream 
 
 Once fed with many-voicM waves (a dream 
 
 Of youth which night and time have quenched for 
 
 ever), 
 Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now. 
 
 Oh for Medea's wondrous alchemy, 
 
 Which, wheresoe'er it fell, made the earth gleam 
 
 With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale 
 
 From vernal blooms fresh fragrance ! Oh that God, 
 
 Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice 
 
 Which but one living man has drained, who now, 
 
 Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels 
 
 No proud exemption in the blighting curse 
 
 He bears, over the world wanders for ever, 
 
 Lone as incarnate death ! Oh that the dream 
 
 Of dark magician in his visioned cave, 
 
 Raking the cinders of a crucible 
 
 For life and power even when his feeble hand 
 
 Shakes in its last decay, were the true law 
 
 Of this so lovely world ! — But thou art fled, 
 
 Like some frail exhalation which the dawn 
 
 Kobes in its golden beams — ah ! thou hast fled ! 
 
 The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful. 
 
 The child of grace and genius ! Heartless things 
 
 Are done and said i' the world, and many worms 
 
 And beasts and men live on, and mighty earth, 
 
 From sea and mountain, city and wilderness. 
 
 In vesper low or joyous orison, 
 
 Lifts still its solemn voice : but thou art fled — 
 
 Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes 
 
 Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee 
 
 Been purest ministers, who are, alas ! 
 
 Now thou art not ! Upon those pallid lips,
 
 So sweet eveu iu their silence, on those eyes 
 
 That image sleep in death, upon that form 
 
 Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear 
 
 Be shed — not even in thought. Nor, when those hues 
 
 Are gone, and those divinest lineaments, 
 
 "Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone 
 
 In the frail pauses of this feeble strain, 
 
 Let not high verse mourning the memory 
 
 Of that which is no more, or painting's woe, 
 
 Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery 
 
 Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence. 
 
 And all the sh^ws o' the world, are frail and vain 
 
 To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade. 
 
 It is a woe " too deep for tears " when all 
 
 Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit, 
 
 Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves 
 
 Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans. 
 
 The passionate tumult of a clinging hope — 
 
 But pale despair and cold tranquillity, 
 
 Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, 
 
 Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.
 
 EARLY POEMS. 
 
 TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 1, ^^H ! there are spirits in the air, 
 V^ And genii of the evening breeze, 
 And gentle ghosts with eyes as fair 
 
 As starbeams among twilight trees — 
 Such lovely ministers to meet 
 Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet. 
 
 2, With mountain winds, and babbling springs, 
 
 And moonlight seas, that are the voice 
 Of these inexplicable things, 
 
 Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice 
 When they did answer thee. But they 
 Cast like a worthless boon thy love away. 
 
 3, And thou hast sought in starry eyes 
 
 Beams that were never meant for thine, 
 Another's wealth — tame sacrifice 
 
 To a fond faith ! Still dost thou pine ? 
 Still dost thou hope that greeting hands, 
 Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands '
 
 58 STANZAS. 
 
 4. All ! wherefore didst thou bnild thine hope 
 
 On the false earth's inconstancy ? 
 Did thine own mind afford no scope 
 
 Of love or moving thoughts to thee — 
 That natural scenes or human smiles 
 Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles ? 
 
 5. Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled 
 
 Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted ; 
 The glory of the moon is dead ; 
 
 Night's ghosts and dreams hare now departed : 
 Thine own soul still is true to thee, 
 But changed to a foul fiend through misery. 
 
 6. This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever 
 
 Beside thee like thy shadow hangs, 
 Dream not to chase — the mad endeavour 
 
 Would scourge thee to severer pangs. 
 Be as thou art. Thy settled fate, 
 Dark as it is, all change would aggravate. 
 
 STANZAS— APRIL 1814. 
 
 AWAY ! the moor is dark beneath the moon, 
 Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam 
 of even : 
 Away ! the gathering winds will call the darkness 
 soon, 
 And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of 
 heaven.
 
 STANZAS. 59 
 
 Pause not ! the time is past ! Every voices cries 
 
 "Away ! " 
 Tempt not with one last glance thy friend's ungentle 
 mood : 
 Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat 
 
 thy stay : 
 Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude. 
 
 Away, away ! to thy sad and silent home ; 
 Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth ; 
 Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go 
 and come, 
 And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth, 
 The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around 
 thine head, [thy feet : 
 
 The blooms of dewy Spring shall gleam beneath 
 But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost 
 that binds the dead, 
 Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou and 
 peace, may meet. 
 
 The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own 
 
 repose, 
 
 For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep ; 
 
 Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows ; 
 
 Whatever moves or toils or grieves hath its appointed 
 
 sleep. [toms flee 
 
 Thou in the grave ahalt rest — yet, till the phan- 
 
 Which that house aad heath and garden made dear 
 
 to thee erewhile, 
 
 Thy remembranc* and repentance and deep musings are 
 
 not free 
 From the music of two voices, and the light of one 
 sweet smile.
 
 MUTABILITY. 
 
 1. "\ X T^E are as clouds that veil tlie midnight moon ; 
 
 VV Ho^ restlessly they speed and gleam and 
 
 quiver, 
 Streaking the darkness radiantly ! yet soon 
 Night closes round, and they are lost for ever : 
 
 2. Or like forgotten lyres whose dissonant strings 
 
 Give various response to each varjring blast, 
 To whose frail frame no second motion brings 
 One mood or modulation like the last. 
 
 3. We rest — a dream has power to poison sleep ; 
 
 "We rise — one wandering thought pollutes the day ; 
 We feel, conceive, or reason, laugh or weep, 
 Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away. 
 
 4. It is the same ! — For, be it joy or sorrow, 
 
 The path of its departure still is free ; 
 Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow ; 
 Nought may endure but Mutability. 
 
 ON DEATH. 
 
 " There is no work nor device nor knowledge nor ^sisdom in the 
 grave whither thou goest."— Ecclesiastes. 
 
 1. 'T^HE pale, the cold, and the moony smile 
 
 X Which the meteor beam of a starless night 
 Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle 
 
 Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light
 
 ON DEATH. 6i 
 
 Is the flame of life so fickle and wan 
 
 That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. 
 
 man ! hold thee on in courage of soul 
 Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way ; 
 
 And the billows of cloud that around thee roll 
 Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, 
 
 Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free 
 
 To the universe of destiny. 
 
 This world is the nurse of all we know, 
 This world is the mother of all we feel ; 
 
 And the coming of death is a fearful blow 
 
 To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel, 
 
 "When all that we know or feel or see 
 
 Shall pass like an unreal mystery. 
 
 The secret things of the grave are there 
 Where all but this frame must surely be, 
 
 Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear 
 No longer will live to hear or to see 
 
 All that is great and all that is strange 
 
 In the boundless realm of unending change. 
 
 Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death ? 
 
 Who lifteth the veil of what is to come ? 
 Who painteth the shadows that are beneath 
 
 The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb ? 
 Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be 
 With the fears and the love for that which we see ? 
 
 ^^=^
 
 A SUMMEK-EYEXING CHURCHYARD, LECH- 
 LADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 
 
 1. ^T^HE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere 
 
 X Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray, 
 And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair 
 In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day : 
 Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, 
 Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. 
 
 2. They breatke their spells towards the departing day. 
 
 Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea ; 
 Light, sound, and motion, own the potent sway, 
 Responding to the charm with its own mystery. 
 The winds are still, or the dry church -tower grass 
 Knows not their gentle motiono as they pass. 
 
 3. Thou too, aerial pile, whose pinnacles 
 
 Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, 
 Obey'st in silence their sweet solemn spells, 
 Glothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, 
 Around whose lessening and invisible height 
 Gather amons the stars the clouds of nicrht. 
 
 [. The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres : 
 
 And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, | 
 
 Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, 
 
 Breathed from their wormy beds all living things . 
 
 around ; I 
 
 And, mingling with the still night and mute sky, j 
 
 Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.
 
 TO WORDSWORTH. 63 
 
 5. Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild 
 And terrorless as the sarenest night. 
 Here could I hope, like some inquiring child 
 Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human 
 sight 
 Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep 
 That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. 
 
 TO WORDSWORTH. 
 
 POET of Nature, thou hast wept to know 
 That things depart which never may return ; 
 Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, 
 
 Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. 
 These common woes I feel. One loss is mine, 
 
 Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore. 
 Thou wart as a lone star whose light did shine 
 
 On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar : 
 Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood 
 Above the blind and battling multitude : 
 In honoured poverty thy voice did weave 
 
 Songs consecrate to truth and liberty. 
 Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, 
 
 Thus, having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. 
 
 <»<^^
 
 64 LINES. 
 
 FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FAIJL 
 OF BONAPARTE. 
 
 I HATED thee, fallen Tyrant ! I did groan 
 To think that a most unambitious slave, 
 
 Like thou, should dance and revel on the grave 
 Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne 
 \Yhere it had stood even now : thou didst prefer 
 
 A frail and bloody pomp, which Time has swept 
 In fragments towards oblivion. Massacre, 
 
 For this, I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept, 
 Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust, 
 
 And stifled thee their minister. I know 
 Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, 
 
 That Virtue owns a more eternal foe 
 Then Force or Fraud ; old Custom, Legal Crime, 
 And bloody Faith, the foulest birth of Time. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 1. 'nr^HE cold earth slept below ; 
 
 X Above, the cold sky shone ; 
 And all around, 
 With a chilling sound, 
 From caves of ice and fields of snow 
 The breath of night like death did flow 
 Beneath the sinking moon. 
 
 2. The wintry hedge was black ; 
 The green grass was not seen ;
 
 LINES. 65 
 
 The birds did rest 
 On the bare thorn's breast, 
 Whose roots, beside the pathway track, 
 Had bound their folds o'er many a crack 
 "Which the frost had made between. 
 
 3. Thine eyes glowed in the glare 
 Of the moon's dying light. 
 
 As a fen-fire's beam 
 On a sluggish stream 
 Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there; 
 And it yellowed the strings of thy tangled hair. 
 That shook in the wind of night. 
 
 4. The moon made thy lips pale, beloved ; 
 The wind made th}' bosom chill ; 
 
 The night did shed 
 
 On thy dear head 
 Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie 
 Wh^re the bitter breath of the naked sky 
 Might visit thee at will. 
 
 November 1815. 
 
 • B
 
 POEMS WRITTEN IN 1816. 
 
 THE SUKSET. 
 
 THERE late was one within whose subtle being, 
 As light and wind within some delicate cloud 
 That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky, 
 Genius and death contended. None may know 
 The sweetness of the joy which made his breath 
 Fail like the trances of the summer air, 
 When, with the lady of his love, who then 
 First knew the unreserve of mingled being, 
 He walked along the pathway of a field, 
 Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er, 
 But to the west was open to the sky. 
 There now the sun had sunk ; but lines of gold 
 Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points 
 01 the far level grass and nodding flowers, 
 And the old dandelion's hoary beard. 
 And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay 
 On the brown massy woods — and in the east 
 The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose 
 Between the black trunks of the crowded trees, 
 While the faint stars were gathering overhead. — 
 " Is it not strange, Isabel," said the youth,
 
 THE SUNSET, 67 
 
 ' ' I never saw the sun ? We will walk here 
 To-morrow ; thou shalt look on it with me." 
 
 That night the youth and lady mingled lay 
 
 In love and sleep — but when the morning came 
 
 The lady found her lover dead and cold. 
 
 Let none believe that God in mercy gave 
 
 That stroke. The lady died not nor grew wild, 
 
 But year by year lived on — in truth I think 
 
 Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles, 
 
 And that she did not die but lived to tend 
 
 Her aged father, were a kind of madness, 
 
 If madness 'tis to be unlike the world. 
 
 For but to see her were to read the tale 
 
 "Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts 
 
 Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief — 
 
 Her eyelashes were torn away with tears, 
 
 Her lips and cheeks were like things dead — so pale ; 
 
 Her hands were thin, and through their wandering 
 
 veins 
 And weak articulations might be seen 
 Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self 
 Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day, 
 Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee ! 
 
 " Inheritor of more than earth can give, 
 Passionless calm and silence unreproved — 
 Whether the dead find — oh ! not sleep — but rest, 
 And are the uncomplaining things they seem, 
 Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love ; 
 Oh ! that, like thine, mine epitaph were — Peace ! " 
 This was the only moan she ever made. 
 
 BishopgcUe, Spring 1816.
 
 68 lATELI^ECTUAL BEA UTY. 
 
 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 
 
 1. 'T'^HE awful shadow of some unseen Power 
 
 X Floats, though unseen, among us ; visiting 
 This various world with as inconstant wing 
 As summer winds that creep from flower to flower. 
 Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain 
 shov^er, 
 
 It visits with inconstant glance 
 Each human heart and countenance ; 
 Like hues and harmonies of evening, 
 Like clouds in starlight widely spread, 
 Like memory of music fled, 
 Like aught that for its grace may be 
 Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. 
 
 2. Spirit of Beaitty, that dost consecrate 
 
 With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon 
 Of human thought or form, where art thou gone ? 
 Why dost thou pass away, and leave our state. 
 This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate — 
 Ask why the sunlight not for ever 
 Weaves rainbows o er yon mountain river ; 
 Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown ; 
 Why fear, and dream, and death, and birth 
 Cast on the daylight of this earth 
 Such gloom ; why man has such a scope 
 For love and hate, despondency and hope ! 
 
 3. No voice from some sublimer world hath ever 
 
 To sage or poet these responses given : 
 Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, 
 Remain the records of their vain endeavour ;
 
 INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 69 
 
 Frail spells, whose uttered charm might not avail to 
 From all we hear and all we see, [sever. 
 
 Doubt, chance, and mutability. 
 Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, 
 Or music by the night- wind sent . 
 Through strings of some still instrument, 
 Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 
 
 • Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. 
 
 1. Love, hope, and self-esteem, like clouds depart 
 And come for some uncertain moments lent. 
 Man were immortal and omnipotent, 
 Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art. 
 Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. 
 . Thou messenger of sympathies 
 That wax and wane in lovers' eyes ! 
 Thou that to human thought art nourishment, 
 Like darkrieds to a dying name 1 
 Depart not as thy shadow came : 
 Depart not, lest the grave should be, 
 Like life and fear, a dark reality \ 
 
 5. "While yet a boy, I sought for ghosts, and sppil 
 
 Through many a listening chamber, cave, aiid rnin, 
 And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 
 Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 
 I called on poisonous names with which our youth is? .' jd. 
 I was not heard, I saw them not ; 
 When musing deeply on the lot 
 Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing 
 AU vital things that wake to br'^^g 
 News of birds and blossoming, 
 Sudden thy shadow fell on me — 
 I shrieked, and clasped my •" '^^ '" "-"'""
 
 70 INTELLECTUAZ BE A UTY. 
 
 6. I vowed tliat I would dedicate my powers 
 
 To thee and thine : have I not kept the vow ? 
 "With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now 
 I called the phantoms of a thousands hours 
 Each from his voiceless grave. They have in visione< 
 bowers 
 Of studious zeal or love's delight 
 Outmatched with me the envious night : 
 They know tliat never joy illumed my brow, 
 
 Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
 This world from its dark slavery ; 
 That thou, awful Loveliness, 
 "Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. 
 
 7. The day becomes more solemn and serene 
 
 When noon is past ; there is a harmony 
 In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 
 Which through the summer is not heard nor seen. 
 As if it could not be, as if it had not been. 
 
 Thus let thy power, which like the truth 
 Of Nature on my passive youth 
 Descended, to my onward life supply 
 Its calm — to one who worships thee, 
 And every form containing thee, 
 Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind 
 To fear himself, and love all humankind. 
 
 **+i
 
 MONT BLANC. ^ 71 
 
 MONT BLANC. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. 
 
 THE everlasting universe of Things 
 Flows through the Mind, and rolls its rapid 
 waves, 
 Now dark — now glittering — now reflecting 
 gloom — 
 Now lending splendour, where from secret springs 
 Tlie source of human thought its tribute brings 
 Of waters — with a sound but half its own, 
 Such as a feeble brook will oft assume 
 In the wild woods, dinoiig the iuoantains lone, 
 Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, 
 Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river 
 Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves. 
 
 Thus thou, Ravine of Arve — dark, deep Ravine — 
 Thou man5^-coloured many-voiced vale, 
 Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail 
 Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams ; awful scene, 
 Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down 
 From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret '^irone, 
 Bursting through these dark mountains like the fiame 
 Of lightning through tlie tempest ; thou dost lie— 
 Thy giaut brood of pines around thee clinging, 
 Children of elder time, in whose devotion 
 The chainless winds still come and ever came 
 
 To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging 
 To hear, an old and solemn harmony r 
 
 Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep 
 Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil
 
 72 MONT BLANC. 
 
 Robes some unsculptured image ; the stranga 
 sleep 
 Which, when the voices of the desert fail, 
 Wraps all in its own deep eternity ; 
 
 Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion, 
 A loud lone sound no other sound can tame. 
 
 Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, 
 Thou art the path of that unresting sound, 
 Dizzy Ravine ! And, when I gaze on thee, 
 
 I seem, as in a trance sublime and strange, 
 To muse on my own separate fantasy. 
 My own, my human mind, which passively 
 Now renders and receives fast influencings, 
 Holding an unremitting interchange 
 With the clear universe of things around ; 
 
 One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings 
 Now float above thy darkness, and now rest 
 Where that or tlicu :irt no unbidden guest, 
 In the still cave of the witch Poesy — 
 Seeking, among the shadows that pass by, 
 Ghosts of all things that are — some shade of thee, 
 Some phantom, some faint image. Till the breast 
 From which they fled recalls them, thou art there ! 
 
 Some say that gleams of a remoter world 
 Visit the soul in sleep— that death is slumber, 
 And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber 
 Of those who wake rnd live. I look on high ; 
 
 Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled 
 The veil of life and death ? Or do I lie 
 
 In dream, and does th 3 mightier world of sleep 
 Spread far around and inaccessibly 
 Its circles ? for the very spirit faie, 
 
 Driven like a homeless cloud from step to steep
 
 MONT BLANC, 73 
 
 That vanishes among the viewless gales ! 
 Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, 
 
 Mont Blanc appears — still, snowy, and serene. 
 Its subject mountains their unearthly forms 
 
 Pile around it, ice and rock ; broad vales between 
 Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, 
 
 Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread 
 And wind among the accumulated steeps ; 
 A desert peopled by the storms alone, 
 Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, 
 And the wolf tracks her there. How hideously 
 Its shapes are heaped around — rude, bare, and high, 
 
 Ghastly, and scared, and riven ! — Is this the scene 
 
 Where the old Earthquake-dsemon taught her young 
 Ruin ? were these their toys ? or did a sea 
 Of fire envelop once this silent snow ? 
 None can reply — all seems eternal now. 
 
 The wilderiie^o -^^s •-, ^••jstcrious .....v-je 
 
 Which teaches awful doubt — or faith so mild, 
 So solemn, so serene, that Man may be, 
 ' But for such faith, with Nature reconciled. 
 
 Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal 
 Large codes of fraud and woe ; not understood 
 By all, but which the wise, and great, and good 
 
 Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. 
 
 The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, 
 Ocean, and all the living things that dwell 
 Within the dsedai earth, lightning and rain, 
 Earthquake and fiery fl.ood and hurricane, 
 
 The torpor of the year when feeble dreams 
 
 Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep 
 
 Holds every future leaf and flower, the bound 
 
 With which from that d^-ftstf^d trance they leap,
 
 74 MONT BLANl 
 
 The works and ways of man, their death and 
 birth, 
 And that of him, and all that his may be, 
 All things that move and breathe, with toil and 
 sound 
 Are born and die, revolve, subside, and swell. 
 Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, 
 Remote, serene, and inaccessible : 
 
 And tills the naked countenance of earth 
 On which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains. 
 Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep, 
 
 Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far 
 fountains, 
 Slow rolling on ; there, many a precipice 
 
 Frosr and the sun in scoiu of mortal power 
 Have piled — dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, 
 A city of death, distinct with many a tower 
 And wall impregnable of beaming ice. 
 Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin, 
 Is there, that from the boundary of the skies 
 
 Rolls its perpetual stream ; vast pines are strewing 
 Its destined path, or in the mangled soil 
 
 Branchless and shattered stand ; the rocks, drawn 
 
 dowTi 
 From yon remotest waste, have overthrown 
 The limits of the dead and living world, 
 Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place 
 Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil ; 
 Their food and their retreat for ever gone, 
 So much of life and joy is lost. The race 
 Of man flies far in dread ; his work and dwelling 
 Vanish like smoke before the tempest's stieam. 
 
 And their place is not known. Below, vast caves 
 Shine in the nisMng torrents' restless gleam,
 
 MONT BLANC. 75 
 
 Which, from those secret chasms in tumult welling, 
 Meet in the Vale ; and one majestic River, 
 The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever 
 
 Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves, 
 Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air. 
 
 5. Mont Blanc yet gleams on high : the power is there, 
 The still and solemn power, of many sights 
 
 And many sounds, and much of life and death. 
 In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, 
 In the lone glare of day, the snows descend 
 Upon that Mountain ; none beholds them there, 
 Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, 
 
 Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds 
 contend 
 Silently there, and heap the snow, with breath 
 Rapid and strong, but silently. Its home 
 The voiceless liglitning in these solitudes 
 Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods 
 Over the snow. The secret Strength of Things, 
 Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome 
 Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee. 
 And what were thou and earth and stars and sea.. 
 
 If to the human mind's imaginings 
 Silence and solitude were vacancy ? 
 
 23r<^ June 1816.
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 A CONVERSATION. 
 
 Count Mabdalo is a Venetian nobleman of ancient family 
 and of great fortune, who, without mixing much in the society 
 of his coiiutrymen, resides chiefly at his ma5,aiincent palace in 
 that city. He is a person of the most consummate genius, and 
 capable) if he would direct his energies to such an end,^of 
 becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. But it is his 
 we^ikuess to be proud: he derives, f'"-" •^ .■, i r i.won of his 
 own extraordinary mind with the cV aat sur- 
 
 rr.n '- Hf hiir;. ".r. 'r.'r. .r.r- arr.o'.-eniior ■' j.v- -rn 
 
 life. Hio puisijua anci ui& powers ...^ -..-,..^.^......._.^. greater 
 
 than those of other men ; and, instead o£ the latter having been 
 employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent each 
 other strength. His ambition preys upon itself, for want of 
 objects which it can consider worthy of exertion. I say that 
 Maddalo is proud, because I can and no other word to express 
 the concentrated and impatient feelings which consume him ; 
 but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he seems to 
 trample, for in social lif»^ no hr'nan being car bf more gentle, 
 patient, and unassmnin^' than -M^.ddalo. He i"^ cheerful, frank, 
 and v/itty. His more serio^js conversation is a sort of intoxi- 
 cation : men are held by it as i)y a spell. He has travelled 
 much, and tbp^'^ i ■■"^ ■ ^v vosi.^iijie charm in his relation of his 
 adventures 1 s. 
 
 Julia n is a ' i family ; passionately a ttached 
 
 to those phii . - ^ . .. - '' ■'*' ■^-a-vt the power of man 
 
 over his own mmd, ami iveine^ts of which, 
 
 by the extinction of cert: ons, human society 
 
 may yet be susceptible. ..v....... ... ..^-..iing the evil in the 
 
 world, he is for ever specuiating av\r good may be made 
 superior. He is a complete in6clel, and a scoffer -at all things
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 77 
 
 reputed holy ; and Maddalo takes a wicked pleasure in drawing 
 out his taunts against rehgioa. "What Macldalo shinks on these 
 matters is not exactly knowu. Julian, in spite of his heterodox 
 opinions, is conjectured by his friends to possess sonae good 
 qualities. How far this is possible the pious reader will deter- 
 mine. Julian is rather serious. 
 
 Of the Maniac I can give no information. He seems, by his 
 own account, to have been disappointed in love. He was 
 evidently a ven^ cultivated and amiable person when in his 
 right senses. His story, told at length, might be like many 
 other stories of the same kind : the unconnected exclamations 
 of his agony will perhaps be found a sufficient comment for the 
 text of everj heart. 
 
 ' The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme, 
 The goats with the green leaves of budding Spring, 
 Are saturated not— nor Love with tears."— Virgil's Gallus. 
 
 I RODE one evening with Count Maddalo 
 Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow 
 Of Adria towards Venice. A bare strand 
 Of hillocks heaped from ever-shifting sand, 
 Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds 
 Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds, 
 Is this ; an uninhabited sea-side, 
 Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried, 
 Abandons. And n© other object breaks 
 The waste, but one dwarf tree, and some few stakes 
 Broken and unrepaired ; and the tide makes 
 A narrow space of level sand thereon, 
 Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down. 
 This ride was my delight. 1 love all waste 
 And solitary places ; where we taste 
 The pieasui e of believing what we see 
 Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be : 
 And su(*h was this wide ocean, and this shore 
 More barren than its billows. And, yet more
 
 78 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Than all, with a remembered friend I love 
 To ride as then I rode — for the winds drove 
 The living spray along the sunny air 
 Into our faces ; the blue heavens were bare, 
 Stripped to their depths by the awakening north ; 
 And from the waves sound like delight broke forth, 
 Harmonising with solitude, and sent 
 Into our hearts aerial merriment. 
 
 So, as we rode, we talked ; and the swift thought, 
 
 Winging itself with laughter, lingered not, 
 
 But flew from brain to brain. Such glee was ours. 
 
 Charged with light memories of remembered hours, 
 
 None slow enough for sadness ; till we came 
 
 Homeward, which always makes the spirit tame. 
 
 This day had been cheerful, but cold ; and now 
 
 The sun was sinking, and the wind also. 
 
 Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may be 
 
 Talk interrupted with such raillery 
 
 As mocks itself, because it cannot scorn 
 
 The thoughts it would extinguish — 'twas forlorn, 
 
 Yet pleasing ; such as once, so poets tell, 
 
 The devils held within the vales of hell, 
 
 Concerning God, freewill, and destiny. 
 
 Of all that Earth has been, or yet may be ; 
 
 All that vain men imagine or believe, 
 
 Or hope can paint, or suff"ering can achieve, 
 
 "We descanted ; and I (for ever still 
 
 Is it not wise to make the best of ill ?) 
 
 Argued against despondency ; but pride 
 
 ]\Iade my companion take the darker side. 
 
 The sense that he was greater than his kind 
 
 Had struck, methink, his eagle spirit blind 
 
 By gazing on its own exceeding light.
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 79 
 
 Meanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight 
 
 Over the horizon of the mountains. Oh 1 
 
 How beautiful is sunset, when the glow 
 
 Of heaven descends upon a land like thee, 
 
 Thou paradise of exiles, Italy, 
 
 Thy mountains, seas, and vineyards, and the towers 
 
 Of cities they encircle ! It was ours 
 
 To stand on thee, beholding it : and then. 
 
 Just where we had dismounted, the Count's men 
 
 Were waiting for us with the gondola. 
 
 As those who pause on some delightful way, 
 
 Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood 
 
 Looking upon the evening, and the flood 
 
 Which lay between the city and the shore, 
 
 Paved with the image of the sky. The hoar 
 
 And aery Alps, towards the north, appeared 
 
 Through mist — an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared 
 
 Between the east and west ; and half the sky 
 
 Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry, 
 
 Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew 
 
 Down the steep west into a wondrous hue 
 
 Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent 
 
 Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent 
 
 Among the many-folded hills. They were 
 
 Those famous Euganean hills, which bear. 
 
 As seen from Lido through the harbour piles, 
 
 The likeness of a clump of peaked isles. 
 
 And then, as if the earth and sea had been 
 
 Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen 
 
 Those mountains towering, as from waves of flame. 
 
 Around the vaporous sun ; from which there came 
 
 The inmost purple spirit of light, and made 
 
 Their very peaks transparent. 
 
 "Ere it fade."
 
 8o JULIAN AND M/i.juj,..u. 
 
 Said my companion, " I will show you soon 
 A better station." 
 
 So, o'er the lagune 
 We glided ; and from that funereal bark 
 I leaned, and saw the city, and could mark 
 How from their many isles, in evening's gleam, 
 Its temples and its palaces did seem 
 Like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven. 
 
 I was about to speak, when 
 
 ' ' We are even 
 Now at the point I meant," said Maddalo — 
 And bade the goiiJolieri cease to row. 
 " Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well 
 If you hear not a deep and heavy bell." 
 
 I looked, and saw between us and the sun 
 A building on an island, such an one 
 As age to age might add, for uses vile — 
 A windowless, deformed, and dreary pile ; 
 And on the top an open tower, where hung 
 A bell which in the radiance swayed and swung— 
 "We could just hear it;-, boarse and iron tongue ; 
 The broad sun sank behind it, and it tolled 
 In strong and black relief. 
 
 • ' What we behold 
 ShaU be the madhouse and its belfry tower," 
 Said Maddalo ; ' * and ever at this hour 
 Those who may cross the water hear that bell, 
 Which calls the maniacs, each one from his cell, 
 To vespers." 
 
 ' * As much skill as need to pray 
 In thanks or hope for their dark lot have they 
 To their stem maker," I replied, 
 
 " Oho !
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 8i 
 
 You talk as in years past," said Maddalo. 
 
 " Tis strange men change not. You were ever still 
 
 Among Christ's flock a perilous infidel, 
 
 A wolf for the meek lambs. If you can't swim, 
 
 Beware of providence ! " I looked on him, 
 
 But the gay smile had faded from his eye. 
 
 "And such," he cried, " is our mortality ! 
 
 And this must be the emblem and the sign 
 
 Of what should be eternal and divine ; 
 
 And, like that black and dreary bell, tl>e soul, 
 
 Hung in an heaven-illumined tower, must toll 
 
 Our thoughts and our desires to meet below 
 
 Round the rent heart, and pray — as madmen do ; 
 
 For what ? they know not, till the night of death, 
 
 As sunset that strange vision, severeth 
 
 Our memory from itself, and us from all 
 
 We sought and yet were baflSed." 
 
 I recall 
 The sense of what he said, although I mar 
 The force of his expressions. The broad staj 
 Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill ; 
 And the black bell became invisible ; 
 And the red tower looked grey ; and, all between, 
 The churches, ships, and palaces, were seen 
 Huddled in gloom ; into the purple sea 
 The orange hues of heaven sunk silently. 
 We hardly spoke, and soon the gondola 
 Conveyed me to my lodging by the way. 
 
 The following morn was rainy, cold, and dim. 
 Ere Maddalo arose, I called on him ; 
 And, whilst I waited, with his child I played. 
 A lovelier toy sweet ITature never made ; 
 A serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being ; 
 * F
 
 Graceful without design, and unforeseeing ; 
 With eyes — oh speak not of her eyes ! which seem 
 Twin mirrors of Italian heaven, yet gleam 
 With such deep meaning as we never see 
 But in the human countenance. With me 
 She was a special favourite : I had nursed 
 Her fine and feeble limbs when she came first 
 To this bleak world ; and she yet seemed to know 
 On second sight her ancient playfellow, 
 Less changed than she was by six mouths or so. 
 For, after her first shyness was worn out, 
 We sate there, rolling billiard halls about — 
 When the Count entered. 
 
 Salutations passed : 
 " The words you spoke last night might well have cast 
 A darkness on my spirit. If man be 
 The passive thing you say, I should not see 
 Much harm in the religions and old saws 
 (Though / may never own such leaden laws) 
 Which break a teachless nature to the yoke : 
 Mine is another faith." Thus much I spoke, 
 And, noting he replied not, adiled — "See 
 Tliis lovely child ; blithe, innocent, and free ; 
 She spends a happy time, with little care : 
 While we to such sick thoughts subjected are 
 As came on you last night. It is our will 
 Which thus enchains us to permitted ill. 
 We might be otherwise ; we might be all 
 We dream of^happy, high, majestical. 
 Where is the beauty, love, and truth, we seek, 
 But in our minds ? And, if we were not weak, 
 Should we be less in deed than in desire ? " 
 
 "Ay, i/"we were not weak — and we aspire,
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 83 
 
 How vainly ! to be strong," said Maddalo ; 
 " You talk Utopia." 
 
 " It remains to know, " 
 I then rejoined ; " and those who try may find 
 How strong the chains are which our spirit bind ; 
 Brittle perchance as straw. We are assured 
 Much may be conquered, much may be endured, 
 Of what degrades and crushes us. We know 
 That we have power over ourselves to do 
 And suffer — what, we know not till we try, 
 But something nobler than to live and die. 
 So taught the kings of old philosophy 
 Who reigned before religion made men blind ; 
 And those who suffer with their suffering kind 
 Yet feel this faith Religion." 
 
 "My dear friend," 
 Said Maddalo, *' my judgment will not bend 
 To your opinion, though I think you might 
 Make such a system refutation-tight. 
 As far as words go. I knew one like you, 
 Who to this city came some months ago. 
 With whom I argued in this sort — and he 
 Is now gone mad — and so he answered me, 
 Poor fellow ! — But, if you would like to go. 
 We'll visit him, and his wild talk will show 
 How vain are such aspirifig theories. " 
 
 •* I hope to prove the induction otherwise, 
 A.nd that a want of that true theory still 
 Which seeks a soul of goodness in things ill, 
 Or in himself or others, has thus bowed 
 His being. There are some by nature proud 
 Who, patient in all else, demand but this — 
 To love and be beloved with gentleness :
 
 84 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 And, being scorned, what wonder if they die 
 Some living death I This is not destiny, 
 But man's own wilful ill." 
 
 As this I spoke, 
 Servants announced the gondola, and we 
 Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea 
 Sailed to the island where the Madhouse stands. 
 We disembarked. The clap of tortured hands, 
 Fierce yells, and bowlings, and lamentings keen, 
 And. laughter where complaint had merrier been. 
 Accosted us. "We climbed the oozy stairs 
 Into an old courtyard. I heard on high 
 Then fragments of most touching melody ; 
 But, looking up, saw not the sieger there. 
 Through the black bars, in the tempestuous air, 
 I saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing. 
 Long tangled locks, flung wildly forth and flowing, 
 Of those who on a sudden were beguiled 
 Into strange silence, and looked forth and smiled, 
 Hearing sweet sounds. Then I : 
 
 *' Methinks there were 
 A cure of these with patience and kind care, 
 If music can thus move. But what is he 
 Whom we seek here ? " 
 
 ' '. Of his sad history 
 I know but this," said Maddalo. " He came 
 To "Venice a dejected man, and fame 
 Said he was wealthy, or he had been so : 
 Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe. 
 But he was ever talking in such sort 
 As you do — but more sadly ; he seemed hurt. 
 Even as a man with his peculiar wrong. 
 To hear but of the oppression of the strong, 
 Or those absurd deceits (I think with you
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 85 
 
 In some respects, you know) which carry through 
 
 The excellent impostors of this earth, 
 
 When they outface detection. He had worth, 
 
 Poor fellow, but a humourist in his way." 
 
 ** Alas ! vhat drove him mad ? " 
 
 ' * I cannot say : 
 A lady came with him from France ; and, when 
 She left him and returned, he wandered then 
 About yon lonely isles of desert sand, 
 Till he grew wild. He had no cash or land 
 Remaining. The police had brought him heift: 
 Some fancy took him, and he would not bear 
 Removal. So I fitted up for him 
 Those rooms beside the sea, to please his whim ; 
 And sent him busts, and books, and urns for flowers, 
 Which had adorned his life in happier hours. 
 And instruments of music. You may guess 
 A stranger could do little more, or less, 
 For one so gentle and unfortunate : 
 And those are his sweet strains which charm the weight 
 From madmen's chains, and make this hell appear 
 A heaven of sacred silence hushed to hear." 
 
 " Nay, this was kind of you — he had no claim, 
 As the world says." 
 
 ' ' None but the very same 
 Which I on all mankind, were I, as he, 
 Fallen to such deep reverse. His melody 
 Is interrupted now : we hear the din 
 Of madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin, 
 Let us now visit him : after this strain, 
 He ever communes with himself again, 
 And sees and hears not any." 
 
 Having said
 
 86 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 These words, we called the keeper, and lie led 
 
 To an apartment opening on the sea. 
 
 There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully 
 
 Near a piano, his pale fingers twined 
 
 One with the other ; and the ooze and wind 
 
 Rushed through an open casement, and did sway 
 
 His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray. 
 
 His head was leaning on a music-book, 
 
 And he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook. 
 
 His lips were pressed against a folded leaf, 
 
 In hue too beautiful for health ; and grief 
 
 Smiled in their motions as they lay apart, 
 
 As one who wrought from his own fervid heart 
 
 The eloquence of passion. Soon he raised 
 
 His sad meek face, and eyes lustrous and glazed, 
 
 And spoke — sometimes as one who wrote, and thought 
 
 His words might move some heart that heeded not, 
 
 If sent to distant lands ; and then as one 
 
 Reproaching deeds never to be undone. 
 
 With wondering self-compassion. Then his speech 
 
 Was lost in grief, and then his words came each 
 
 Unmodulated and expressionless — 
 
 But that from one jarred accent you might guess 
 
 It was despair made them so uniform. 
 
 And all the while the loud and gusty storm 
 
 Hissed through the window ; and we stood behind, 
 
 Stealing his accents from the envious wind, 
 
 Unseen. I yet remember what he said 
 
 Distinctly, such impression his words made. 
 
 *' Month after month," he cried, " to bear this load ! 
 And, as a jade urged by the whip and goad, 
 To drag life on — which like a heavy chain 
 Lengthens behind with many a link of pain 1
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 87 3 
 
 And not to speak my grief — Oh not to dare 
 To give a human voice to my despair ! 
 But live, and move, and, wratched thing ! smile on, 
 As if I never went aside to groan — 
 A (id wear this mask of falsehood even to those 
 Who are most dear ; not for my own repose — 
 Alas ! no scorn or pain or hate could be 
 So heavy as that falsehood is to me — 
 But that I cannot bear more altered face? 
 Than needs must be, more changed and cold em- 
 braces, 
 More misery, disappointment, and mistrust. 
 To own me for their father. "Would the dust 
 Were covered in upon my body now — 
 That the life ceased to toil within my brow ! 
 And then these thoughts would at the last be fled : [ 
 
 Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead. \ 
 
 "What power delights to torture us ? I know f 
 
 That to myself I do not wholly owe \ 
 
 What now I suffer, though in part I may. 5 
 
 Alas 1 none strewed fresh flowers upon the way i 
 
 Where, wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain, | 
 
 My shadow, which will leave me not again. 
 
 If I have erred, there was no joy in error, 
 
 But pain, and insult, and unrest, and terror. 
 
 I have not, as some do, bought penitence 
 
 With pleasure and a dark yet sweet ofi"ence ; 
 
 For then, if love and tenderness and truth 
 
 Had overlived hope's momentary youth, 
 
 My creed should have redeemed me from repenting. 
 
 But loathM scorn and outrage unrelenting 
 
 Met love, excited by far other seeming, 
 
 Until the end was gained : as one from dreaming
 
 88 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state 
 Such as it is ! — 
 
 " thou, my spirit's mate ! 
 Who, for thou art compassionate and wise; 
 "Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes 
 If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see, 
 My secret groans must be unheard by thee ; 
 Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood, to know 
 Thy lost friend's incommunicable woe. 
 Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed 
 In friendship, let me net that name degrade 
 By placing on your hearts the secret load 
 Which crushes mine to dust. There is one road 
 To peace — and that is truth, which follow ye : 
 Love sometimes leads astray to misery. 
 Yet think not, though subdued (and I may well 
 Say that I am subdued), that the full hell 
 Within mo would infect the untainted breast 
 Of sacred nature with its own unrest ; 
 As some perverted beings think to find 
 In scorn or hate a medicine for the mind 
 Which scorn or hate hath wounded — oh how vain ! 
 The dagger heals not, but may rend again. 
 Believe that I am ever still the same 
 In creed as in resolve ; and whaT; may tame 
 ;My heart must leave the understanding free. 
 Or all would sink under this agony. 
 Nor dream that I will join the vulgar lie. 
 Or with my silence sanction tyranny ; 
 Or seek a moment's shelter from my pain 
 In any madness which the world calls gain, 
 Ambition, or revenge, or thoughts as stern 
 As those which make me what I am ; or turn 
 To avarice or misanthropy or lust.
 
 Heap on me soon, grave, thy welcome dust ! 
 Till then the dungeon may demanc its prey ; 
 And Poverty and Shame may meet and say, 
 Halting beside me in the public way, 
 • That love-devoted youth is ours : let's sit 
 Beside him : he may live some six months yet.' 
 Or the red scaffold, as our country bends, 
 May ask some willing victim ; or ye, friends. 
 May fall under some sorrow, which this heart 
 Or hand may share, or vanquish, or avert. 
 I am prepared — in truth, with no proud joy — 
 To do or sufter aught ; as when, a boy, 
 I did devote to justice and to love 
 My nature, worthless now. 
 
 *' I must remove 
 A veil from my pent mind. 'Tis torn aside ! 
 Oh, pallid as Death's dedicated bride. 
 Thou mockery which art sitting hy my side. 
 Am I not wan like thee ? At the grave's call 
 I haste, invited to thy wedding-ball. 
 To meet the ghastly paramour for wliom 
 Thou hast deserted me, and made the tomb 
 Thy bridal bed. But I beside thy feet 
 "Will lie, and watch ye from my wiuding-sheet 
 Thus — wide awake, though dead, — Yet stay, oh, stay \ 
 Go not so soon ! — I know not what I say — 
 Hear but my reasons ! — I am mad, I fear, 
 My fancy is o'erwrought. — Thou art not here ; 
 
 Pale art thou, 'tis most true But thou art gone — 
 
 Thy work is finished ; I am left alone. 
 
 " Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breast, 
 Which like a serpent thou envenomest 
 As in repayment of the warmth it lent ?
 
 90 JULIAN AND MADDALO, 
 
 Didst thou not seek me for thine own content ? 
 
 Did not thy love awaken mine ? I thought 
 
 That thou wert she who said, ' You kiss me not 
 
 Ever ; I fear you do not love me now.' 
 
 In truth I loved even to my overthrow 
 
 Her who would fain forget these words — but they 
 
 Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away. 
 
 "You say that I am proud ; that, when I speak, 
 
 My lip is tortured with the wrongs which break 
 
 The spirit it expresses. — Never one 
 
 Humbled himself before as I have done. 
 
 Even the instinctive worm on which we tread 
 
 Turns, though it wound not — then with prostrate head 
 
 Sinks in the dust, and writhes like me — and dies : 
 
 No, wears a living death of agonies. 
 
 As the slow shadows of the pointed grass 
 Mark the eternal periods, its pangs pass, 
 Slow, ever-moving, making moments be 
 As mine* seem — each an immortality ! 
 
 " That you had never seen me ! never heard 
 
 My voice ! and more than all had ne'er endured 
 
 The deep pollution of my loathed embrace ! 
 
 That your eyes ne'er had lied love in my face ! 
 
 That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out 
 
 The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root 
 
 "With mine own quivering fingers, so that ne'er 
 
 Our hearts had for a moment mingled there, 
 
 To disunite in horror ! These were not, 
 
 With thee, like some suppressed and hideous thought, 
 
 Which flits s^hwart our musings, but can find 
 
 No rest within a pure and gentle mind : 
 
 Thou sealedst them with many a bare broad word,
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 91 
 
 And searedst my memory o'er them — Jor I heard, 
 
 And can forget not — they were ministered 
 
 One after one, those curses. Mix them up 
 
 Like self-destroying poisons, in one cup ; 
 
 And they will make one blessing which thou ne'er 
 
 Didst imprecate, for on me death ! 
 
 "It were 
 A cruel punishment for one most cruel, 
 If such can love, to make that love the fuel 
 Of the mind's hell — hate, scorn, remorse, despair. 
 But me, whose heart a stranger's tear might wear 
 As water-drops the sandy fountain-stone ; 
 Who loved and pitied all things, and could moan 
 For woes which others hear not, and could see 
 The absent with a glass of fantasy. 
 And near the poor and trampled sit and weep, 
 Following the captive to his dungeon deep ; 
 Me, who am as a nerve o'er which do creep 
 The else-unfc4t oppressions of this earth, 
 And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth 
 When all beside was cold — that thou on me 
 Shouldst rain the plagues of blistering agony ! 
 Such curses are, from lips once eloquent 
 With love's too partial praise. Let none relent 
 Who intend deeds too dreadful for a name, 
 Henceforth, if an example of the same 
 They seek — for thou on me lookedst so and so, 
 And didst speak thus and thus ! I live to show 
 How much men bear, and die not. 
 
 " Thou wilt tell. 
 With the grimace of hate, how horrible 
 It was to meet my love when thine grew less ; 
 Thou wilt admire how I could e'er address 
 Such features to love's work. This taunt, though true,
 
 92 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 (For indeed Nature nor in form nor hue 
 
 Bestowed on me her choicest workmanship) 
 
 Shall not be thy defence : for, since thy lip 
 
 Met mine first, years long past — since thine eye 
 
 kindled 
 "With soft fire under mine — I have not dwindled, 
 Nor changed in mind or body, or in aught, 
 But as love changes what it loveth not 
 After long years and many trials. 
 
 •' How vain 
 Are words. I thought never to speak again, 
 Not even in secret, not to my own heart — 
 But from my lips the unwilling accents start. 
 And from my pen the words flow as I write, 
 Dazzling my eyes with scalding tears. My sight 
 Is dim to see that charactered in vain 
 On this unfeeling leaf which burns the brain 
 And eats into it, blotting all things fair 
 And wise and good which time had written there. 
 Those who inflict must suffer ; for they see 
 The work of their own hearts, and that must be 
 Our chastisement or recompense. — child ! 
 I would that thine were like to be more mild. 
 For both our wretched sakes — for thine the most, 
 Who feel'^it aire., .y all that thou hast lost. 
 Without the power to wish it thine again. 
 And, as slow years pass, a funereal train, 
 Eaoh with the ghost of some lost hope or friend 
 Following it like its shadow, wilt thou bend 
 No thought on my dead memory ? 
 
 "Alas, love ! 
 Fear me not : against thee I'd not move 
 A finger in despite. Do I not live 
 That thou majst have less bitter cause to grieve !
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 93 
 
 I give thee tears for scorn, and love for hate ; 
 
 And, that thy lot may be less desolate 
 
 Than his on whom thus tramplest, I refrain 
 
 From that sweet sleep which medicines all pain. 
 
 Then — when thou speakest of me — never say 
 
 * He could forgive not.' — Here I cast away 
 
 All human passions, all revenge, all pride ; 
 
 I think, speak, act, no ill ; I do not hide 
 
 Under these words, like embers, every spark 
 
 Of that which has consumed me. Quick and dark 
 
 The grave is yawning : as its roof shall cover 
 
 My limbs with dust and worms, under and over, 
 
 So let oblivion hide this grief. — The air 
 
 Closes upon my accents, as despair 
 
 Upon my heart — let death upon despair ! " 
 
 He ceased, and overcome leant back awhile ; 
 
 Then risiug, with a melancholy smile, 
 
 Went to a sofa, and lay down, and slept 
 
 A heavy sleep ; and in his dreams he wept, 
 
 And muttered some familiar name, and we 
 
 Wept without shame in his society. 
 
 I think I never was impressed so much : 
 
 The man who were not must have lacked a touch 
 
 Of human nature. 
 
 Then we lingered not, 
 Although our argument was quite forgot ; 
 But, calling the attendants, went to dine 
 At Maddalo's. Yet neither cheer nor wine 
 Could give us spirits ; for we talked of him. 
 And nothing else, till daylight made stars dim. 
 And we agreed it was some dreadful ill 
 Wrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable, 
 By a dear friend ; some deadly change in love
 
 94 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Of one vowed deeply (which he dreamed not of), 
 For whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a blot 
 Of falsehood in his mind, which flourished not 
 But in the light of all-beholding truth ; 
 And, having stamped this canker on his youth, 
 She had abandoned him. And how much more 
 Might be his woe we guessed not. He had store 
 Of friends and fortune once, as we could guess 
 From his nice habits and his gentleness : 
 These now were lost — it were a grief indeed 
 If he had changed one unsustaining reed 
 For all that such a man might else adorn. 
 The colours of his mind seemed yet unworn ; 
 For the wild language of his grief was high — 
 Such as in measure were called poetry. 
 And I remember one remark which then 
 Maddalo made : he said — "Most wretched men 
 Are cradled into poetry by wrong : 
 They learn in suffering what they teach in song." 
 
 If I had been an, unconnected man, 
 
 I, from this moment, should have formed some plan 
 
 N'ever to leave sweet Venice. For to me 
 
 It was delight to ride by the lone sea : 
 
 And then the town is silent — one may write 
 
 Or read in gondolas, by day or night, 
 
 Having the little brazen lamp alight, 
 
 Unseen, uninterrupted. Books are there, 
 
 Pictures, and casts from all those statues fair 
 
 Which were twin-born with poetry, and all 
 
 "We see in towns, with little to recall 
 
 Regret for the green country. I might sit 
 
 In Maddalo's great palace, and his wit 
 
 And subtle talk would cheer the winter night,
 
 And make me know myself : and tlie fire-light 
 
 Would flasli upon our faces, till the day 
 
 Might dawn, and make me wonder at my stay. 
 
 But I had friends in London too. The chief 
 
 Attraction here was that I sought relief 
 
 From the deep tenderness that maniac wrought 
 
 Within me. . . . 'Twas perhaps an idle thought. 
 
 But I imagined that — if day by day 
 
 I watchM him, and seldom went away. 
 
 And studied all the beatings of his heart 
 
 With zeal (as men study some stubborn art 
 
 For their own good), and could by patience find 
 
 An entrance to the caverns of his mind — 
 
 I might reclaim him from his dark estate 
 
 In friendship I had been most fortunate ; 
 
 Yet never saw I one whom I would call 
 
 More willingly my friend. — And this was all 
 
 Accomplished not. Such dreams of baseless good 
 
 Oft come and go, in crowds or solitude. 
 
 And leave no trace : but what I now designed 
 
 Made, for long years, impression on my mind. 
 
 The following morning, urged by my affairs, 
 
 I left bright Venice, 
 
 After many years 
 And many changes, I returned. The name 
 Of Venice, and its aspect, was the same. 
 But Maddalo was travelling, far away, 
 Among the mountains of Armenia : 
 His dog was dead : his child had now become 
 A woman, such as it has been my doom 
 To meet with few ; a wonder of this earth, 
 Where there is little of transcendent worth — 
 Like one of Shakespeare's women. Kindly she, 
 And with a manner beyond courtesy,
 
 90 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Received her father's friend ; and, when I asked 
 
 Of the lorn maniac, she her memory tasked, 
 
 And told, as she had heard, the mournful tale 
 
 That the poor sufferer's health began to fail 
 
 Two years from my departure ; but that then 
 
 The lady who had left him came again. 
 
 " Her mien had been imperious, but she now 
 
 Looked meek ; perhaps remorse had brought her low. 
 
 Her coming made him better ; and they stayed 
 
 Together at my father's — (for I played, 
 
 As I remember, with the lady's shawl ; 
 
 I might be six years old). — But, after all. 
 
 She left him. " 
 
 " Why, her heart must hare been tough ! 
 How did it end ? " 
 
 ** And was not this enough ? 
 They met, they parted," 
 
 "Child, is there no more ? " 
 
 " Something within that interval which bore 
 
 The stamp of why thev rarted, funv they met. — 
 
 Yet, if thine aged eye isdain to wet 
 
 Those wainkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears, 
 
 Ask me no more ; but let the silent years 
 
 Be closed and cered over their memory — 
 
 As yon mute marble where their corpses lie. " 
 
 I urged and questioned still. She told me how 
 All happened — But the cold world shall not know.
 
 POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817. 
 
 MARIANNE'S DREAM. 
 
 A PALE Dream came to a Lady fair, 
 And said, ' ' A boon, a boon, I pray ! 
 I know the secrets of the air ; 
 
 And things are lost in the glare of day, 
 Which I can make the sleeping see 
 If they will put their trust in me. 
 
 " And thou shalt know of things unknown. 
 If thou wilt let me rest between 
 
 The veiny lids whose fringe is thrown 
 Over thine eyes so dark and sheen." 
 
 And half in hope and half in fright 
 
 The Lady closed her eyes so bright. 
 
 At first all deadly shapes were driven 
 
 Tumultuously across her sleep, 
 And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven 
 
 All ghastly- visaged clouds did sweep } 
 And the Lady ever looked to spy 
 If the golden sun shone forth on high. 
 • o
 
 98 MARIANNE'S DREAM. 
 
 4. And, as towards the east she turned, 
 
 She saw, aloft in the morning air 
 Which now with hues of sunrise burned, 
 
 A great black anchor rising there ; 
 And wherever the Lady turned her eyes 
 It hung before her in the skies. 
 
 5. The sky was blue as the summer sea ; 
 
 The depths were cloudless overhead ; 
 The air was calm as it could be ; 
 
 There was no sight or sound of dread. 
 But that black anchor floating still 
 Over the piny eastern hill. 
 
 6. The Lady grew sick with a weight of fear 
 
 To see that anchor ever hanging, 
 And veiled her eyes. She then did hear 
 
 The sound as of a dim low clanging ; 
 And looked abroad if she might know 
 Was it aught else, or but the How 
 Of the blood in her own veins to and fro. 
 
 7. There was a mist in the sunless air, 
 
 "Which shook as it were with an earthquake 
 shock ; 
 But the very weeds that blossomed there 
 
 Were moveless, and each mighty rock 
 Stood on its basis steadfastly ; 
 The anchor was seen no more on high. 
 
 8. But piled around, with summits hid 
 
 In lines of cloud at intervals, 
 Stood many a mountain pyramid, 
 Among whose everlasting walls
 
 MARIANNE'S DREAM. ijc) 
 
 Two mighty cities shone, and ever 
 
 Through the red mist their domes did quiver. 
 
 9. On two dread mountains, from whose crest 
 
 Might seem the eagle for her brood 
 
 Would ne'er have hung her dizzy nest, 
 
 Those tower-encircled cities stood. 
 A vision strange such towers to see. 
 Sculptured and wrought so gorgeously, 
 Where human art could never be. 
 
 10. And columns framed of marble white, 
 
 And giant fanes, dome over dome 
 Piled, and triumphant gates, all bright 
 
 With workmanship which could not come 
 From touch of mortal instrument. 
 Shot o'er the vales, or lustre lent 
 From their own shapes magnificent. 
 
 11. But still the Lady heard that clang 
 
 Filling the wide air far away, 
 And still the mist whose light did hang 
 
 Among the mountains shook alway ; 
 So that the Lady's heart beat fast. 
 As half in joy and half aghast 
 On those high domes her look she cast. 
 
 12. Sudden from out that city sprung 
 
 A light that made the earth grow red ; 
 Two flames that each with quivering tongue 
 
 Licked its high domes, and overhead 
 Among those mighty towers and fanes 
 Dropped fire, as a volcano i-ains 
 It sulphurous ruin on the plains.
 
 loo MARIANNE'S DREAM, 
 
 13. And hark ! a rush, as if the deep 
 
 Had burst its bonds ! She looked behind, 
 And saw over the western steep 
 
 A raging flood descend, and wind 
 Through that wide vale. She felt no fear, 
 But said within herself, " 'Tis clear 
 These towers are Nature's own, and she 
 To save them haa sent forth the sea," 
 
 14. And now those raging billows came 
 
 Where that fair Lady sate ; and she 
 "Was borne towards the showering flame 
 
 By the wild waves heaped tnmultuously, 
 And, on a little plank, the flow 
 Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro. 
 
 15. The flames were fiercely vomited 
 
 From every tower and every dome, 
 And dreary light did wildly shed 
 
 O'er that vast flood's suspended foam 
 Beneath the smoke which hung its night 
 On the stained cope of heaven's light. 
 
 16. The plank whereon that Lady sate [about, 
 
 "Was driven through the chasms, about and 
 Between the peaks so desolate 
 
 Of the drowning mountains, in and out. 
 As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails — 
 While the flood was filling those hollow vales. 
 
 17. At last her plank an eddy crossed, 
 
 And bore her to the city's wall. 
 Which BOW the flood had reached almost ; 
 It might the stoutest heart appal
 
 MARIANNE'S DREAM. loi 
 
 To hear the fire roar and hiss 
 
 Through the domes of those mighty palaces. 
 
 18. The eddy whirled her round and round 
 
 Before a gorgeous gate which stood 
 Piercing the cloud of smoke which bound 
 
 Its aery arch with light like blood. 
 She looked on that gate of marble clear 
 
 With wonder that extinguished fear — 
 
 19. For it was filled with sculptures rarest 
 
 Of forms most beautiful and strange, 
 Like nothing human, but the fairest, 
 
 Of winged shapes whose legions range 
 Throughout the sleep of those that are, 
 Like this same Lady, good and fair. 
 
 20. And, as she looked, still lovelier grew 
 
 Those marble forms ; the sculptor sure 
 Was a strong spirit, and the hue 
 
 Of his own mind did there endure 
 After the touch whose power had braided 
 . Such grace was in some sad change faded. 
 
 21. She looked. The flames were dim, the flood 
 
 Grew tranquil as a woodland river 
 Winding through hills in solitude ; 
 
 Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver, 
 And their fair limbs to float in motion 
 Like weeds unfolding in the ocean. 
 
 22. And their lips moved — one seemed to speak — 
 
 When suddenly the mountain cracked,
 
 ro2 DEATH, 
 
 And though the chasm, the flood did break 
 
 "With an earth-uplifting cataract. 
 The statues gave a joyous scream — 
 And on its wings the pale thin Dream 
 Lifted the Lady from the stream. 
 
 23. The dizzy flight of that phantom pale 
 Waked the fair Lady from her sleep ; 
 And she arose, while from the veil 
 
 Of her dark eyes the Dream did creep, 
 And she walked about as one who knew 
 That sleep has sights as clear and true 
 As any waking eyes can view. 
 Marlmo, 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 THEY die — the dead return not Misery 
 Sits near an open grave, and calls them over, 
 A youth with hoary hair and haggard eye. 
 
 They are the names of kindred, friend, and lover, 
 Which he so feebly calls. They all are gone, 
 Fond wretch, all dead ! Those vacant names alone, 
 This most familiar scene, my pain, 
 These tombs — alone remain. 
 
 Misery, my sweetest friend, oh, weep no more ! 
 
 Thou wilt not be consoled \ I wonder not : 
 For I have seen thee from thy dwelling's door 
 
 Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot
 
 TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING. 103 
 
 Was even as bright and calm but transitory — 
 And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary. 
 This most familiar scene, my pain, 
 These tombs — alone remain. 
 
 TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING. 
 
 1. 'T^HUS to be lost and thus to sink and die 
 
 X Perchance w£re death indeed ! — Constantia, 
 
 turn ! I 
 
 In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie, | 
 
 Even though the sounds which were thy voice, j 
 
 which burn \ 
 
 Between thy lips, are laid to sleep ; \ 
 
 Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet, 
 
 And from thy touch like fire doth leap. 
 
 Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet ; 
 
 Alas, that the torn heart can bleed but not forget f 
 
 2. A breathless awe, like the swift change 
 Unseen but felt in youthful slumbers. 
 Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange. 
 Thou breathest now in fast-ascending numbers. 
 The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven 
 
 By the enchantment of thy strain, 
 And on my shoulders wings are woven, 
 To follow its sublime career 
 
 Beyond the mighty moons that wane 
 Upon the verge of Nature's utmost sphere. 
 Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear.
 
 104 SONNET.— OZYMANDIAS. 
 
 3. Her voice is hovering o'er my soul — it lingers 
 
 O'ersh'a dewing it with soft and lulling wings : 
 The blood and life within those snowy fingers 
 Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. 
 My brain is wild, my breath comes quick — 
 
 The blood is listening in my frame, 
 And thronging shadows, fast and thick, 
 Fall on my overflowing eyes ; 
 
 My heart is quivering like a flame ; 
 
 As morning dew that in the sunbeam dies, 
 
 I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies. 
 
 4. I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee, 
 
 "Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song 
 Flows on, and fills all things with melody. 
 Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong. 
 On which, like one in trance upborne, 
 Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep. 
 Rejoicing like a cloud of morn : 
 Now 'tis the breath of summer night, 
 Which, when the starry waters sleep, 
 Round western isles with incense-blossoms bright 
 Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight 
 
 SONNET.— OZYMANDIAS. 
 
 1MET a traveller from an antique land 
 Who said : " Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
 Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, 
 
 Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown 
 And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
 
 TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR, 105 
 
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
 
 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
 •The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. 
 And on the pedestal these words appear : 
 
 ' My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 
 Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair ! ' 
 
 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, 
 
 The lone and level sands stretch far away." 
 
 TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR. 
 
 1. 'TT^HY country's curse is on thee, darkest crest 
 i. Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm 
 
 Which rends our Mother's bosom — priestly pest ! 
 Masked resurrection of a buried form ! 
 
 2. Thy country's curse is on thee ! Justice sold, 
 Truth trampled, Nature's landmarks overthrown, 
 
 And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold, 
 Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction's throne. 
 
 8. And, whilst that slow sure Angel which aye stands 
 Watching the beck of Mutability 
 Delays to execute her high commands, 
 And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee ; 
 
 4. Oh, let a father's curse be on thy soul. 
 
 And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb, 
 And both on thy grey head a leaden cowl 
 To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom I
 
 [o6 TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR. 
 
 5. I curse thee by a palent's outraged love ; 
 
 By hopes long cherished and too lately lost ; 
 By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove ; 
 
 By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed ; ; 
 
 6. By those infantine smiles of happy light 
 
 Which were a fire within a stranger's hearth, 
 Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night [ 
 
 Hiding the promise of a lovely birth ; 
 
 T. By those unpractised accents of young speech, 
 Which he who is a father thought to frame 
 To gentlest lore such as the wisest teach, [shame ! 
 Thou strike the lyre of mind ! Oh grief and \ 
 
 \ 
 
 8. By all the happy see in children's growth, 
 
 That undeveloped fiower of budding years, 
 Sweetness and sadness interwoven both, 
 Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest fears : 
 
 9. By all the days, under a hireling's care, 
 
 Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness — 
 Oh wretche4 ye if ever any were, 
 Sadder than orphans yet not fatherless — 
 
 10. By the false cant which on their innocent lips 
 
 Must hang like poison on an opening bloom ; 
 By the dark creeds which cover with -eclipse 
 Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb ; 
 
 11. By thy most impious hell, and all its terrors ; 
 
 By all the grief, the madness, and the guilt 
 Of thine impostures, which must be their errors, 
 That sand on which thy crumbling power is built ;
 
 TO WILLIAM SHELLEY, 107 
 
 12. By thy complicity with Rist and hate, 
 
 Thy thirst for tears, thy hunger after gold, 
 The ready frauds which ever on thee wait, 
 The servile arts in which thou hast grown old ; 
 
 13. By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile, 
 
 By all the acts and snares of thy black den, 
 And — for thou canst outweep the crocodile — 
 By thy false tears, those millstones braining men ; 
 
 14. By all the hate which checks a father's love ; 
 
 By all the scorn which kills a father's care ; 
 By those most impious hands that dared remove 
 Nature's high bounds ; by thee ; and by despair — 
 
 15. Yes, the despair which bids a father groan, 
 
 And cry, ' • My children are no longer mine ; 
 
 The blood within those veins may be mine own. 
 
 But, tyrant, their polluted souls are thine I " 
 
 16. I curse thee, though I hate thee not. slave ! 
 
 If thou couldst quench the earth-consuming hell 
 Of which thou art a demon, on thy grave 
 This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well ! 
 
 T 
 
 TO WILLIAM SHELLEY. 
 
 HE billows on the beach are leaping around it ; 
 
 The bark is weak and frail ; 
 The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it 
 Darkly strew the gale.
 
 io8 TO WILLIAM SHELLEY, 
 
 Come with me, thofi delightful child, 
 Come with me ! Though the wave is wild, 
 And the winds are loose, we must not stay, 
 Or the slaves of law may rend thee away. 
 
 2. They have taken thy brother and sister dear, 
 
 They have made them unfit for thee ; 
 They have withered the smile and dried the tear 
 
 Which should have been sacred to me. 
 To a blighting faith and a cause of crime 
 They have bound them slaves in youthly time ; 
 And they will curse my name and thee 
 Because we fearless are and free. 
 
 3. Come thou, beloved as thou art ! 
 
 Another sleepeth still 
 Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart, 
 
 Which thou with joy wilt fill. 
 With fairest smiles of wonder thrown 
 On that which is indeed our own, 
 And which in distant lands will be 
 The dearest playmate unto thee. 
 
 4. Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever, 
 
 Or the priests of the evil faith ; 
 They stand on the brink of that raging river 
 
 Whose waves they have tainted with death. 
 It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells, 
 Around them it foams, and rages, and swells ; 
 And their swords and their sceptres I floating see, 
 Like wrecks, on the surge of eternity. 
 
 6. Rest, rest, shriek not, thou gentle child I 
 The rocking of the boat thou fearest,
 
 LINES. 109 
 
 And the cold spray and the clamour wild ? 
 There ! sit between us two, thou dearest- 
 Me and thy mother. Well we know 
 The storm at which thou tremblest so, 
 With all its dark and hungry graves, 
 Less cruel than the savage slaves 
 Who hunt thee o'er these sheltering waves. 
 
 This hour will in thy memory 
 
 Be a dream of days forgotten ; 
 We soon shall dwell by the azure sea 
 Of serene and golden Italy, 
 Or Greece the mother of the free. 
 And I will teach thine infant tongue 
 To call upon their heroes old 
 In their own language, and will mould 
 Thy growing spirit in the flame 
 Of Grecian lore ; that by such name 
 A patriot's birthright thou mayst claim. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 THAT time is dead for ever, child, 
 Drowned, frozen, dead for ever ! 
 We look on the past ; 
 And stare aghast 
 At the spectres, wailing, pale, and ghast. 
 Of h^s which tbott and I beguiled 
 To death wi life's dark river.
 
 1 10 ON FANNY GOD WIN 
 
 The stream we gazed on then rolled by ; 
 Its waves are unreturning ; 
 But we yet stand 
 In a lone land, 
 Like tombs to mark the memory 
 Of hopes and fears which fade and fly 
 In the light of life's dim morning. 
 
 Ith NoveTnber 1817. 
 
 ON FANNY GODWIN. 
 
 HER voice did qniver as we parted ; 
 Yet knew I not that heart was broken 
 From which it came, and I departed 
 
 Heeding not the words then spoken. 
 Misery — Misery, 
 This world is all too wide for thee I 
 
 LINES TO A CRITIC. 
 
 1. TTONEY from silkworms who can gather 
 XjL Or silk from the yellow bee ? 
 
 The grass may grow in winter weather 
 As soon as hate in me. 
 
 2. Hate men who cant, and men who pray, 
 
 And men who rail, like thee ; 
 An equal passion to repay 
 They are not coy like me.
 
 LINES TO A CRITIC. 
 
 Ill I 
 
 Or seek some slave of power and gold 
 To be thy dear heart's mate ; 
 
 Thy love will move that bigot cold 
 Sooner than me thy hate. 
 
 A passion like the one I prove 
 
 Cannot divided be ; 
 I hate thy want of truth and love — 
 
 How should I then hate thee \ 
 
 December 1817.
 
 POEMS WRITTEN IN 1818. 
 
 PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES. 
 
 LISTEN, listen, Mary mine, 
 To the whisper of the Apennine. 
 It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar ; 
 Or like the sea on a northern shore, 
 Heard in its raging ebb and flow 
 By the captives pent in the cave below. 
 The Apennine in the light of day 
 Is a mighty mountain dim and grey 
 Which between the earth and sky doth lay : 
 But, when night comes, a chaos dread 
 On the dim starlight then is spread, 
 And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. 
 
 ith May 1818.
 
 ON A DEAD VIOLET. 113 
 
 ON A DEAD YIOLET. 
 To Miss . 
 
 THE odour from the flower is goBe 
 Which like thy kisses breathed on me ; 
 The colour from the flower is flown 
 
 Which glowed of thee uvd only thee 1 
 
 A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form. 
 It lies on my abandoned breast ; 
 
 And mocks the heart, which yet is warm 
 With cold and silent rest. 
 
 1 weep — my tears revive it not ; 
 
 I sigh — ^it breathes no more on me : 
 its mute and uncomplaining lot 
 
 Is such as mine should be. 
 
 THE PAST. 
 
 WILT thou forget the happy hours 
 Which we buried in Love's sweet bowe»e, 
 Heaping over their corpses cold 
 Blossoms and let ves instead of mouM ? 
 Blossoms which were the joys that fell, 
 And leaves, the hopes that yet remain. 
 
 Forget the dead, the past ? Oh yet 
 
 There are ghosts that may take revenge for it !
 
 114 SONNET. 
 
 Memories that make the heart a tomb, 
 Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom, 
 And with ghastly whispers tell 
 That joy, once lost, is pain. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 LIFT not the painted veil which those who live 
 Call Life ; though unreal shapes be pictured there, 
 And it but mimic all we would believe 
 
 "With colours idly spread. Behind, lurk Fear 
 And Hope, twin Destinies, who ever wears 
 
 Their shadows o'er the chasm sightless aud drear. 
 I knew one who had lifted it — he sought. 
 
 For his lost heart was tender, things to love, 
 But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught 
 
 The world contains in which he could approve. 
 
 Through the unheeding many he did move, 
 A splendour among shadows, a bright blot 
 
 Upon this gloomy scene, a spirit that strove 
 For truth, and, like thi Preacher, found it not. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN 
 HILLS. 
 
 MANY a green isle nee Is must be 
 In the deep wide sea of Misery ; 
 Or the uiarincr, worr. and wan. 
 Never thus could voyage on —
 
 THE E UGANEAN HILLS. 1 1 5 
 
 Day and night, and night and day. 
 Drifting on his dreary way, 
 With the solid darkness black 
 Closing round his vessel's track ; 
 Whilst, above, the sunless sky, 
 Big with clouds, hangs heavily — 
 And, behind, the tempest fleet 
 Hurries on with lightning feet, 
 Riving sail and cord and plank, 
 Till the ship has almost drank 
 Death from the o'er-brimmin,!^ deep. 
 And sinks down, down, like that sleep 
 When the dreamer seems to be 
 Weltering through eternity, 
 And the dim low line before 
 Of a dark and distant shore 
 Still recedes, as — ever still 
 Longing with divided will, 
 But no power to seek or shun — 
 He is • ver drifted on 
 C'sr tue unreposing wave 
 1 u the haven of the grave. 
 What if there no friends will greet ? 
 Wnt if there no heart will meet 
 F - vith love's inpatient beat ? 
 Wander wheresoe'er he may. 
 Can he dream before that day 
 To find refuge from distress 
 In frifciidship's smile, in love's caress ? 
 Then 'twill wreak him little voe 
 Whether such there be or no. 
 Senseless is the breast, and cold, 
 Which relenting love would fold ; 
 Bloodless are the veins, and chill.
 
 ii6 THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 
 
 Which the pulse of pain did fill ; 
 Every little living nerve 
 That from bitter words did swerve 
 Round the tortured lips and brow 
 Is like a sapless leaflet now 
 Frozen upon December's bough. 
 
 On the beach of a northern sea 
 
 Which tempests shake eternally 
 
 As once the wretch there lay to sleep, 
 
 Lies a solitary heap, 
 
 One white skull and seven dry bones, 
 
 On the margin of the stones, 
 
 Where a few grey rushes stand. 
 
 Boundaries of the sea and land. 
 
 Nor is heard one voice of wail 
 
 But the sea-mews' as they sail 
 
 O'er the billows of the gale, 
 
 Or the whirlwind up and down 
 
 Howling — like a slaughtered town, 
 
 Where a king in glory rides 
 
 Through the pomp of fratricides. 
 
 Those unburied bones around 
 
 There is many a mournful sound ; 
 
 There is no lament for him, 
 
 Like a sunless vapour, dim. 
 
 Who once clothed with life and thought 
 
 What now moves nor murmurs not. 
 
 Ay, many flowering islands lie 
 In the waters of wide Agony — 
 To such a one this mom was led 
 My hark, by soft winds piloted. 
 'Mid the mountains Euganean^
 
 I stood listening to the paean 
 With which the legioned rooks did hail 
 The sun's uprise majestical. 
 jathering round with wings all hoar, 
 Through the dewy mist they soar 
 Like grey shades, till the eastern heaven 
 Bursts ; and then, as clouds of even 
 Flecked with fire and azure lie 
 In the unfathomable sky. 
 So their plumes of purple grain, 
 Starred with drops of golden rain, 
 Gleam above the sunlight woods, 
 As in silent multitudes 
 On the morning's fitful gale 
 Through the broken mist they sail, 
 And the vapours cloven and gleaming 
 Follow, down the dark steep streaming- 
 Till all is bright, and clear, and still 
 Round the solitary hill. 
 
 Beneath is spread like a green sea 
 The waveless plain of Lombardy, 
 Bounded by the vaporous air, 
 Islanded by cities fair. 
 Underneath Day's azure eyes, 
 Ocean's nursling, Venice lies — 
 A peopled labyrinth of walls, 
 Amphitrite's destined halls, 
 "Which her hoary sire now paves 
 With his blue and beaming waves. 
 Lo ! the sun upsprings behind, 
 Broad, red, radiant, half-reclin«d 
 On the level quivering line 
 Of the waters crystalliuG ; 
 
 'mmmrmmm^i
 
 Ii8 THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 
 
 And before that chasm of light, 
 As within a furnace bright, 
 Column, tower, and dome, and spire, 
 Shine like obelisks of fire, 
 Pointing with inconstant motion 
 From the altar of dark ocean 
 To the sapphire-tinted skies ; 
 As the flames of sacrifice 
 From the marble shrines did rise, 
 As to pierce the dome of gold 
 Where Apollo spoke of old, 
 
 Sun-girt City ! thou hast been 
 Ocean's child, and then his queen. 
 Now is come a darker day ; 
 And thou soon must be his prey, 
 If the power that raised thee here 
 Hallow so thy watery bier. 
 A less drear ruin then than now, 
 With thy coE quest-branded brow 
 Stooping to the slave of slaves 
 From thy throne, among the waves 
 Wilt thou be when the sea-mew 
 Flies, as once before it flew, 
 O'er thine isles depopulate. 
 And all is in its ancient state ; 
 Save where many a palace-gate 
 With green sea-flowers overgrown 
 Like a rock of ocean's own, 
 Topples o'er the abandoned sea 
 As the tides change sullenly. 
 The fisher on hLs watery way 
 Wandering at the close of day 
 Will spread his sail and seize his oar
 
 THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 1 19 
 
 Till he pass the gloomy shore, 
 Lest thy dead should, from their sleep 
 Bursting o'er the starlight deep, 
 Lead a rapid masque of death 
 O'er the waters of his path. 
 
 Those who alone thy towers behold 
 Quivering through aeiial gold, 
 As I now behold them here, 
 Would imagine not they were 
 Sepulchres where liuinan forms. 
 Like pollution-nourished worms. 
 To the corpse of greatness cling, 
 Murdered and now mouldering. 
 But, if Freedom should awake 
 In her omnipotence, and shake 
 From the Celtic Anarch's hold 
 All the keys of dungeons cold 
 Where a hundred cities lie 
 Chained like thee ingloriously, 
 Thou and all thy sister band 
 Might adorn this sunny land, 
 Twining memories of old time 
 With new virtues more sublime. 
 If not, perish thou and they — 
 Clouds which stain truth's rising day. 
 By her sun consumed away ! 
 Earth can spare ye ; while like floweri*. 
 In the waste of years and hours, 
 From your dust new nations spring 
 With more kindly blossoming. 
 
 Perish ! Let there only be. 
 Floating o'er thy hearthless sea
 
 wo THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 
 
 As the garment of thy sky 
 Qotljes the world immortally, 
 One remembrance, more sublime 
 Than the tattered pall of time 
 "Which scarce hides thy visage wan : 
 That a tempest-cleaving swan 
 Of the songs of Albion, 
 Driven from his ancestral streams 
 By the might of evil dreams, 
 Found a nest in thee ; and ocean 
 Welcomed him with such emotion 
 That its joy grew his, and sprung 
 F«»m his lips like music flung 
 O'er a mighty thunder-fit, 
 Chastening terror. What though yet 
 Poesy's unfailing river, 
 "Which through Albion winds for ever, 
 Lashing with melodious wave 
 Many a sacred poet's grave, 
 Mourn its latest nursling fled ? 
 "What though thou with all thy dead 
 Scarce canst for this fame repay 
 Aught thine own — oh ! rather say. 
 Though thy sins and slaveries foul 
 Overcloud a sunlike soul ? 
 As the ghost of Homer clings 
 Round Scamander's wasting springs ; 
 As divinest Shakespeare's might 
 Fills Avon and the world with light, 
 Like Omniscient Power, which he 
 Imaged 'mid mortality ; 
 As the lov« from Petrarch's urn 
 Yet amid yon hills doth burn, 
 A quenchless lamp by which the heart
 
 THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 121 
 
 Sees things nneartlily ; so thou art, 
 Mighty spirit ! so shall be 
 The city that did refuge thee ! 
 
 Lo, the sun floats up the sky, 
 
 Like thought-winged Liberty, 
 
 Till the universal light 
 
 Seems to level plain and height. 
 
 From the sea a mist has spread, 
 
 And the beams of morn lie dead 
 
 On the towers of Venice now, 
 
 Like its glory long ago. 
 
 By the skirts of that grey cloud 
 
 Many-domM Padua proud 
 
 Stands, a peopled solitude 
 
 'Mid the harvest-shining plain ; 
 
 Where the peasant heaps his grain 
 
 In the garner of his foe, 
 
 And the milk-white oxen slow 
 
 With the purple vintage strain 
 
 Heaped upon the creaking wain, 
 
 That the brutal Celt may swill 
 
 Drunken sleep with savage wilL 
 
 And the sickle to the sword 
 
 Lies unchanged, though many a lord, 
 
 Like a weed whose shade is poison, 
 
 Overgrows this region's foison. 
 
 Sheaves of whom are ripe to come 
 
 To destruction's harvest-home. 
 
 Men must reap the things they sow 
 
 Force from force must ever flow, 
 
 Or worse : but 'tis a bitter woe 
 
 That love or reason cannot change 
 
 The despot's rage, the slave's revenge.
 
 122 THE EUGANEAN HILLS, 
 
 Padua ! (thou within whose walls 
 
 Those mute guests at festivals, 
 
 Son and Mother, Death and Sin, 
 
 Played at dice for Ezzelin, 
 
 Till Death cried, " I win, I win ! " 
 
 And Sin cursed to lose the wager ; 
 
 But Death promised, to assuage her, 
 
 That he would petition for 
 
 Her to be made Vice-Emperor, 
 
 When the destined years were o'er, 
 
 Over all between the Po 
 
 And the eastern Alpine snow, 
 
 Under the mighty Austrian : 
 
 Sin smiled so as Sin only can ; 
 
 And, since that time, ay long before 
 
 Both have ruled from shore to shore. 
 
 That incestuous pair who follow 
 
 Tyrants as the sun the swallow, 
 
 As repentance follows crime, 
 
 And as changes follow time) — 
 
 In thine halls the lamp of learning, 
 
 Padua, now no more is burning. 
 
 Like a meteor whose wild way 
 
 Is lost over the grave of day. 
 
 It gleams betrayed and to betray. 
 
 Once remotest nations came 
 
 To adore that sacred flame, 
 
 "When it lit not many a hearth 
 
 On this cold and gloomy earth ; 
 
 Now new fires from antique light 
 
 Spring beneath the wide world's might- 
 
 But their spark lies dead in thee, 
 
 Trampled out bv Tyranny.
 
 THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 123 
 
 As the Norway woodman quells, 
 In the depth of piny dells, 
 One light flame among the brakes, 
 While the boundless forest shakes, 
 And its mighty trunks are torn 
 By the fire thus lowly born — 
 The spark beneath his feet is dead ; 
 He starts to see the flames it fed 
 Howling through the darkened sky 
 With myriad tongues victoriously. 
 And sinks down in fear — so thou, 
 Tyranny ! beholdest now 
 Light around thee, and thou hearest 
 The loud flames ascend, and fearest. 
 Grovel on the earth ! ay, hide 
 In the dust thy purple pride ! 
 
 Noon descends around me now. 
 *Tis the noon of autumn's glow ; 
 When a soft and purple mist, 
 Like a vaporous amethyst, 
 Or an air-dissolvM star 
 Mingling light and fragrance, far 
 From the curved horizon's bound 
 To the point of heaven's profound 
 Fills the overflowing sky. 
 And the plains that silent lie 
 Underneath ; the leaves unsodden 
 Where the infant Frost has trodden 
 With his morning-winged feet 
 Whose bright print is gleaming yet ; 
 And the red and golden vines, 
 Piercing with their trellised lines 
 The rough dark-skirted wilderness ;
 
 124 THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 
 
 The dim and bladed grass no less, 
 Pointing from this hoary tower 
 In the windless air ; the flower 
 Glimmering at my feet ; the line 
 Of the olive-sandalled Apennine 
 In the south dimly islanded ; 
 And the Alps, whose snows are spread 
 High between the clouds and sun ; 
 And of living things each one ; 
 And my spirit, which so long 
 Darkened this swift stream of song- 
 Interpenetrated lie 
 By the glory of the sky : 
 Be it love, light, harmony, 
 Odour, or the soul of all 
 Which from heaven like dew doth fall, 
 Or the mind which feeds this verse 
 Peopling the lone universe. 
 
 Noon descends ; and after noon 
 
 Autumn's evening meets me soon, 
 
 Leading the infantine moon. 
 
 And that one star which to her 
 
 Almost seems to minister 
 
 Half the crimson light she brings 
 
 From the sunset's radiant springs. 
 
 And the soft dreams of the mom 
 
 (Which like winged winds had borne, 
 
 To that silent isle which lies 
 
 'Mid remembered agonies, 
 
 The frail bark of this lone being) 
 
 Pass, to other suflferers fleeing ; 
 
 And its ancient pilot, Pain, 
 
 Sits beside the helm again.
 
 THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 1 2 5 
 
 Other flowering isles must be 
 
 In the sea of Life and Agony : 
 
 Other spirits float and flee 
 
 O'er that gulf. Even now perhaps 
 
 On some rock the wild wave wraps, 
 
 With folded wings, they waiting sit 
 
 i'or my bark, to pilot it 
 
 To some calm and blooming cove ; 
 
 Wliere for me and those I love 
 
 May a windless bower be built, 
 
 Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 
 
 In a dell 'mid lawny hills 
 
 Which the wild sea-murmur fills. 
 
 And soft sunshine, and the sound 
 
 Of old forests echoing round. 
 
 And the light and smell divine 
 
 Of all flowers that breathe and shine. 
 
 We may live so happy there 
 
 That the Spirits of the Air, 
 
 Envying us, may even entice 
 
 To our healing paradise 
 
 The polluting multitude. 
 
 But their rage would be subdued 
 
 By that clime divine and calm, 
 
 And the winds whose wings rain balm 
 
 On the uplifted soul, and leaves 
 
 Under which the bright sea heaves ; 
 
 While each breathless interval 
 
 In their whisperings musical 
 
 The inspirM soul supplies 
 
 With its own deep melodies, 
 
 And the love which heals all strife, 
 
 Circling, like the breath of life, 
 
 All things in that sweet abode
 
 126 STANZAS. 
 
 With its own mild brotherhood. 
 They, not it, would change ; and soou 
 Every sprite beneath the moon 
 Would repent its envy vain, 
 And the earth grow young again. 
 
 October 1818. 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES. 
 
 1. 'TpHE sun is warm, the sky is clear 
 
 1 The waves are dancing fast and bright ; 
 Blue isles and snowy mountains wear 
 The purple noon's transparent might ; 
 The breath of the moist earth is light 
 Around its unexpanded buds ; 
 
 Like many a voice of one delight. 
 The winds', the birds', the ocean iloods', 
 The city's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's. 
 
 2. I see ihe dcrp's unti-ainpled tioor 
 
 With green and purple sea-weed strown ; 
 1 see the waves upon the shore, 
 
 Like light dissolved, in star-showers thrown. 
 
 I sit upon the sands alone. 
 The lightning of the noontide ocean 
 
 Is flashing round me, and a tone 
 Arise** from its measured motion — 
 How b\>oot, did any heart now share in my emotion !
 
 STANZAS. 127 
 
 3. Alas ! I have nor liope nor health, 
 
 Nor peace within nor calm around ; 
 Nor that content, surpassing wealth, 
 
 The sage in meditation found, 
 
 And walked with inward glory crowned ; 
 Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. 
 
 Others I see whom these surround — 
 Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ; 
 To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. 
 
 4. Yet now despair itself is mild, 
 
 Even as the winds and waters are : 
 I could lie down like a tired child. 
 
 And weep away the life of care 
 
 Which I have borne and yet must bear — 
 Till death like sleep might steal on me, 
 
 And I might feel in the warm air 
 My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 
 Ikeathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 
 
 5. Some might lament that I were cold, 
 
 As I when this sweet day is gone, 
 Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, 
 
 Insults with this untim^l- noan. 
 
 They might lament — foi 1 am one 
 Wnum men lovc no'., ar.d ycr regret ; 
 
 Unlike this day, which, when the sun 
 Shall on its stainless glory set. 
 Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. 
 
 December 1813.
 
 128 MISERY, 
 
 MISERY. 
 
 COME, be happy — sit near me, 
 Shadow- vested Misery : 
 Coy, unwilling, silent bride. 
 Mourning in thy robe of pride. 
 Desolation deified ! 
 
 Come, be happy — sit near mo ; 
 Sad as I may seem to thee, 
 I am happier far than then, 
 Lady whose imperial brow 
 Is endiademed with woe. 
 
 Misery ! we have known each other, 
 Like a sister and a brother 
 Living m the same lone home, 
 Many years : we must live some 
 Hours or ages yet to come. 
 
 "lis an evil lot, and yet 
 
 Let us make the best of it ; 
 
 If love can live when pleasure dies, 
 
 We two will love, till in our eyes 
 
 This heart's hell seem paradise. 
 
 Come, be happy — lie thee down 
 On the fresh grass newly mowp, 
 Where the grasshopper doth sing 
 Merrily — one joyous thing 
 In a world of sorrowing.
 
 MISERY. 129 
 
 6. There our tent shall be the willow, 
 And mine arm shall be thy pillow : 
 Sounds and odours, sorrowful 
 Because they once were sweet, shall lull 
 Us to slumber deep and dulL 
 
 7. Ha ! thy frozen pulses flutter 
 "With a love thou dar'st not utter. 
 Thou art murmuring — thou art weeping- 
 Is thine icy bosom leaping, 
 
 "While my burning heart lies sleeping ? 
 
 8. Kiss me — oh ! thy lips are cold ! 
 Round my neck thine arms enfold — 
 They are soft, but chill and dead ; 
 And thy tears upon my head 
 Bum like points of frozen lead. 
 
 9. Hasten to the bridal bed — 
 Underneath the grave 'tis spread : 
 In darkness may our love be hid, 
 Oblivion be our coverlid — 
 
 May we rest, and none forbid. 
 
 10. Clasp me, till our hearts be grown 
 Like two lovers into one ; 
 
 Till this dreadful transport may 
 Like a vapour fade away 
 In the sleep that lasts alway, 
 
 11. "We may dream in that long sleep 
 That we are not those who weep ;
 
 I30 MISERY. 
 
 Even as Pleasui •■ dreams of thee, 
 
 Life-deserting Misery, 
 
 Thou mayst dream of her wirh me. 
 
 12. Let us laugh and make our mirth 
 At the shadows of the oarth ; 
 
 As dogs bay the mooulifjlri clouds 
 \Vhich, like spectres wangled in shrouds, 
 Pass o'er night in multitudes. 
 
 13. All the wide world, beside us. 
 Show like multitudinous 
 Puppets passing from a scene ; 
 But what mockery can they mean 
 Where I am — where thou hast been ^
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 im 
 
 
 
 
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 w 
 
 
 
 liMiiiliT 
 
 
 fejiiSlS 
 
 
 
 -iiiffliiii 
 
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 TO MARY. 
 
 (On her objecting to the following poem, upon the score of its 
 containing no human interest.) 
 
 1. T T OW, my dear Mary, are you critic-bitten 
 
 X~L (For vipers kill, though dead) by some review — 
 That you condemn these verses I have wiitten, 
 
 Because they tell no story, false or true ? 
 What though no mice are caught by a young kitten ? 
 
 May it not leap and play as grown cats do, 
 Till its claws come ? Prithee, for this one time. 
 Content thee with a visionary rhyme. 
 
 2. What hand would crush the silken- winged fly, 
 
 The youngest of inconstant April's minions, 
 Because it cannot climb the purest sky, 
 
 Where the swan sings amid the sun's dominions ? 
 Not thine. Thou knowest 'tis its doom to die 
 
 When Day shall hide within her twilight pinions 
 The lucent eyes and the eternal smile. 
 Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile. 
 
 3. To thy fair feet a wingM Vision came, 
 
 Whose date should nave been longer than a day,
 
 132 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 And o'er thy head did beat its wings for fame, 
 And in thy sight its fading plumes display ; 
 
 The watery bow burned in the evening flame ; 
 But the shower fell, the swift Sun went his way — 
 
 And that is dead. Oh let me not believe 
 
 That anything of mine is fit to live ! 
 
 "Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years 
 Considering and retouching Peter Bell ; 
 
 "Watering his laurels with the killing tears 
 Of slow dull care, so that their roots to hell 
 
 Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres 
 Of heaven with dewy leaves and flowers : this well 
 
 May be, for heaven and earth conspire to foil 
 
 The over -busy gardener's blundering toil. 
 
 My "Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature 
 As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise 
 
 Clothes for our grandsons — but she matches Peter, 
 Though he took nineteen years, and she three days, 
 
 In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre 
 She wears : he, proud as dandy with his stays, 
 
 Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress 
 
 Like King Lear's looped and windowed raggedness. 
 
 1 f you strip Peter, you will see a fellow 
 Scorched by hell's hyperequatorial climate 
 
 Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow ; 
 A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at ; 
 
 In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello. 
 If you unveil my "Witch, no priest nor primate 
 
 Can shrive you of that sin — if sin there be 
 
 In love when it becomes idol*try.
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 133 
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 1. T^EFORE those cruel twins whom at one birth 
 i3 Incestuous Change bore to her father Time, 
 Error and Truth, had hunted from the earth 
 
 All those bright natures which adorned its prime, 
 And left us nothing to believe in, worth 
 
 The pains of putting into learned rhyme, 
 A Lady Witch there lived on Atlas mountain 
 Within a cavern by a secret fountain. 
 
 2. Her mother was one of the Atlantides. 
 
 The all-beholding Sun had ne'er beholden 
 In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas 
 
 So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden 
 In the warm shadow of her loveliness ; 
 
 He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden 
 The chamber of grey rock in which she lay. 
 She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away. 
 
 3. 'Tis said she was first changed into a vapour ; 
 
 J.nd then into a cloud — such clouds as flit 
 (Like splendour-wingM moths about a taper) 
 
 Round the red west when the Sun dies in it ; 
 And then into a meteor, such as caper 
 
 On hill-tops when the Moon is in a fit ; 
 Then into one of those mysterious stars [Mars. 
 
 Which hide themselves between the Earth and 
 
 4. Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent 
 
 Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden 
 With that bright sign the billows to indent 
 The sea-deserted sand — (like children chidden,
 
 134 TH^ WITCH OF ATLAS, 
 
 At lier command they ever came and went) — 
 Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden 
 Took shape and motion. With the living form 
 Of this embodied Power the cave grew warm. 
 
 5. A lovely Lady garmented in light 
 
 From her ov^ti be^ity : deep her eyes as are 
 Two ope 'Migs of unfathomable night 
 
 Seen t^' -"Ugh a tempest's cloven roof ; her hair 
 Dark ; the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight, 
 
 Picturing her form. Her soft smiles shone afar ; 
 And her low voice was heard lil^e love, and drew 
 All living things towards this wonder new. 
 
 6. And first the spotted camelopard came ; 
 
 And then the wise and fearless elephant ; 
 Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame 
 
 Of his own volumes intervolved. All gaunt 
 And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame — 
 
 They drank before her at her sacred fount ; 
 And every beast of beating heart grew bol J; 
 Such gentleness and power ev ^' to behold. 
 
 7. The brinded iioness led forth her young, 
 
 That she might teach them how they should forego 
 Their inborn thirst of death ; the pard unstrung 
 
 His sinews at her feet, and sought to know, 
 With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue, 
 
 How he might be as gentle as the doe. 
 The magic circle of he. voice and eyes 
 All savage natures did imparadise. 
 
 8. And old Silenus, shaking a green stick 
 
 Of lilies, and the Wood-gods in a crew,
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS 135 
 
 Came blithe as in the olive copses thick 
 Cicadse are, drunk with "p joonday dew ; 
 
 Anl Dryopeand Faunus followed quick, 
 
 Teasin» the god to sing them something new ; 
 
 Till in this cave they found the Lady lone, 
 
 Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone. 
 
 9. And universal Pan, 'tis said, was there. 
 
 And, though none saw him — through the adamant 
 
 Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air. 
 And through those living spirits, like a want — 
 
 He yjassed out of his everlasting -air [pant, 
 
 Whpre the quick heart of the great world doth 
 
 And 1 . that wondrous Lady all alone — 
 
 And she felt him upon her emerald throne. 
 
 10. And every Nymph of stream and spreading tree, 
 
 And every Shepherdess of Ocean's flocks 
 Who drives her white waves over the green &ea, 
 
 And Ocean with the brine on his grey locks. 
 And quaint Priap s with his company — [rocks 
 
 All came, much wondering how the enwombed 
 Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth : 
 Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth. 
 
 11. The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came, 
 
 And t}.« rude kings o' pastoral Gri^aniant — 
 Their spirits shook within them, as a llame 
 
 Stirred ' y the air under a cavern gaunt : 
 Pygmies and Polyphemes, by mary a name, 
 
 Centaurs and Satvrs, and suf • shapes as u^iunt 
 Wet clefts — and lumps neither alive nor dead 
 Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.
 
 12. For she was beautiful. Her beauty made 
 
 The bright world dim, and everything beside 
 Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade. 
 
 Ko thought of living spirit could abide 
 (Which to her looks had ever been betrayed) 
 
 On any object in the world so wide, 
 On any hope within the circling skies — 
 But on her for and in her inmost eyes. 
 
 13. Which when the Lady knew, she took her spindle, 
 
 And twined three threads of fleecy mist and three 
 Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle 
 
 The clouds, and waves, and mountains with, and 
 she 
 As many starbeams, ere their lamps could dwindle 
 
 In the belated moon, wound skilfully ; 
 And with these threads a subtle veil she wove — 
 A shadow for the splendour of her lore. 
 
 14. The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling 
 
 Were stored with magic treasures — sounds of air 
 Which had the pownr all spirits of compelling, 
 
 Folded in cells of crystal silence there ; 
 Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling 
 
 Will never die — yet, ere we are aware. 
 The feeling and the sound are fled and gone, 
 And the regret they leave remains alone. 
 
 15. And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint. 
 
 Each in its thin s^eath like a chrysalis ; 
 Some eager to h""'<- forth ; some weak and faint 
 
 With the SO;;, l-mthen of intenscst bliss 
 It is their Work to bear to many a saint 
 
 Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS, 137 
 
 Even Love's ; and others, white, green, grey, and 
 
 black, 
 And of all shapes — and each wa? ?t her beck. 
 
 16. And odours in a kind of aviary 
 
 Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept, 
 Clipped in a floating net a love-sick Fairy 
 
 Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet 
 slept. 
 As bats at the wired window of a dairy, 
 
 They beat their vans ; and each was an adept — 
 When loosed and missioned, making wings of 
 
 winds — 
 To stir sweet thoughts or sad in destined minds. 
 
 17. And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might 
 
 Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep, 
 And change eternal death into a night 
 
 Of glorious dreams — or, if eyes needs must weep, 
 Could make their tears all wonder and delight — 
 
 She in her crystal phials did closely keep : 
 If men could drink of those clear phials, 'tis said 
 The living were not envied of the dead. 
 
 18. Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device, 
 
 The works of some Saturnian Archimage, 
 Which taught the expiations at whose price 
 
 Men from the gods might win that happy age 
 Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice — 
 
 And which might quench the earth-consuming 
 rr ^e 
 Of gold and blood, till men should live and more 
 Harmonious as the sacred stars above —
 
 19. And how all things that seem untameable, 
 
 Not to be checked and not to be confined, 
 Obey the spells of Wisdom's wizard skill ; 
 
 Tiroe earth, and fire, the ocean, and the wind, 
 And ail their shapes, and man's imperial will — 
 
 And other scrolls whose writings did nnbind 
 The inmost lore of love — let the profane 
 Tremble to ask w'at secrets they contain. 
 
 20. And wondrous works of substances unknown, 
 
 To which the enchantment of her Father's power 
 Had changed those rugged bio '-^ of savage stone, 
 
 "Were heaped in the recesses <j>. her bower ; 
 Carved lamps and chalices, and phials which shone 
 
 In their own golden beams — each like a flower 
 Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light 
 Under a cy^jress in a starless night. 
 
 21. At first she lived alone in this wild home. 
 
 And her own thoughts were each a minister, 
 Clothing themselves or w^ i. the ocean foam. 
 
 Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire. 
 To work whatever purposes might come 
 
 Into her mind : such power her mighty Sire 
 Had girt them with, whether to fly or run 
 Through all ihe regions which he shines upon. 
 
 22. The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades, 
 
 Oreads and Naiads with long weedy locks, 
 Ofl'ered to do her bidding through lae seaa, 
 
 Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks. 
 And far beneath the matted roots of trees. 
 
 And in the gnarlW. heart of stubborn oaks ;
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 139 
 
 So they might live for ever in the light 
 Of her sweet presence — each a satellite. 
 
 23. " This may not he," the Wizard Maid replied. 
 
 •'The fountains where the Kaiades bedew 
 Their chining hair at lenf:,: U are drained and dried ; 
 
 The bolid oaks forget their strength, and strew 
 Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide ; 
 
 The boundless ocean like a drop of dew 
 "Will be consumed ; the stubborn centre must 
 Be scattered like a cloud of summer dust. 
 
 24. " And ye, with them, will perish one by one. 
 
 If I must sigh to think that this shall be, 
 If I must weep ^-hen the surviving Sun 
 
 Shall smile on your decay — oh, ask not me 
 To love you till your little race is run ; 
 
 I cannot die as ye must — Over me [dwell 
 
 Your leaves shall glance — the streams in which ye 
 Shall be my paths henceforth ; and so farewell ! " 
 
 25. She spoke and wept. The dark and azure well 
 
 Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears, 
 And every little circlet where they fell 
 
 Flung to the cavern roof inconstant spheres 
 And intertangled lines of light. A knell 
 
 Of sobbing voices came upon her ears 
 From thoiie departing forms, o'er the serene 
 Of the white streams and of the forest green. 
 
 26. All day the Wizard Lady sat aloof ; 
 
 Spelling out scrolls of dread autiijuity 
 Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof j 
 Or broidering the pictured poesy
 
 I40 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 Of some liigh tale upon her growing woof, [dye 
 
 "VThich the sweet splendour of her smiles could 
 In hues outshining heaven — and ever she 
 Added some grace to the wrought poesy — 
 
 27. While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece 
 
 Of sandal wood, rare gums, and cinnamon. 
 Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is ; 
 
 Each flame of it is as a precious stone 
 Dissolved in ever-moving light and this 
 
 Belongs to each and ail who gaze thereon. 
 The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand 
 She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand. 
 
 28. This Lady never slept, but lay in trance 
 
 All night within the fountain — as in sleep. 
 Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance : 
 
 Through the green splendour of the water deep 
 She saw the constellations reel and dance 
 
 Like fire-flies — and withal did ever keep 
 The tenor of her contemplation'' ■"'''"" 
 With open eyes, c!: 'ed feet, anu : I palm. 
 
 29. And, when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended 
 
 From the white pinnacles of that cold hill, 
 She passed at dewfall to a space extended, 
 
 Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel 
 Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended, 
 
 There yawned an inextinguishable well 
 Of crimson fire, full even to the brim. 
 And overflowing all the margin trim — 
 
 30. Within the which she lay when the fierce war 
 
 Of wintry winds shook that i'^ocuous lic[Uor,
 
 Ill many a mimic moon and bearded star, [flicker 
 O'er woods and lawns. The serpent heard it 
 
 In sleep, and, dreaming still, he crept afar. 
 And, when the windless snow descended thicker 
 
 Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came 
 
 Melt on the surface of the level flame. 
 
 31. She had a boat which some say Yulcan wrought 
 For Venus, as the chariot of her star ; 
 
 But it was found too feeble to be fraught 
 "With all the ardours in that sphere which are, 
 
 And so she sold it, and Apollo bought 
 And gave it to this daughter : from a car. 
 
 Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat 
 
 "Which ever upon mortal stream did float. 
 
 C2. And others say that, when but three hours old, 
 The firstborn Love out of his cradle leapt, 
 
 And clove dun chaos with his wings of gold, 
 And, like a horticultural adept, 
 
 Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould, 
 And sowed it in his mother's star, and kept 
 
 Watering it all the summer with sweet dew, 
 
 And with his wings fanning it as it grew. 
 
 S3. The plant grew strong and green — the snowy flower 
 Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began 
 To turn the light and dew by inward power 
 To its own substance : woven tracery ran 
 Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o'er 
 
 The solid rind, like a leafs veined fan — 
 or wuicL Love scooped this boat, and will; suft 
 
 n>otioD 
 Piloted It round the circumfluoub ocean.
 
 142 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 34. Tkis boat she moored upon her fount, and lit 
 
 A livifig spirit within all its frame, 
 Bwathing the soul of swiftness into it. 
 
 Couched on the fountain — like a panther tame 
 (One of the twain at Evan's feet that sit), 
 
 Or as on Testa's sceptre a swift flame, 
 Or on blind Homer*8 heart a wingM thought — 
 In joyous expectation lay the boat. 
 
 35. Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow 
 
 Together, tempering the repugnant mass 
 "With liquid love — all things together grow 
 
 Thro\igh which the harmony of love can pass ; 
 And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow — 
 
 A living image which did far surpass 
 In beauty that bright shape of vital stone 
 Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion. 
 
 36. A sexless thing it was, and in its growth 
 
 It seemed to have developed no defect 
 Of either sex, yet all the grate of both. 
 
 In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked ; 
 The bosom lightly swelled with its full youth ; 
 
 " The countenance was such as might select 
 Some artist that his skill should never die, 
 Imaging forth such perfect purity. 
 
 37. From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings 
 
 Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere, 
 Tipped with the speed of liquid lightnings, 
 
 Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere. 
 She led her creature to the boiling springs 
 
 Wh^re the light boat was mc^red, and said "Sit 
 here,"
 
 And pointed to th prow, and took har seat 
 Beside the rudder with opposing feet. 
 
 38. And down the streams which clove those mountains 
 
 vast, 
 
 Around their inland islets, and amid 
 The panther-peopled foreats (whose shade cast 
 
 Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid 
 In melancholy gloom) the pinnace passed ; 
 
 By many a star-surrounded pyramid 
 Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky, 
 And caverns yawning round unfathomably. 
 
 39. The silver noon into that winding dell. 
 
 With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops, 
 Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell ; 
 
 A green and glowing light, like that wWch drops 
 From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell, 
 
 When Earth over her face Wight's mantle wraps ; 
 Between the severed mountains lay on high, 
 Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. 
 
 40. And, ever as she went, the Image lay 
 
 With folded wings and unawakened eyes ; 
 And o'er its gentle countenance did play 
 
 The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies, 
 Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay. 
 
 And drinking the wa?m tears, and the sweet sighs 
 Inhaling, which with busy murmur vain 
 They had aroused from that full heart and brain. 
 
 41. And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud 
 
 Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went :
 
 144 THE WITCH OF ATLAS, 
 
 Now lingering on the pools, in which abode 
 The calm and darkness of the deep content 
 
 In which they paused ; now o'er the shallow road 
 Of white and dancing waters, all besprent 
 
 With sand and polished pebbles — mortal boat 
 
 In such a shallow rapid could not float. 
 
 42. And down the earthquaking cataracts, which shiver 
 
 Their snow-like waters into golden air, 
 Or under chasms unfathomable ever 
 
 Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear 
 A subterranean portal for the riyer, 
 
 It fled. The circling sunbows did upLear 
 Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray, 
 Lighting it far upon its lampless way. 
 
 43. And, when the Wizard Lady would ascend 
 
 The labyrinths of some many- winding vale 
 Which to the inmost mountain upward tend, 
 
 She called " Hermaphroditus ! " — and the pa-e 
 And heavy hue which slumber could extend 
 
 Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale 
 A rapid shadow from a slope of grass, 
 Into the darkness of the stream did pass. 
 
 44. And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions ; 
 
 With stars of fire spottirg the stream below. 
 And from above into the Suu's dominions 
 
 Flinging a glory like the golden glow- 
 In which Spring clothes her emerald- winged 
 minions, 
 
 All interwoven with fine feathery snow, 
 And moonlight splendour of intensest rime 
 With which frost paints the pines in winter time.
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 145 
 
 45. And then it winnowed the elysian air 
 
 Which ever hung about that Lady bright, 
 With its ethereal vans : and, speeding there, 
 
 Like a star up the torrent of the night, 
 Or a swift eagle in the morning glare 
 
 Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight, 
 The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings. 
 Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs. 
 
 46. The water flashed — like sunlight, by the prow 
 
 Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to heaven ; 
 The still air seemed as if its waves did flow 
 
 In tempest down the mountains ; loosely driven, 
 The Lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro ; 
 
 Beneath, the billows, having vainly striven 
 Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel 
 The swift and steady motion of the keel 
 
 47. Or, when the weary moon was in the wane, 
 
 Or in the noon of interlunar night. 
 The Lady Witch in visions could not chain 
 
 Her spirit ; but sailed forth under the light 
 Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain 
 
 His storm-outspeeding wings the Hermaphrodite ; 
 She to the austral waters took her way. 
 Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana. 
 
 48. Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, 
 
 Which rain could never bend or whirlblast shake. 
 With the antarctic constellations paven, 
 
 Canopus and his crew, lay the austral lake — 
 There she would build herself a windless haven, 
 
 Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make 
 * K
 
 146 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 \ 
 
 The bastions of the storm, when through the s';y 
 The spirits of the tempe?t thundered by — 
 
 49. A haven beneath whose translucent floor 
 
 The tremulous stars sparkled unfathoniAbly ; 
 And around which the solid vapours hoar, 
 \ Based on the level waters, to the sky 
 
 \ Lifted their dreadful crags, and, like a shore 
 
 i Of wintry niountains, inaccessibly 
 
 -; Hemmed in -vith rifts and precipices grey, 
 
 i And hanging crags, many a cove and bay, 
 
 i 50. And, tv^.i t +^ e outer lake baneatli the lash 
 . Of the wind's scourge foamed like a wounded 
 
 thing, 
 And the incessant hail wi+h stoTiy clash 
 
 Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing 
 Of the roused corm* ant in the lightning flash 
 
 Looked like the wreck o^ some wind-wandering" 
 Fragment of inky thunder-smoke — this haven 
 Was as a gem to copy heaven engraven. 
 
 51. On which that Lady played her many pranks, 
 Circling the image of a shooting star 
 
 (Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks 
 
 Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are) 
 
 In her light boat ; and many quips and cranks 
 She played upon the water ; till the car 
 
 Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, 
 
 To journey from the misty east began. 
 
 52. And then she called out of the hollow turrets 
 Of those high clouds, white, golden, and ver- 
 milion.
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 147 
 
 The armies of her ministering spirits. 
 
 7n mighty legions million after million 
 They came, each troop emblazoning its merits 
 
 On meteor tlags ; and many a proud pavilion 
 Of the intertexture of the atmosphere 
 They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere. 
 
 53. They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen 
 
 Of woven exhalations, underlaid 
 "With lambent lightr ing-fire, as may be seen 
 
 A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid 
 "With crimson silk. Cressets from the serene 
 
 Hung there, and on the water for her tread 
 A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn, 
 Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon. 
 
 64. And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught 
 Upon those wandering isles of aery dew 
 
 "Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, 
 She sate, and heard all that had happened new 
 
 Between the earth and moon since t};ey had brought 
 The last intelligence ; and now she grew 
 
 Pale as that moon lost in the watery night, 
 
 And now she wept, and now she laughed outright. 
 
 55. These were tame pleasures. — She would often climb 
 The steepest ladder of the crudded rack 
 
 Up to some beakkl cape of cloud sublime, 
 And like Arion on the dolphin's back 
 
 Ride singing through the shoreless air. Oft-time, 
 Following the serpent lightning's winding track, 
 
 She ran upon the platforms of the wind. 
 
 And laughed to hear the fireballs roar behind.
 
 148 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. \ 
 
 56. And sometimes to those streams of upper air 
 Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round 
 
 She would ascend, and win the Spirits there 
 To let hpT- join their chorus. Mortals found 
 
 That on those days the sky was calm and fair, 
 And mystic snatches of harmonious sound 
 
 Wandered upon the earth where'er she passed. 
 
 And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last. 
 
 '•7. But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep, 
 To glide adown old Nilus, when he threads 
 
 Egypt and Ethiopia from the steep 
 Of utmost Axume until he spreads, 
 
 Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep. 
 His waters on the plain — and crested heads 
 
 Of cities and proud temples gleam amid. 
 
 And many a vapour-belted pyramid — 
 
 58. By Hceris and the Mareotid lakes, 
 
 Strewn with faint blooms like bridal-chamber 
 floors, 
 Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes, 
 
 Or charioteering ghastly alligators, 
 Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes 
 
 Of those huge forms ; within the brazen doors 
 Of the Great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, 
 
 Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast. 
 
 59. And where within the surface of the river 
 
 The shadows of the massy temples lie. 
 And never are erased, but tremble ever 
 
 Like things which every cloud can doom to die — 
 Through lotus-pa ven canals, and wheresoever 
 
 The works of man pierced that serenest sky
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAb, 149 
 
 With tombs, and towers, and fanes — 'twas her 
 To wander in the shadow of the night. [delight 
 
 60, With motion like the spirit of that wind 
 
 Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet 
 
 Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind, 
 Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet — 
 
 Through fane and palace-court and labyrinth mined 
 With many a dark and subterranean street 
 
 Under the Nile ; through chambers high and deep 
 
 She passed, observing mortals in their sleep. 
 
 G 1 . A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see 
 
 Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep. 
 
 Here lay two sister-twins in in.j^ncy ; 
 There a lone youth who in his dreams did weep ; 
 
 Within, two lovers linked innocently 
 
 In their loose locks which over both did creep 
 
 Like ivy from one stem ; and there lay calm 
 
 Old age with snow- bright hair and folded palm. 
 
 52. But other troubled forms of sleep she saw, 
 Not to be mirrored in a holy song — 
 
 Distort^' '^ns foul of super-mtural awe, 
 And pale imaginings of "isioned wrong, 
 
 And all the code of Custom's lawless law 
 Written upon the brows of old and young. 
 
 " This," said the Wizard Maiden, "is the strife 
 
 Which stirs the liquid surface of man's life. " 
 
 33. And little did the light disturb her soul. 
 
 We, the weak mariners of that wild lake, 
 Where'er its shores extend or billowc roll, 
 Our course unpiloted and starless make
 
 ISO THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 O'er its will surface to an unknown goal ; 
 
 But she in the calm depths lier way could take, 
 "Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide 
 Beneath the weltering of the restless tide. 
 
 G4. And she saw princes couched iiuder the glow 
 
 Of sunlike gems ; and round each temp\ court 
 
 In dormitories ranged, row af* ; ■ row, 
 She saw th« priests asleep — ail of one sort, 
 
 For all were tducated to be so. 
 
 The peasants in their huts, and in the port 
 
 The sailors she saw cradled on the waves, 
 
 And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. 
 
 65. And all the forms in which those spirits lay- 
 Were to her sight li^'e the diaphanous 
 
 Veils in which those sweet ladies oft array 
 
 Their delicate limbs who would conceal from us 
 
 Only their scorn of all concealment : tliey 
 Move in the light of their own beauty thus. 
 
 But these and all now lay with sleep upon them, 
 
 And little thought a "Witch was looking on them. 
 
 ^^. She all those human figures breatliing there 
 Beheld as living spirits. To her eyes 
 
 The naked beauty of the soul lay bare, 
 And often through a rude and worn disguise 
 
 She saw the inner form most bright and fair : 
 And then she had a charm of strange device, 
 
 Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, 
 
 Could make that spirit mingle with her own. 
 
 67. Alas ! Aurora, what wouldst thou hare given 
 
 For such a charm, when Tithon became grey —
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 151 
 
 Or ho^ -nuch, Venus of thy silver heaven 
 "WoUiast thou have yielded, ere Proserpina 
 
 Had half (oh ! why not all V) the debt forgiven 
 Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay — 
 
 To any witch who would have taught you it ? 
 
 The Htliad doth not know its value yet. 
 
 68. 'Tis said in after times her spirit free 
 
 Knew what love was, and felt itself alone : 
 But holy Dian could not chas^ar be 
 
 Before she stooped to kiss Eudymion 
 Than now this Lady. Like a sexless bee, 
 
 Tasting all blossoms and confined to none, 
 Among those mortal forms the Wizard Maiden 
 Passed with an eye sereue and heart unladen, 
 
 69. To those she saw most beautiful she gave 
 
 Strange panacea in a crystal ho.^l. 
 They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet .vave, 
 
 And lived thenceforward as if some control. 
 Mightier than life, were in them ; and the grave 
 
 Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul, 
 Was as a green and overarching bower 
 Lit by the gems of many a starry flower. 
 
 70. For, on the night that they were buried, she 
 
 Restored the embalmer's ruining, and shook 
 The light out of the funeral lamps, to be 
 
 A mimic day within that deathy nook ; 
 And she unwound the woven imagery 
 
 Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took 
 The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche, 
 And threw it with contempt into a ditch-
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 71. And there the body lay, age after age, 
 
 Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, 
 Like one asleep in a green hermitage — 
 
 "With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing, 
 And living in its dreams beyond the rage 
 
 Of death or life ; while they were still arraying 
 In liveries ever new the rapid, blind. 
 And fleeting generations of mankind. 
 
 72. And she would write strange dreams upon the brain 
 
 Of those who were less beautiful, and make 
 All harsh and crooked purposes more vain 
 
 Than in the desert is the serpent's wake 
 Which the sand covers. All hi? evil gain 
 
 The miser, in such dreams, would rise and shake 
 Into a beggar's lap ; the lying scribe 
 Would his own lies betray without a bribe. 
 
 73. The priests ^•' H'' write an explanation full, 
 
 Translating hieroglyphics into Greek, 
 How the god Apis reaJly was a bull. 
 
 And nothing more ; and bid the herald stick 
 The same against the temple doors, and pull 
 
 The old cant do^sTi : they licensed all to speak 
 Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese, 
 By pastoral letters to each diocese. 
 
 74. The king would dress an ape up in his crown 
 
 And pobes, and seat him on his glorious seat. 
 And on the right hand of the sunlike throne 
 
 Would place a gaudy n^ockbird to repeat 
 The chatterings of the monkey. Every one 
 
 Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet 
 Of their great eraperor when the morning came ; 
 And kissed — alas, how many kiss the same !
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 153 
 
 75 . The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and 
 
 "Walked out of quarters in somnambulism ; 
 Round the red anvils you might see them stand 
 
 Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm, 
 Beating their swords to ploughshares : in a band 
 
 The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism 
 Free through the streets of Men. phis — much, I wis, 
 To the annoyance of king Amasis. 
 
 76. And timid lovers, who had been so coy 
 
 They hardly knew whether they loved or not. 
 Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, 
 
 To the fulfilment of their inmost thought ; 
 And, when next day the maiden and the boy 
 
 Met one another, both, like sinners caught, 
 Blushed at the thing which each believed was done 
 Only in fancy — till the tenth moon shone ; 
 
 77. And then the Witch would let them take no ill : 
 
 Of mt.ny thousand schemes which lovers find, 
 The Witch found one — and so they took their fill 
 
 Of happiness in marriage warm and kind. 
 Friends who, by practice of some envious skill. 
 
 Were torn apart (a wide wound, mind from mind) 
 She did unite again with visions clear 
 Of deep affection and of truth sincere. 
 
 78. These were the pranks she played among the cities 
 
 Of mortal men. And what she did to sprites 
 And gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties, 
 
 To do her will, and show their subtle sleights, 
 I will declare another time ; for it is 
 
 A tale more fit for the weird winter nights 
 Than for these garish summer days, when we 
 Scarcely believe much more than we .an see.
 
 POEMS WRITTEN IN 1819, 
 
 THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 AS I lay asleep in Italy, 
 There c.;Tne a voice from over the 
 And with great ix)wer it forth led me 
 To walk in the visions of Poesy. 
 
 I met Murder on the way — 
 He had a mask like Castlereagh. 
 Very smooth he looked, yet grim ; 
 Seven bloodhounds followed him. 
 
 3. AH were fat ; and well they might 
 Be in admirable plight, 
 
 For one by one, and two by two, 
 
 He tossed them human hearts to chew, 
 
 Which from his wide cloak he drew. 
 
 4. Nezt came Fraud, and he had on, 
 Like Lord Eldon, an ermine f-own. 
 His big tears, for he wept well. 
 Turned into millstones as they fell ;
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY, 155 
 
 5. 
 
 And the little children who 
 
 Round his feet played to and fro, 
 
 Thinking t; jfy tear a gem, 
 
 Had their brains knocked out by them. 
 
 6. 
 
 Clothed with the Bible, as with light 
 And the shadows of the night, 
 Like Sidmouth next, Hypocrisy 
 On a crocodile came by. 
 
 7. 
 
 And many more Destructions played 
 In this ghastly masquerade — 
 All disguised, even to the byes, 
 Like bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies. 
 
 8. 
 
 Last came Anarchy ; he rode 
 
 On a white horse splashed >ith blood ; 
 
 He was pale even to the lips, 
 
 Like Death in the Apocalypse. 
 
 9. 
 
 And he wore a kingly crown ; 
 In his hand a sceptre shone ; 
 On his brow this mark I saw — 
 " I am God, and King, and Law ! " 
 
 10. 
 
 With a pace stately and fast 
 Over English land he passed, 
 Trampling to a mire of blood 
 The adoring multitude. 
 
 11. 
 
 And a mighty troop around 
 
 With their trampling shook the ground, 
 
 Waving each a bloody sword 
 
 For the service of their lord.
 
 156 
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 12. 
 
 And with glorious triumph they 
 Rode through England, proud and gaj, 
 Drunk as with intoxication 
 Of the wine of desolation. 
 
 13. 
 
 O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea, 
 Passed the pageant swift and free, 
 Tearing up and trampling . 
 Till they came to London town. 
 
 14. 
 
 And each dweller panic-stricken, 
 Felt his heart with terror sicken, 
 Hearing the tempestuous cry 
 Of the triumph of Anarchy. 
 
 15. 
 
 For with pomp to meet him came, 
 Clothed in arms like blood and flame. 
 The hired murderers who did sing, 
 •• Thou art God, and Law, and King ! 
 
 16. 
 
 ** "We have waited, weak and lone, 
 
 For thy coming, Mighty One ! 
 
 Our purses are empty, our swords are cold : 
 
 Give us glory, and blood, and gold." 
 
 17. 
 
 Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd, 
 To the earth their pale brows bowed — 
 Like a bad prayer not over loud, 
 Whispering *' Thou art Law and God ! " 
 
 18 
 
 Then all cried with one accord, 
 
 " Thou art King, and Law, and Lord ; 
 
 Anarchy, to thee we bow. 
 
 Be thy name made holy now ! "
 
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 157 
 
 19. 
 
 And Anarchy the skeleton 
 Bowed and grinned to every one 
 A3 well as if his education 
 Had cost ten millions to the nation. 
 
 
 20. 
 
 For he knew the palaces 
 Of our kings were nightly his ; 
 His the sceptre, crown, and globe, 
 And the gold-inwoven robe. 
 
 
 21. 
 
 So he sent his slaves before 
 To seize upon the Bank and Tower, 
 And was proceeding with intent 
 To meet his pensioned parliament, 
 
 
 22. 
 
 "When one fled past, a maniac maid, 
 And her name was Hope, she said, 
 But she looked more like Despair ; 
 And she cried out in the air : 
 
 
 23. 
 
 ' ' My father Time is weak and grey 
 With waiting for a better day ; 
 See how idiot-like he' stands. 
 Fumbling with his palsied hands ! 
 
 
 24. 
 
 " He has had child after child, 
 And the dust of death is piled 
 Over every one but me — 
 Misery ! oh Misery ! " 
 
 
 25. 
 
 Then she lay down in the street 
 Right before the horses' feet, 
 Expecting with a patient eye 
 Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy — 

 
 158 MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 26. When between her and iier foes 
 A mist, a light, an image rose, 
 Small at first, and weak and frail. 
 Like the vapour of the gale : 
 
 27. Till, as clouds grow on the blast. 
 
 Like tower-crowned giants striding fast, 
 And glare with lightnings as they fly, 
 And speak in thunder to the sky, 
 
 28. It grew — a shape arrayed in mail 
 Brighter than the viper's scale, 
 And upborne on wings whose giixin 
 Was like the light of sunny rain. 
 
 29. On its helm seen far away 
 
 A planet like the morning's lay ; 
 
 And those plumes its light rained through, 
 
 Like a shower of crimson dew. 
 
 30. With step as soft as wind it passed 
 O'er the heads of rien : so fast 
 That they knew the presence there. 
 And looked — and all was empty air. 
 
 31. As flowers beneath May's footsteps waken. 
 As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken. 
 As waves arise when loud winds call, 
 Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall 
 
 32. And the prostrate multitude 
 Looked — and, ankle-deep in blood, 
 Hope, that maiden most serene, 
 Was walk lag with a quiet mien ;
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 159 
 
 33. 
 
 And Anarchy, the ghastly birth, 
 Lay dead earth upon the earth ; 
 The hor^e of Death, tameless as wind, 
 Fled, and with his hoofs did grind 
 To dust the murderers thronged behind. 
 
 3^. 
 
 A rushing light of clouds and splendour, 
 A sense awakening and yet tender, 
 Was heard and felt— and at its close 
 These words of joy and fear arose ; 
 
 35. 
 
 As if their own indignant Earth, 
 Which gave the sons of England birth, 
 Had felt th^^'r blood upon her brow. 
 And, shudii' .ing with a mother s throe, 
 
 36. 
 
 Had turned every drop of blood 
 
 By which her face had been bedewed 
 
 To an accent '1 withstood. 
 
 As if her heart had cried aloud. 
 
 37. 
 
 *' Men of England, heirs of glory, 
 Heroes of unwritten story. 
 Nurslings of one mighty mother, 
 Hopes of her and one another ! 
 
 38. 
 
 " Rise, like Kons after slumber, 
 In unvanquishable number ! 
 Shake your chains to earth, like dew 
 Which in sleep had fallen on you 1 
 
 39. 
 
 ♦' What is freedom ? Ye can tell 
 That which Slavery is too well, 
 For its very name has grown 
 To an echo of you own.
 
 i6o MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 40. " 'Tis to "w^ork, and have such pay 
 As just keeps life from day to day 
 In your limbs as in a cell 
 
 For the tyrants' use tx3 dwell : 
 
 41. "So that ye for them are made 
 
 Loom, and plough, and sword, and spad*^ 
 With or without your own will, bent 
 To their defence and nourishment. 
 
 42. " 'Tis to see your children weak 
 With their mothers pine and peak 
 When the winter winds are bleak — 
 They are dying whilst I speak. 
 
 43. " 'Tis to hunger for sucb diet 
 As the rich man in his riot 
 Casts to the fat dogs that lie 
 Surfeiting beneath his eye. 
 
 44. " 'Tis to let the ghost of Gold 
 Take from toil a thousandfold 
 More than e'er his substance could 
 In the tyrannies of old : 
 
 45. " Paper coin — that forgery 
 Of the title-deeds which ye 
 Hold to something of the worth 
 Of the inheritance of Eartb. 
 
 46. '* 'Tis to be a slave in soul, 
 And to hold no strong control 
 Over your own wills, but be 
 All that others make of ye.
 
 47. "And, at length, when ye complain 
 With a murmur weak and vain, 
 'Tis to see the tyrant's crew 
 
 Ride over your wives and you — 
 Blood is on the grass like dew ! 
 
 48. '* Then it is to feel revenge, 
 Fiercely thirsting to exchange 
 
 Blood for blood, and wrong for wrong : 
 Do not thus when ye are strong ! 
 
 49. " Birds find rest in narrow nest, 
 When weary of their winged quest ; 
 Beasts find fare in woody lair, 
 When storm and snow are in the air ; 
 
 50. " Horses, oxen, have a home 
 When from daily toil they come ; 
 Household dogs, when the wind roars, 
 Find a home within warm doors ; 
 
 51. "Asses, swine, have litter spread, 
 And with fitting food are fed ; 
 All things have a home but one — 
 Thou, Englishman, hast none ! 
 
 52. ' ' This is Slavery ! — Savage men. 
 Or wild beasts within a den, 
 Would endure not as ye do : 
 But such ills they never knew. 
 
 53. "What art thou. Freedom ? Oh ! could slaves 
 Answer from their living graves 
 
 Til is demand, tyrants would ftee 
 Like a dream's dim imagery. 
 
 * L
 
 i62 MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 54. ' ' Thou art not, as impostors say, 
 A shadow soon to pass away, 
 
 A superstition, and a name 
 Echoing from the cave of Fame. 
 
 55. " For the labourer, thou art bread 
 And a comely table spread, 
 From his daHy labour come, 
 
 In a neat and happy home. 
 
 66. " Thou art clothes and fire and food 
 For the trampled multitude. 
 
 No — in countries that are free 
 Such starvation cannot be 
 As in England now we see ! 
 
 67. "To the rich thou art a check ; 
 "When his foot is on the neck 
 Of his victim, thou dost make 
 That he treads upon a snake. 
 
 58. " Thou art justice : ne'er for gold 
 May thy righteous laws be sold 
 As laws are in England ; thou 
 Shield' st alike the high and low. 
 
 59. "Thou art wisdom: freemen never 
 Dream that God will damn for ever 
 All who think those things untrue 
 Of which priests make such ado. 
 
 60. " Thou art peace : never by thee 
 Would blood and treasure wasted be 
 As tyrants wasted them when all 
 Leagued to quench thy flame in GauL
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY 163 
 
 61. 
 
 •• What if English toil and blood 
 Was poured terth orsn as a flood ? 
 It availed, Liberty, 
 To dim— but not extinguish thee. 
 
 62 
 
 * * Thou art lore : the rich hare kissed 
 Thy feet, and, like him following Christ, 
 Given their substance to the free, 
 And through the rough world followed thee. 
 
 63 
 
 '• Oh ! turn their wealth to arms, and make 
 War, for thy beloved sake, 
 On wealth and war and fraud ; whence they 
 Drew the power which is their prey. 
 
 64. 
 
 "Science, and poetry, and thought, 
 Are thy lamps ; they make the lot 
 Of the dwellers in a cot 
 Such fhey curse their Maker not. 
 
 65. 
 
 ' * Spirit, patience, gentleness. 
 
 All that can adorn and bless, 
 
 Art thou. Let deeds, not words, express 
 
 Thine exceeding loveliness. 
 
 66 
 
 ' ' Let a great assembly be 
 
 Of the fearless and the free 
 
 On some spot of English ground 
 
 Where the plains stretch wide around. 
 
 67. 
 
 " Let the blue sky overhead, 
 The green earth on which ye tread, 
 All that must eternal be 
 Witness the solemnity.
 
 1 64 
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 68. 
 
 * ' From the comers uttermost 
 Of the bounds of English coast ; 
 From every hut, village, and town 
 Where those who live and suflfer moan 
 For others' misery 6x their own ; 
 
 69. 
 
 '• From the workhouse and the prison, 
 Where, pale as corpses newly risen, 
 Women, children, young and old, 
 Groan for pain, and weep for cold ; 
 
 70. 
 
 " From the haunts of daily life 
 Where is waged the daily strife 
 With common wants and common cares 
 Which sow the human heart with tares ; 
 
 71. 
 
 ' * Lastly, from the palaces 
 Where the murmur of distress 
 Echoes like the distant sound 
 Of a wind alive around— 
 
 72. 
 
 " Those prison-halls of wealth and fashion. 
 "\^Tiere some few feel such compassion, 
 For those who groan, and toil, and wail, 
 As must make their brethren pale — 
 
 73. 
 
 " Ye who suffer woes untold 
 Or to feel or to behold 
 Your lost country bought and sold 
 With a price of blood and gold ! 
 
 74. 
 
 •' Let a vast assembly be, 
 And with great solemnity 
 Declare with ne'er-said words that ye 
 Are, as God has made ye, free !
 
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 165 
 
 75 
 
 " Be your strong and simple words 
 Keen to wound as sharpened swords, 
 And wide as targes let them be, 
 "With their shade to cover ye. 
 
 
 76 
 
 '• Let the tyrants pour around 
 With a quick and startling sound, 
 Like the loosening of a sea, 
 Troops of armed emblazonry. 
 
 
 77 
 
 " Let the charged artillery drive, 
 Till the dead air seems alive 
 With the clash of clanging wheels, 
 And the tramp of horses' heels. 
 
 
 78 
 
 " Let the fixed bayonet 
 Gleam with sharp desire to wet 
 Its bright point in English blood, 
 Looking keen as one for food. 
 
 
 79. 
 
 *• Let the horsemen's scimitars 
 Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars 
 Thirsting to eclipse their burning 
 In a sea of death and mourning. 
 
 
 80. 
 
 " Stand ye calm and resolute, 
 
 Like a forest close and mute, 
 
 With folded arms, and looks which are 
 
 Weapons of an unvanquished war. 
 
 
 81. 
 
 ." And let Panic, who outspeeds 
 The career of armed steeds, 
 Pass, a disregarded shade. 
 Through your phalanx undismayed. 

 
 i66 
 
 MASQUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 82. 
 
 " Let the laws of your own land, 
 Good or ill, between ye stand, 
 Hand to hand, and foot to foot, 
 Arbiters of the dispate— 
 
 83. 
 
 " The old laws of England— they 
 Whose reverend heads with age are grey, 
 Children of a wiser day ; 
 And whose solemn voice must bft 
 Thine own echo— Liberty 1 
 
 84. 
 
 " On those who first should violate 
 Such sacred heralds in their state 
 Rest the blood that must ensue ; 
 And it will not rest on you. 
 
 85. 
 
 " And, if then the tyrants dare, 
 Let them ride among you there, 
 Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew : 
 What they like, that let them do. 
 
 86. 
 
 " With folded arms and steady eyes, 
 And little fear and less surprise. 
 Look upon them as they slay. 
 Till their rage has died away. 
 
 87. 
 
 " Then they will return with shame 
 To the place from which they canu 
 And the blood thus shed will speak 
 In hot blushes on their cheek. 
 
 88. 
 
 "Every woman in the land 
 Will point at them as th-^^y stand — 
 They will hardly dare to greet 
 Their acquai.: tance in the street :
 
 LTNES. 167 
 
 89. " And the bold true -warriors 
 
 Who have hugged danger iu the wars 
 "Will turn to those who would be free, 
 Ashamed of such base company : 
 
 90. "And that slaughter to the nation 
 Shall steam up like inspiration, 
 Eloquent, oracular, 
 
 A volcano heard afar : 
 
 91. " And these words shall then become 
 Like Oppression's thundered doom, 
 Ringing through each heart and brain, 
 Heard again — again — again ! 
 
 92. " Rise, like lions after slumber. 
 In unvanquishable number ! 
 Shake your chains to earth, like dew 
 Which in sleep had fallen on you ! 
 Ye are many — they are few \ " 
 
 LINES. 
 
 WniTTEN DTTBINO THE OASTLEREAGH ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 1. i^^ORPSES are cold in the tomb; 
 
 \^ Stones on the pavement are dumb j 
 Abortions are dead in the womb, 
 And their mothers look pale — like the white shore 
 Of Albion, free no more.
 
 i63 TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND. 
 
 2. Her sons are as stones in the way — 
 They are masses of senseless clay — 
 They are trodden, and move not away ; 
 
 Tlie abortion with which she, travaileth 
 Is Liberty, smitten to death. 
 
 3. Than trample and dance, thou oppressor, 
 For thy victim is no redressor ! 
 
 Thou art sole lord and possessor 
 Of her corpses, and clods, and abortions — they pave 
 Thy path to the grave. 
 
 4. Hear'st thou the festival din 
 
 Of Death, and Destruction, and Sin, 
 And Waalth crying " Havoc ! " within ? 
 'Tis the bacchanal triumph which makes Truth dumb. 
 Thine epithalamium. 
 
 5. Ay, marry thy ghastly Wife ! 
 Let Fear, and Disquiet, and Strife 
 Spread thy couch in the chamber of Life ! 
 
 Marry Ruin, thou tyrant ! and God be thy guide 
 To the bed of the bride ! 
 
 SONG— TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND. 
 
 1. TV /TEN of England, wherefore plough 
 IVJl ^or the lords who lay you low ? 
 
 Wherefore weave with toil and care 
 The rich robes your tyrants wear ?
 
 TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND. 169 
 
 2. Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save, 
 From the cradle to the grave, 
 Those ungrateful drones who would 
 Drain your sweat — nay, drink your blood ? 
 
 3. "Wherefore, Bees of England, forge 
 Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, 
 That these stingless drones may spoil 
 The forced produce of your toil ? 
 
 4. Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, 
 Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ? 
 Or what is it ye buy so dear 
 "With your pain and with your fear ? 
 
 5. The seed ye sow another reaps ; 
 The wealth ye find another keeps : 
 The robes ye weave another wears ; 
 The arms ye forge another bears. 
 
 6. Sow seed — but let no tyrant reap ; 
 Find wealth — let no impostor heap ; 
 Weave robes — let not the idle wear ; 
 Forge arms, in your defence to bear. 
 
 7. Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells ; 
 In halls ye deck another dwells. 
 Why shake the chains ye wrought ? Ye see 
 The steel ye tempered glance on ye. 
 
 8, With plough, and spade, and hoe, and loom. 
 Trace your grave, and build your tomb, 
 And weave your winding-sheet, till fair 
 England be'your sepulchre !
 
 I70 ENGLAND IN 1819. 
 
 ENGLAND IN 1819. 
 
 AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king — 
 Princes, the dregs of their dull race, vrho How 
 Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring, 
 
 Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 
 But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 
 
 Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow — 
 A people starved and stabbed in the untilled iield — 
 
 An army which liberticide and prey 
 ]\Iak© as a two-edged sword to all who wield — 
 
 Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay — 
 Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed — 
 A senate — time's worst statute unrepealed — 
 
 Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may 
 
 Burst to illumine our tempestuous day. 
 
 SIMILES FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 OF 1819. 
 
 1. A S from an ancestral oak 
 
 XT^ Two empty ravens sound their clarion. 
 Yell by yell and croak by croak, 
 When they scent the noonday smoke 
 Of fresh human carrion : — 
 
 2. As two gibbering night-birds flit 
 
 From their bowers of deadly hue 
 Through the night to frighten it, 
 When the moon is in a fit, 
 
 And the stars are none or few —
 
 GOD SAVE THE QUEEN. 171 
 
 As a shark and dogfish wait 
 
 Under an Atlantic isl« 
 For the negro-ship whose freight 
 Is the theme of their debate, 
 
 Wrinkling their red gills the while — 
 
 Are ye, two vultures sick for battle, 
 
 Two scorpions under one wet stone, 
 Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle, 
 Two crows perched on the murrained cattle, 
 Two vipers tangled into one. 
 
 GOD SAVE THE QUEEN. 
 
 GOD prosper, speed, and save, 
 God raise from England's grave, 
 Her murdered Queen ! 
 Pave with swift victory 
 The steps of Liberty, 
 Whom Britons own to be 
 
 Immortal Queen ! 
 
 See, she comes throned on high 
 On swift Eternity ! 
 
 God save the Queen ! 
 Millions on millions wait, 
 Firm, rapid, and elate. 
 On her majestic state — 
 
 God save the Queen !
 
 r/2 GOT) SAVE THE QUEEN. 
 
 3. She is Thine own pure soul 
 Moulding the mighty whole. 
 
 God save the Queen ! 
 She is Thine own deep love 
 Rained down from heaven above. 
 Wherever she rest or move, 
 
 God save our Queen ! 
 
 4. 'Wilder her enemies 
 
 In their own dark disguise ! 
 
 God save our Queen ! 
 All earthly things that dare 
 Her sacred name to bear, 
 Strip them, as kings are, bare ; 
 
 God save the Queen ! 
 
 5. Be her eternal throne 
 Built Ln our hearts alone — 
 
 G<5d save the Queen ! 
 Let the oppressor hold 
 Canopied seats of gold ; 
 She sits enthroned of old 
 
 O'er our hearts Queen. 
 
 6. Lips touched by seraphim 
 Breathe out the choral hymn, 
 
 " God save the Queen ! 
 Sweet as if angels sang. 
 Loud as that trumpet's clang 
 Wakening the world's dead gang — 
 
 God save the Queen !
 
 AN ODE, 173 
 
 AN ODE TO THE ASSERTERS OF LIBERTY. 
 
 1. A RISE, arise, arise ! 
 
 Jtr^ There is blood on the earth that denies ye 
 bread ! 
 Be your wounds like eyes 
 To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead. 
 What other grief were it just to pay ? 
 Your sous, your wives, your brethren, were they ! 
 "\Yho said they were slain on the battle-day ? 
 
 2. Awaken, awaken, awaken I 
 
 The slave and the tyrant are twin->>orn foes. 
 
 Be the cold chains shaken 
 To the dust where your kindred repose, repose : 
 Their bones in the grave will start and move 
 "WTien they hear the voices of those they love 
 Most loud in the holy combat above. 
 
 Wave, wave high the banner 
 When Freedom is riding to conquest by : 
 Though the slaves that fan her 
 Be Famine and Toil, giving sigh for sigh. 
 And ye who attend her imperial car, 
 Lift not your hands in the banded war. 
 But in her defence whose children ye are. 
 
 Glory, glory, glory, 
 To those who have greatly suffered and done ! 
 
 Never name in story 
 Was greater than that which ye sliall have won.
 
 [74 ODE TO HEA VEN. 
 
 Conqiierers have conquered their foes alone, 
 Whose revenge, pride, and power, they have over- 
 thrown : 
 Ride ye, more victorious, over your own. 
 
 Bind, bind every brow 
 With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine : 
 
 Hide the blood-stains now 
 With hues which sweet Nature has made divine — 
 Green strength, azure hope, and eternity. 
 But let not the pansy among them be ; 
 Ye were injured, and that means memory. 
 
 ODE TO HEAVEN. 
 
 * Chorus op Spirits, 
 first spirit. 
 
 PALACE-ROOF of cloudless nights f 
 Paradise of golden lights I 
 Deep, immeasurable, vast, 
 
 Which art now, and which wert then I 
 Of the present and the past, 
 
 Of the eternal where and when, 
 Presence-chamber, temple, home 1 
 Ever-canopying dome 
 Of acts and ages yet to come ! 
 
 Glorious shapes have life in thee — 
 Earth, and all earth's company : 
 Living globes which ever throng 
 Thy deep chasms and wildernesses ; .
 
 ODE TO HEAVEN, 175 
 
 And green worlds that glide along ; 
 
 And swift stars with flashing tresses 
 And icy moons most cold and bright 
 And mighty suns beyond the night. 
 Atoms of intensest light. 
 
 Even thy name is as a god, 
 Heaven ! for thou art the abode 
 Of that Power which is the glass 
 
 Wherein man his nature sees. 
 Generations as they pass 
 
 Worship thee with bended knees. 
 Their unremaining gods and they 
 Like a river roll away ; 
 Thou remainest such tdway. 
 
 SECOND SPIEIT. 
 
 Thou art but the mind's first chamber 
 Round which its young fancies clamber, 
 Like weak insects in a cave 
 
 Lighted up by stalactites ; 
 But the portal of the grave — 
 
 Where a world of new delights 
 Will make thy best glories seem 
 But a dim and noonday gleam 
 From the shadow of a dream ! 
 
 THIRD KPIRIT. 
 
 Peace ! the abyss is wreathed with scorn 
 At your presumption, atom-born ! 
 What is heaven ? and what are ye 
 
 Who its brief expanse inherit ? 
 What are suns and spheres which flee 
 
 With the instinct of that Spirit
 
 176 ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 
 
 Of which ye are but a part 1 
 
 Drops which Nature's mighty heart 
 
 Drives through thinnest veins. Depart ! 
 
 What is heaven ? A globe of dew, 
 
 Filling in the morning new 
 
 Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken 
 
 On an unimagined world — 
 Constellated suns unshaken, 
 
 Orbits measureless, are furled 
 In that frail and fading sphere, 
 With ten millions gathered there,. 
 To tremble, gleam, and disappea. 
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 
 
 OWILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's 
 being, 
 Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
 Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing. 
 
 Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 
 Pestilence-stricken multitudes ! thou 
 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 
 
 The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low. 
 
 Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
 Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 
 
 Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 
 (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
 With living hues and odours plain and hill ;
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 177 
 
 Wild Spirit which art moTing everywh^-e ; 
 Destroyer and preserver ; hear, oh hear I 
 
 2. Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's cora- 
 motion, 
 Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, 
 Shook from the tangled boughs of hearven and ocean, 
 
 Angels of rain and lightning ! there are spread 
 On the blue surface of thine airy surge. 
 Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 
 
 Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge 
 
 Of the horizon to the zenith's height, 
 The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 
 
 Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
 Will be the dome of a vast sepulchi-e. 
 Vaulted with all thy congregated might 
 
 Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 
 
 Black rain, and fire, and hail, wilt burst : Oh hear ! 
 
 3. Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 
 The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 
 Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, 
 
 Beside a pumice isle in Baiae'a bay, 
 And saw in sleep old palaces ani towtrs 
 Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 
 
 All overgrown with azure moss, and "flowers 
 
 So sweet the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 
 For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 
 
 Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
 The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
 The sapless foliage of the oocan know 
 * u
 
 178 ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 
 
 Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, 
 
 And tremble and despoil themselves : Oh, hear I 
 
 If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; 
 If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; 
 A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 
 
 The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
 Tlian thou, uncontrollable ! if even 
 I were as in my boyhood, and could be 
 
 The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 
 As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 
 Scarce seemed a vision — I would ne'er have striven 
 
 As thus with thee in prayer in ray sore need. 
 Oh ! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
 I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 
 
 A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 
 One too like thee — tameless, and swift, and proud. 
 
 Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
 
 What if my leaves are falling like its own ? 
 The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 
 
 "Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 
 Sweet though in sadness. Be thou. Spirit fierce, 
 My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 
 
 Drive my dead thoughts over the universe. 
 
 Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth ; 
 And, by the incantation of this verse, 
 
 Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
 Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
 
 Be through my lips to unawakened earth 
 The trumpet of a prophecy ! "Wind, 
 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ?
 
 AN EXHORTA TION. i7<) 
 
 AN EXHORTATION. 
 
 CHAMELEONS feed on light and air ; 
 Poets food is love and fame. 
 If in this wide world of care 
 
 Poets could but find the same 
 With as little toil as they, 
 
 Would they ever change their hue 
 As the light chameleons do, 
 Suiting it to every ray 
 
 Twenty times a-day ? 
 
 Poets are on this cold earth 
 
 As chameleons might be 
 Hidden from their early birth 
 
 In a cave beneath the sea. 
 Where light is, chameleons change j 
 
 Where love is not, poets do. 
 
 Fame is love disguised : if few 
 Find either, never think it strange 
 That poets range. 
 
 Yet dare not stain with wealth or power 
 
 A poet's free and heavenly mind. 
 If bright chameleons should devour 
 
 Any food but beams and wind, 
 They would grow as earthly soon 
 
 As their brother lizards are. 
 
 Children of a sunnier star, 
 Spirits from beyond the moon. 
 Oh ! refuse the boon !
 
 i8o THE INDIAN SERENADE. 
 
 THE INDIAN SERENADE. 
 
 I ARISE from dreams of thee 
 In the first sweet sleep of night, 
 When the winds are breathing low, 
 And the stars are shining bright. 
 I arise from dreams of thee, 
 And a spirit in my feet 
 
 Hath led me — ^vho knows how ? 
 To thy chamber window sweet 1 
 
 The wandering airs they faint 
 On the dark, the silent stream — 
 
 The champak odours fail 
 Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; 
 
 The uightiagale's complnint 
 
 It dies upon her heart, 
 As I must di« oa thine, 
 
 'BelovW as th»u art ! 
 
 Oh, lift me from the grass I 
 
 1 die, I faint, I fail ! 
 Let thy Idve is kisses rain 
 On my Mr* a»d ajoIifLs pale. 
 M^ cheek is cold and wWte, alas ! 
 My heart beats loui and fast : 
 Oh ! press it close to thine again, 
 Where it will break at last.
 
 LINES. i8l 
 
 LINES WRITTEN FOR MISS SOPHIA STAGEY. 
 
 1. 'T^HOU art fair, and few are fairer 
 
 X Of the nymphs of earth or ocean. 
 They are robes that fife the wearer — 
 
 Those soft limbs of thine, whose motion 
 Ever falls, and shifts, and glances. 
 As the life within them dances. 
 
 2. Thy deep eyes, a double planet, 
 
 Gaze the wisest into madness 
 With soft clear fire. The winds that fan it 
 
 Are those thoughts of gentle gladness 
 Which, like zephyrs on the billow, 
 Make thy gentle soul their pillow. 
 
 3. If whatever face thou paintest 
 
 In those eyes grows pale with pleasure, 
 If the fainting soul is faintest 
 
 When it hears thy harp's wild measure, 
 Wonder not that, when thou speakest. 
 Of the weak my heart is weakest, 
 
 4. As dew beneath the wind of morning, 
 
 As the sea which whirlwinds waken, 
 As the birds at thunder's warning. 
 
 As aught mute but deeply shaken, 
 As one who feels an unseen spirit, 
 Is my heart when thine is near it. 
 
 Via Val Fonda, Florence^
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION: 
 
 Verses addressed to the noble and unfortunate lady, 
 
 EMILY VIVIANI, 
 
 Now imprisoned in the convent of St. Anne, Pisa. 
 
 \ " L'aninia amante si slaiiLia fuuri del create, e si crea nell' 
 
 intinito un raondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro 
 e pauroso baratro."— fler oxen words. 
 
 ]My song, I fear that thou wilt find but few 
 Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning,. 
 
 Of such hard matter dost thou entertain ; 
 "Whence, if by misadventure chance should bring 
 Thee to base company (as chance may do), 
 Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, 
 I prithee comfort thy sweet self again, 
 ]My last delight : tell the'm that they are dull, 
 And bid them own that thou art beautiful. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The writer of the following lines died at Florence, as he was 
 preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, 
 which he had bought"^ and where he had fitted up the ruins of 
 an old building ; and where it was his hope to have realised a 
 scheme of life suited perhaps to that happier and better world 
 of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this.
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 183 
 
 His life was singular ; less on account of the romantic vicissi- 
 tudes which diversified it than the ideal tinge which it received 
 from his own character and feelings. The present poem, like 
 the Vita Nova of Dante, is suflBciently intelligible to a certain 
 class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circum- 
 stances to which it relates ; and to a certain other class it must 
 ever remain incomprehensible, from a defect of a common organ 
 of preception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that 
 ^^ gran vergogna sarebbe a colui che rimasse cosa sotto veste di 
 figura di colore rettorico, e domandato non sapesse denudare le 
 sue jjarole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendi- 
 mento." 
 
 The present poem appears to have been intended by the 
 writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on the 
 preceding page is almost a literal translation from Dante's 
 famous canzone 
 
 " Voi che intendendo il terzo del movete," etc. 
 
 The presumptuous application of the concluding lines to his own 
 composition will raise a smile at the expense of my unfortunate 
 friend : be it a smile not of contempt, but pity. 
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 SWEET Spirit, sister of that orphan one 
 "Whose empire is the Dame thou weepest on, 
 In my heart's temple I suspend to thee 
 These votive wreaths of withered memory. 
 Fair captive bird, who from thy narrow cage 
 Pourest such music that it might assuage 
 The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee, 
 Were they not deaf to all sweet melody — 
 This song shall be thy rose : its petals pale 
 Are dead, indeed, my adored nightingale ! 
 But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom, 
 And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom.
 
 High spirit-wiflgM heart, who dost for ever 
 
 Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour, 
 
 Till those bright plumes of thought in which arrayed 
 
 It oversoared this low and worldly shade 
 
 Lie shattered, and thy panting wounded breast 
 
 Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest — 
 
 I w'eef) vain tears : blood would less bitter be, 
 
 Yet poured forth gladlier ceuld it profit thee. 
 
 Seraph of heaven, too gentle to be human. 
 
 Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman 
 
 All that is insupportable in thee 
 
 Of light, and love, and immort-ality ! 
 
 Sweet benediction in the eternal curse ! 
 
 Veiled glory of this lampless universe ! 
 
 Thou moon beyond the clouds ! thou living form 
 
 Among the dead ! thou star above the storm ! 
 
 Thou wonder, and thou beauty, and thou terror ! 
 
 Thou harmony of Natui-e's art ! thou mirror 
 
 In whom, as m the splendour of the sun, 
 
 All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on^ 
 
 Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now 
 
 Flash lightning-like with unaccustomed glow ! 
 
 I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song 
 
 All of its much mortality and wrong 
 
 With those clear drops which start like sacred dew 
 
 From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through, 
 
 Weeping till sorrow becomes ecstasy : 
 
 Then smile on it so that it naay not die. 
 
 I never thought before my death to see 
 Youth's vision thus ninde perfect. Emily, 
 I love thee — though the world by no thin name 
 Will hide that love from its unvalued shame.
 
 Would we two had been twins of the same mother ! 
 Or that the nanie luy heart lent to another 
 Could be a sister's bond for her and thee, 
 Blending two beams of one eternity 1 
 Yet were one kwful and the other true, 
 These names, though dear, could paint not as is due 
 How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me ! 
 I am not thine — I am a part of thee ! 
 
 Sweep lamp ! my moth-like muse has burnt its wings ; 
 
 Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings, 
 
 Young Love should teach Time, in his own grey style, 
 
 All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile — 
 
 A lovely soul formed to be blessed and bless — 
 
 A well of sealed and sacred happiness. 
 
 Whose waters like blithe light and music are. 
 
 Vanquishing dissonance and gloom — a star 
 
 Which moves not in the moving heavens, alone — 
 
 A smile amid dark frowns — a gentle tone 
 
 Amid rude voices — a belovM light — 
 
 A solitude, a refuge, a delight — 
 
 A lute which those whom Love has taught to play 
 
 Make music on to soothe the roughest day. 
 
 And lull fond Grief asleep — a buried treasure — 
 
 A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure — 
 
 A violet-ahrouded grave of woe 1 — I measure 
 
 The world of fancies seeking one like thee, 
 
 And find — alas ! mine own infirmity. 
 
 She met me. Stranger, upon life's rough way, 
 
 And lured me towards sweet death ; as Night by Day, 
 
 Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, 
 
 Led into light, life, peace. An antelope 
 
 In the suspended impulse of its lightness
 
 1 86 EPIPS YC HID ION. 
 
 "Were less ethereally light. The brightness 
 Of her divinest presence trembles through 
 Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew 
 Embodied in the windless heaven of June, 
 Amid the splendour-wingM stars, the moon 
 Burns inextinguishably beautiful : 
 And from her lips as from a hyacinth full 
 Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops, 
 Killing the sense with passion, sweet as stops 
 Of planetary music heard in trance. 
 In her mild lights the starry spirits dance, 
 The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap 
 Under the lightnings of the soul — too deep 
 For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. 
 
 The glory of her being, issuing thence, 
 
 Stains the dead blank cold air with a warm shade 
 
 Of unentangled intermixture, made, 
 
 By Love, of light and motion ; one intense 
 
 Diffusion, one serene omnipresence. 
 
 Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing, 
 
 Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing 
 
 With the uuintermitted blood, which there 
 
 Quivers (as in a fleece of snow-like air 
 
 The crimson pulse of living Morn may quiver), 
 
 Continuously prolonged and ending never, 
 
 Till they are lost, and in tliat beauty furled 
 
 Which penetrates, and clasps, and fills the world ; 
 
 Scarce visible from extreme loveliness. 
 
 Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress, 
 
 And her loose hair ; and, where some heavy tresa 
 
 The air of her own speed has disentwined. 
 
 The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind ; 
 
 And in the soul a wild odour is felt,
 
 EPIPS YCHTDTON. 187 
 
 Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt 
 
 Into the bosom of a frozen bud. 
 
 See where she stands t a mortal shape indued 
 
 With love, and life, and light, and deity. 
 
 And motion which may change but cannot die ; 
 
 An image of some bright eternity ; 
 
 A shadow of some golden dream ; a splendour 
 
 Leaving the third sphere pilotless ; a tender 
 
 Reflection of the eternal moon of love 
 
 Under whose motions life's dull billows move ; 
 
 A metaphor of Spring, and youth, and morning 
 
 A vision like incarnate April, warniug 
 
 With smiles and tears Frost the anatomy 
 
 Into his summer grave. 
 
 Ah ! woe is me ! 
 What have I dared ? where am I lifted ? how 
 Shall I descend, and perish not ? I know 
 That love makes all things equal : I have heard 
 By mine own heart this joyous truth averred — 
 The spirit of the worm beneath the sod, 
 In love and worship, blends itself with God. 
 
 Spouse ! sister ! angel ! pilot of the fate 
 
 Whose course has been so starless ! too late 
 
 Beloved, too soon adored, by me ! 
 
 For in the fields of immortality 
 
 My spirit should at first have worshipped thine, 
 
 A divine presence in a place divine ; 
 
 Or should have moved beside it on this earth, 
 
 A shadow of that substance, from its birth : 
 
 But not as now. — I love thee ; yes, I feel 
 
 That on the fountain of my heart a seal 
 
 Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright 
 
 For thee, since in those tears thou hast delight
 
 1 88 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 "We — are we not formed, as notes of music are, 
 For one another, though dissimilar ? 
 Such difference without discord as can make 
 Those sweetest sounds in which all spirits sliake, 
 As trembling leaves in a continuous air. 
 
 Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare 
 
 Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wrecked. 
 
 [ never was attached to that great sect 
 
 Whose doctrine is that each one should select 
 
 Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, 
 
 And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend 
 
 To cold oblivion ; though it is in the code 
 
 Of modern morals, and the beaten road 
 
 Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread 
 
 Who travel to their home among the dead 
 
 l>y the broad highway of the world, and so 
 
 With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, 
 
 The dreariest and the longest journey go. 
 
 True love in this differs from gold and clay, 
 
 That to divide is not to take away. 
 
 Love is like understanding, that grows bright, 
 
 Gazing on many truths ; tis like thy light, 
 
 Imagination, which from earth and sky, 
 
 And from the depths of human fantasy, 
 
 As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills 
 
 The universe with glorious beams, and kills 
 
 Error the worm with many a sunlike arrow 
 
 Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow 
 
 The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, 
 
 The life that wears, the spirit that creates, 
 
 One object and one form, and builds thareby 
 
 A sepulchre for its eternity !
 
 EPIPS YCHIDION. 1 89 
 
 Mind from its object differs most in this : 
 Evil from good ; misery from happiness ; 
 The baser from the nobler ; the impure 
 And frail from what is clear and must endure. 
 If you divide suffering or dross, you may 
 Diminish till it is consumed away ; 
 If you divide pleasure, and love, and thought, 
 Each part exceeds the whole ; and we know not 
 How much, while any yet remains unshared, 
 Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared. 
 This truth is that deep well whence sages draw 
 The unenvied light of hope ; the eternal law 
 By which those live to whom this world of life 
 Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife 
 Tills for the promise of a later birth 
 The wilderness of this elysian earth. 
 
 There was a Being whom my spirit oft 
 
 Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, 
 
 In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn, 
 
 Upon tke fairy isles of sunny lawn, 
 
 Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves 
 
 Of divine sl«ep, and on the air-like waves 
 
 Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor 
 
 Paved her light steps. On an imagined shore, 
 
 Under the grey beak of some promontory, 
 
 She met me, robed in such exceeding glory 
 
 That I beheld her not. In solitudes 
 
 Her voice came to me through the whispering woods, 
 
 And from the fountains, and the odours deep 
 
 Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep 
 
 Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there, 
 
 Breathed but of her to the enamoured air ; 
 
 And from the breezes whether low or ioud,
 
 every ^ 
 And from the singing of the summer birds, 
 And from all sounds, all silence. In the words 
 Of antique verse and high romance — in form, 
 Sound, coloar — in whatever checks that storm 
 Which with the shattered present chokes the past — 
 And in that best philosophy whose taste 
 Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom 
 As glorious as a fiery martyrdom — 
 Her Spirit was the harmony of truth. 
 
 Then from the caverns of my dreamy youth 
 
 I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire, 
 
 And towards the lodestar of my own desire 
 
 I flitted, like a dizzy moth whose flight 
 
 Is as a dead leafs in the owlet light, 
 
 When it would seek in Hesper's setting sphere 
 
 A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre, 
 
 As if it were a lamp of earthly flame. 
 
 But she, whom prayers or tears then could not tame, 
 
 Passed, like a god throned on a winged planet, 
 
 Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it, 
 
 Into the dreary cone of our life's shade. 
 
 And, as a man with mighty loss dismayed, 
 
 I would have followed, though the grave between 
 
 Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen : 
 
 When a voice said, ' * thou of hearts the weakest, 
 
 The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest." 
 
 Then I — "Where?" The world's echo answered, 
 
 "'VMiere?" 
 And in that silence and in my despair 
 I questioned every tongueless wind that flew 
 Over my tower of mourning, if it knew 
 Whither 'twas fled, this soul out of my soul ;
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 191 
 
 And murmured names and spells which have control 
 
 Over the sightless tyrants of our fate. 
 
 But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate 
 
 The night which closed on her ; nor uncreate 
 
 That world within this chaos, mine and me, 
 
 Of which she was the veiled divinity — 
 
 The world, I say, of thoughts that worshipped her. 
 
 And therefore I went forth — with hope, and fear, 
 
 And every gentle passion, sick to death. 
 
 Feeding my course with expectation's breath — 
 
 Into the wintry forest of our life ; 
 
 And, struggling through its error with vain strife. 
 
 And stumbling in my weakness and my haste, 
 
 And half bewildered by new forms, I passed, 
 
 Seeking among those untaught foresters 
 
 If I could find one form, resembling hers. 
 
 In which she might have masked herself from me. 
 
 There, one whose voice was venomed melody 
 
 Sate by a well, under blue nightshade bowers. 
 
 The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers ; 
 
 Her touch was as electric poison ; flame 
 
 Out of her looks into my vitals came ; 
 
 And from her living cheeks and bosom flew 
 
 A killing air which pierced like honey-dew 
 
 Into the core of my green heart, and lay 
 
 Upon its leaves — until, as hair grown grey 
 
 O'er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime 
 
 With ruins of unseasonable time. 
 
 In many mortal forms I rashly sought 
 The shadow of that idol of my thought. 
 And some were fair — but beauty dies away : 
 Others were wise — but honeyed words betray s 
 And one was true — oh ! whv not true to rne ?
 
 192 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 Then, as « hunted deer that conld not flee, 
 
 I turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay, 
 
 Wounded, and weak, and panting ; the cold day 
 
 Trembled for pity of my strife and pain — 
 
 When, like a noonday dawn, there shone again 
 
 Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed 
 
 As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed 
 
 As is the Moon, whose changes ever run 
 
 Into themselves, to the eternal Sun ; 
 
 The cold chaste iloon, the queen of heaven's bright 
 
 isles. 
 Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles — 
 That wandering shriue of soft yet icy flame 
 Which ever is transformed yet still the same. 
 And warms not, but illumines. Young and fair 
 As the descended Spirit of that sphere 
 Ske hid me, as the Moon may hide the Night 
 From its own darkness, until all was bright 
 Between the heaven and earth of my calm mind ; 
 And, as a cloud charioted by the wind. 
 She led me to a cave in that wild place, 
 And sat beside me, with her downward face 
 Illumining my slumbers, like the Moon 
 Waxing and waning o'er Endymion. 
 And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, 
 And all my being became bright or dim 
 As the Moon's image in a summer sea, 
 According as she smiled or frowned on me ; 
 And there I lay within a chaste cold bed, 
 Alas ! I then was nor alive nor dead — 
 For at her silver voice came Death and Life, 
 Unmindful each of their accustomed strife, 
 Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother, 
 The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother :
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 193 
 
 And througli the cavern without wings they flew, 
 And cried, *' Away ! he is not of our crew." 
 I wept ; and, though i'. be a dream, I weep. 
 
 What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep, 
 
 Blotting that Moon whose pale and waning lips 
 
 Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse ; 
 
 And how my soul was as a lampless sea, 
 
 And who was then its tempest ; and, when she, 
 
 The planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost 
 
 Crept o'er those waters, till from coast to coast \ 
 
 The moving billows of my being fell 3 
 
 Into a death of ice, immovable ; \ 
 
 And then what earthquakes made it gape and split, 
 
 The white ]Moon smiling all the while on it — 
 
 These words conceal. If not, each word would be 
 
 The key of staunchless tears. \Yeep not for me ! 
 
 At length, into the obscure forest came 
 
 The vision I had sought through grief and shame. 
 
 Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns 
 
 Flashed from her motion splendour like the morn's, 
 
 And from her presence life was radiated 
 
 Through the grey earth and branches bare and dead : 
 
 So that her way was paved and roofed above 
 
 With flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love \ 
 
 And music from her respiration spread 
 
 Like light — all other sounds were penetrated 
 
 By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound, 
 
 So that the savage winds hung mute around ; 
 
 And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair, 
 
 Dissolving the dull cold in the frore air. 
 
 Soft as an incarnation of the Sun, 
 
 When light is clianged to love, this gloiious one
 
 194 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 \ Floated into the cavern where I lay, 
 \ And called my spirit ; and the dreaming clay 
 I Was lifted by the thing that dreamed below 
 As smoke by fire, and in her beauty's glow 
 I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night 
 ■\Vas penetrating me with living light. 
 I knew it was the Vision veiled from me 
 So many years — that it was Emily. 
 1 
 
 ' Twin spheres of light who rule this passive earth, 
 1 This world of love, this mt ; and into birth 
 a Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart 
 I Magnetic might into its central heart ; 
 \ And lift its billows and its mists, and guide 
 \ By everlasting laws each wind and tide 
 \ To its fit cloud and its appointed cave ; 
 \ And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave 
 ^ "Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers 
 I The armies of the rainbow-winged showers ; 
 I And, as those married lights which from the towers 
 I Of heaven look forth, and fold the wandering globe 
 \ In liquid sleep and splendour as a robe, 
 I And all their many-mingled influence blend, 
 If equal yet unlike, to one sweet end, 
 So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway, 
 Govern my sphere of being, night and day — 
 Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might, 
 Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light — 
 • And through the shadow of the seasons three, 
 From Spring to Autumn's sere maturity, 
 Light it into the winter of the tomb, 
 Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom I — 
 Thou too, Comet, beautiful and fierce, 
 Who drew'st the heart of this frail universe
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION, 195 
 
 Towards thine own ; till wrecked in that convulsion, 
 
 Alternating attraction and repulsion, 
 
 Thine went astray, and that was rent in twain ; 
 
 Oh ! float into our azure heaven again ! 
 
 Be there love's folding-star at thy return I 
 
 The living Sun will feed thee from its urn 
 
 Of golden fire ; the Moon will veil her horn 
 
 In thy last smiles ; adoring Even and Morn 
 
 Will worship thee with incense of calm breath 
 
 And lights and shadows, as the star of death 
 
 And birth is worshipped by those sisters wild 
 
 Called Hope and Fear. Upon the heart are piled 
 
 Their offerings — of this sacrifice divine 
 
 A world shall be the altar. 
 
 Lady mine, 
 Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth 
 Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth 
 Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes, 
 Will be as of the trees of paradise. 
 The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me 1 
 To whatsoe'er of dull mortality 
 Is mine remain a vestal sister still ; 
 To the intense, the deep, the imperishable — 
 Not mine, but me — henceforth be thou united, 
 Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. 
 The hour is come — the destined star has risen 
 Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. 
 The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set 
 The sentinels — but true Love never yet 
 Was thus constrained. It overleaps all fence : 
 Like lightning, with invisible violence 
 Piercing its continents ; like heaven's free breath, 
 Which he who grasps can hold not ; liker Death,
 
 196 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 "Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way- 
 Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array j 
 Of arms. More strength has Love than he or they ; 
 For he can burst his charucl, and make free 
 The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, 
 The soul in dust and chaos. 
 
 Emilyj 
 A ship is floating in the harbour now, 
 A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's br^w. 
 There is a path on the sea's azure floor — 
 No keel has ever ploughed that path before ; 
 The halcyons brood around the foamless isles : 
 The treacherous ocean has foresworn its wiles ; 
 The merry mariners are bold and free : 
 Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me ? 
 Our bark is as an albatross whose nest 
 Is a far Eden of the purple east ; 
 And we between her wings will sit, while Night, \ 
 
 And Day, and Storm, and Calm pursue their flight, 
 Our ministers, along the boundless sea, 
 Treading each other's heels, unheededly. 
 It is an isle under Ionian skies, 
 Beautiful as a wreck of paradise ; 
 And, for the harbours are not safe and good, 
 This land would have remained a solitude 
 But for some pastoral people native there, 
 "Who from the elysian, clear, and golden aii 
 Draw the last spirit of the age of gold — 
 Simple and spirited, innocent and bold. 
 The blue ^Egean girds this chosen home, 
 With ever-changing sound, and light, and foam, 
 Kissing the sifted sands and caverns hoar ; 
 And all the winds wandering along the shore
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 197 
 
 Undulate with the undulating tide. 
 
 There are thick woods where S3'lvan forma abide ; 
 
 And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, 
 
 As clear as elemental diamond, 
 
 Or serene morning air. And far beyond, 
 
 The mossy tracks made by the goat- and deer 
 
 (Which the rough shepherd trer d- !;ut once a-ycar) 
 
 Pierce into gbdes, cavorns, and bowers, and halls 
 
 Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls 
 
 Illumining, with sound that never fails, 
 
 Accompany the noonday nightingales. 
 
 And all the place is peopled with sweet airs; 
 
 The light clear element which the isle wears 
 
 Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers. 
 
 Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, 
 
 And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep ; 
 
 And from the moss violets and jonquils peep. 
 
 And dart their arrowy odour through the brain, 
 
 Till you might faint with that delicious pain. 
 
 And every motion, odour, beam, and tone, 
 
 With that deep music is in unison 
 
 Which is a soul within the soul ; they seem 
 
 Like echoes of an antenatal dream. 
 
 It is an isle 'twixt heaven, air, earth, and sea. 
 
 Cradled, and hung iu clear tranquillity ; 
 
 Bright as that wandering Eden, Lucifer, 
 
 Washed by the soft blue oceans of young air. 
 
 It is a favoured place. Famine or blight, 
 
 Pestilence, war, and earthquake never light 
 
 Upon its mountain-peakb ; blind vultures, they 
 
 Sail onward far upon their fatal way. 
 
 The winged storms, chanting their thunder-psalm 
 
 To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm 
 
 Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew,
 
 198 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 From which its fields and woods ever renew 
 
 Their green and golden immortality. 
 
 And from the sea there rise, and from the sky 
 
 There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, 
 
 Veil after veil, each hiding some delight : 
 
 Which sun, or moon, or zephyr draws aside, 
 
 Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride 
 
 Glowing at once with love and loveliness, 
 
 Blushes and trembles at its own excess. 
 
 Yet, like a buried lamp, a soul no less 
 
 Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, 
 
 An atom ol the Eternal, whose own smilt 
 
 Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen, 
 
 O'er the grey rocks, blue waves, and forests green, 
 
 Filling their bare and void interstices. 
 
 But the chief marvel of the wilderness 
 
 Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how 
 
 None of the rustic island-people know. 
 
 'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height 
 
 It overtops the woods ; but, for delight, 
 
 Some wise and tender Ocean-king, ere crime 
 
 Had been invented, in the world's young prime, 
 
 Reared it, a wonder of that simple time, 
 
 And envy of the isles — a pleasure-house 
 
 Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. 
 
 It scarce seems now a wreck of human art, 
 
 But, as it were, Titanic ; in the heart 
 
 Of earth having assumed its form, then grown 
 
 Out of the mountains, from the living stone 
 
 Lifting itself in caverns light and high : 
 
 For all the antique and learned imagery 
 
 Has been erased, and in the place of it 
 
 The ivy and the wild vine interknit
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION, 199 
 
 The volumes of their many-twiniDg stems. 
 
 Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems 
 
 The lampless halls ; and, when they fade, the sky 
 
 Peeps through their winter- woof of tracery 
 
 With moonlight patches or star atoms keen, 
 
 Or fragments of the day's intense serene, 
 
 Working mosaic on their Parian floors. 
 
 And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers 
 
 And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem 
 
 To sleep in one another's arms, and dream 
 
 Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that 
 
 we 
 Read in their smiles, and call reality. 
 
 This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed 
 
 Thee to be lady of the solitude. 
 
 And I have fitted up some chambers there 
 
 Looking towards the golden eastern air, 
 
 And level with the living winds which flow 
 
 Like waves above the living waves below. 
 
 I have sent books and music there, and all 
 
 Those instruments with which high spirits call 
 
 The future from its cradle, and the past 
 
 Out of its grave, and make the present last 
 
 In thoughts and joys which sleep but cannot die. 
 
 Folded within their own eternity. 
 
 Our simple life wants little, and true taste 
 
 Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste 
 
 The scene it would adorn ; and therefore still 
 
 Nature with all her children haunts the hill. 
 
 The ringdove in the embowering ivy yet 
 
 Keeps up her love-lament ; and the owls flit 
 
 Round the evening tower ; and the young stars glance 
 
 Between the quick bats in their twilight dance ;
 
 EPIPS YCHIDION. 
 
 The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight 
 
 Before our gate ; and the slow silent night 
 
 Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. 
 
 Be tills our home in life ; and, when years heap 
 
 Their withered hours like leaves o:i our decay, 
 
 Let us become the overhanging day. 
 
 The living soul, of this elysian isle — 
 
 Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile 
 
 We two will rise, and sic, rnd walk together 
 
 Under the roof of jlue lo. in weather ; 
 
 And wander in the muadows ; or ascend 
 
 The mossy mountains; where the blue heavens bend 
 
 With lightest winds to touch their paramour ; 
 
 Or lingei where the pebble -paven shore 
 
 Under the quick faint kisses of the sea 
 
 Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy — 
 
 Possessing and possessed by all that is 
 
 Within that calm circumference of bliss, 
 
 And by each other, till to love \ad live 
 
 Be one ; or at the noontide hour arrive 
 
 Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep 
 
 The moonlight of the expired Night asleep, 
 
 Through which the awakened Day can never peep ; 
 
 A Veil for our secUu-ion, close as Night's, 
 
 Where secure sleep may ki^' hine innocent lights — 
 
 Sleep, the fresh dew of lang ..id love, the rain 
 
 Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. 
 
 And we will talk, until thought's melody 
 
 Become too sweet for utterance, and it die 
 
 In words, to live again in looks, which dart 
 
 With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart, 
 
 Harmonising silence without a sound. 
 
 Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound. 
 
 And our veins beat together ; and our lips,
 
 With other eloquence than words, eclipse 
 
 The soul that burns between them ; and the wells 
 
 Which boil under our being's inmost cells, 
 
 The fountains of our deepest lifn, shall be 
 
 Confused in passion's golden purity, 
 
 As mountain-springs under the morning sun. 
 
 We shall become the same, we shall be one 
 
 Spirit v»'^!th.in two frames, oh, wherefore two ? 
 
 One passion in twin hearts, which grows and grew 
 
 Till, like two meteors of expanding flame, 
 
 Those spheres instinct with it become the same, 
 
 Touch, mingle, are transfigured ; evev still 
 
 Burning, yet ever inconsumable ; 
 
 In one another's substance finding food, 
 
 Like flame:- too pure, and light, and unimbued 
 
 To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, 
 
 Which point to heaven and cannot pass away : 
 
 One hope within two wills, one will beneath 
 
 Two ovti^badowing minds, one life, one death. 
 
 One heaven, one hell, one immortality, 
 
 And one annihilation ! 
 
 Woe is Lie ! 
 The winged words on which my soul would pierce 
 Into the height of Love's rare universe 
 Are chains of lead around its flight of fire — 
 I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire ! 
 
 Weak verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, 
 And say — *• We are the masters of thy slave ; 
 
 What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine 
 Then call your sisters from Oblivic :' cave,
 
 202 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 All singing loud : " Love's very pain is sweet ; 
 But its reward is in the world divine, 
 Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave." 
 So shall ye live when I am there. Then haste 
 
 Over the hearts of men, until ye meet 
 Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest. 
 And bid them love each other, and be blessed : 
 
 And leave the troop which errs and which reproves, 
 
 And come and be my guest — for I am Love's.
 
 POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820. 
 
 LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 THE fountains mingle with the river 
 And the rivers with the ocean ; 
 The winds of heaven mix for ever 
 
 With a sweet emotion ; 
 Nothing in the world is single ; 
 
 All things by a law divine 
 In one another's being mingle — 
 Why not I with thine ? 
 
 See, the mountains kiss high heaven, 
 And the waves clasp one another ; 
 No sister flower would be forgiven 
 If it disdained its brother ; 
 And the sunlight clasps the earth, 
 
 And the moonbeams kiss the sea — 
 What are all these kissings worth, 
 If thou kiss not me ? 
 
 January 1820.
 
 204 ODE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 ODE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 "Yet, freedom, yet, thy banner, tu.u but flying. 
 Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind."— Bvron. 
 
 1. A GLOKIOUS people vibrated again 
 }\^ The lightning of the natiuu.- : Liberty, 
 From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spiin, 
 
 Scattering contairious fire into the sky, 
 Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay. 
 And i I ;e rapid plumes of song 
 Olothea itself, suolime and strong, 
 As a young eagle soars the morninr c'ouds among, 
 Hovering inverse o'er its accMst. m d prey : 
 
 Till from its station in the hoavn of Fame 
 The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it ; and the ray 
 
 Of the remotest sphere of living flame 
 Which paves the void was from behind it flung, 
 As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came 
 A voice out of the deep ; I will record the same. 
 
 2. " The sun and the serenest moon sprang forth ; 
 
 The burning stars rf the abyss were hurled 
 Into the depths of heaven ; the d^ef tl earth, 
 
 That island in the ocean of the world, 
 Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air. 
 But this divinest universe 
 "Was yet a chaos and a curse, 
 For Then wert not : but, powe. from worst producing 
 worse, 
 The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, 
 
 And of the birds, and of the watery forms — 
 And there was war among them, and despair 
 Within them, raging without truce or terms.
 
 ODE TO LIBERTY, 205 
 
 The bosom of their violated nurse 
 
 Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms 
 on worms, 
 And men on men ; each heart was as a hell of storms. 
 
 3. "Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied 
 
 His generations under the pavilion 
 Of the sun's throne : palace and pyramid. 
 
 Temple and prison, to many a swarming million 
 "Were as to mountain -wolves their rugged caves. 
 This human living multitude 
 Was savage, cimning, blind, and rude — 
 For Thou wert not ; but o'er the populous solitude, 
 Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, 
 
 Hung Tyranny ; beneath sate deified 
 The Sister-pest, congregator of slaves 
 
 Into the shadow of her pinions wide. 
 Anarchs and priests, who feed on gold and blood 
 Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, 
 Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. 
 
 4. " The nodding promontories and blue isles 
 
 And cloud-like mountains and dividuous waves 
 Of Greece basked glorious in the open smiles 
 
 Of favouring heaven : from their enchanted caves 
 Prophetic echoes flung dim melody 
 On the unapprehensive wild. 
 The vine, the corn, the olive mild, 
 Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled ; 
 And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea. 
 
 Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, 
 Like aught that is which wraps what is to be. 
 
 Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein 
 Of Parian stoue : and, yet a speechless child,
 
 2o6 ODE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 Yerse murmured, and Philosophy did strain 
 Her lidless eyes for Thee — when o'er the ^gean main. \ 
 
 3 
 
 \ 6, " Athens arose : a city such as vision 
 
 j Builds from the purple crags and silver towers 
 
 I Of battlemented cloud, as in derision 
 
 Of kingliest masonry : the ocean floors 
 Pave it ; the evening sky pavilions it ; 
 Its portals are inhabited 
 By thunder-zoned winds, each head 
 Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded, 
 A divine work ! Athens diviner yet 
 
 Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will 
 Of man as on a mount of diamond set ; 
 
 For Thou wert, and thine all-creative skill 
 Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead 
 In marble immortality, that hill 
 Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. 
 
 6. " Within the surface of time's fleeting river 
 Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay, 
 Immovably unquiet, and for ever 
 
 It trembles, but it cannot pass away. 
 The voice of thy bards and sages thunder 
 With an earth-awakening blast 
 Through the caverns of the past ; 
 Religion veils her eyes. Oppression shrinks aghast ; 
 A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, 
 
 Which soars where expectation never flew. 
 Rending the veil of space and time asunder. 
 
 One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew ; 
 One sun illumines heaven ; one Spirit vast 
 With life and love makes chaos ever new — 
 As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew.
 
 ODE TO LIBERTY. 207 
 
 7. *' Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, 
 
 Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmean Msenad, 
 She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest 
 
 From that elysian food was yet unweaned ; 
 And many a deed of terrible uprightness 
 By thy sweet love was sanctified ; 
 And in thy smile and by thy side 
 Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Attilius died. 
 
 But, when tears stained thy robe of vesta 
 whiteness. 
 And gold profaned thy capitolian throne, 
 Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, 
 
 The senate of the tyrants : they sunk pr^ne. 
 Slaves of one tyrant, Palatinus sighed 
 Faint echoes of Ionian song ; that tone 
 Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. 
 
 8. ' ' From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, 
 
 Or piny promontory of the Arctic main, 
 Or utmost islet inaccessible, 
 
 Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign. 
 Teaching the woods and waves, and desert locks, 
 And every Naiad's ice-cold urn. 
 To talk in echoes sad and stern 
 Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn? 
 For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks 
 Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's 
 sleep. 
 What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks 
 Were quickly dried ? for thou didst groan, not 
 weep, 
 "When from its sea of death, to kill and burn, 
 The Galilean serpent forth did creep. 
 And made thy world an undistinguishable heap.
 
 9. "A thousand years the Earth cried, 'Where art 
 thou?"' 
 And then the shadow of thy coming fell 
 On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow : 
 
 And many a warrior-peopled citadel, 
 Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep, 
 Arose iu sacred Italy, 
 Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea 
 Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned 
 majesty. 
 That multitudinous anarchy did sweep 
 
 And burst around their walls like idle foam, 
 Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep 
 
 Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb 
 Dissonant arms ; and Art, which cannot die, 
 With divine wand traced on our earthly home 
 Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. 
 
 10. ' ' Thou Huntress swifter than the Moon ! tliou terror 
 Of the world's wolves ! thou bearer of the quiver 
 Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, 
 
 As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever 
 In the calm regions of the orient day ! 
 
 Luther caught thy wakening glance : 
 Like lightning from h^'s leaden lance 
 Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance 
 In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay ; 
 And England's prophets hailed thee as their 
 queen. 
 In songs whose music cannot pass away 
 
 Though it must flow for ever. Not unseen, 
 Before the spirit-siglited countenance 
 
 Of Milton, didst thou pass from the sad scene 
 Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien.
 
 ODE TO LIBERTY. 209 
 
 11. " The eager Hours and unreluctant Years 
 
 As on a dawn-illnmined mountain stood, 
 Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, 
 Darkening each other with their multitude — 
 And cried aloud, ' Liberty ! * Indignation 
 Answered Pity from her cave ; 
 Death grew pale ^vithin the graye, 
 And Desolation howled to the destroyer, ' Save ! * 
 "When, like heaven's sun girt by the exhalation 
 
 Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise, 
 Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation 
 
 Like shadows : as if day had cloven the skies 
 At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, 
 Men started, staggering vrith a glad surprise, 
 Under the lightnings of fhtne unfamiliar eyes. 
 
 12. " Thou heaven of ea;th ! what spells could pall thee 
 
 then 
 In ominous eclipse ? A thousand years 
 Bred from the slime of deep Oppression's den 
 
 Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears, 
 Till thy sweet stars eould weep the stain away. 
 How, like Bacchanals of blood, 
 Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood 
 Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred 
 brood ! 
 When one, like them, but mightier far than they. 
 
 The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers. 
 Rose : armies mingled in obscure array, [bowers 
 Like clouds with clouds darkening the sacred 
 Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued. 
 Rests with those dead but unforgotten hours 
 Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral 
 towers.
 
 2IO ODE TO LIBERTY, 
 
 13. " Enuland yet sleeps : vr-is she not called of old ? 
 
 Spain calls her now — as with its thrilling thunder 
 Vesuvius wakens iEtna, and the cold 
 
 Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder : 
 O'er the lit waves every iEolian isle 
 From Pitbecupa to Pelorus 
 Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus : 
 They cry, ' Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended 
 o'er us ! ' 
 Her chains are threads of gold — she need but smile, 
 And they dissolve; but Spain's were links of 
 steel, 
 Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file. 
 
 Twins of a single destiny ! appeal 
 To the eternal years enthroned before us 
 In the dim West ! Impress us from a seal, 
 All ye have thought and done ! Time cannot dare 
 conceal. 
 
 14. " Tomb of Arminius ! render up thy dead — 
 
 Till, like a standard from a watch-to wtr's staflf, 
 His soul may stream over the tyrant's head I 
 
 Thy victory shall be liis epitaph ! 
 "Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, 
 King-deluded Germany, 
 His dead spirit lives in thee ! 
 Why do we fear or hope ? Thou art already free I — 
 And thou, lost paradise of this divine 
 
 And glorious world ! thou flowery wilderness I 
 Thou island of eternity ! thou shrine 
 
 Where Desolation, clothed with loveliness, 
 Worships the thing thou wert ! Italy, 
 Gather thy blood into thy heart ; repress 
 The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces !
 
 ODE TO LIBERTY, 211 
 
 15. " Oh that the free would stamp the impious name 
 
 Of ' King ' into the dust ; or write it fhere^ 
 So that this blot upon the page of fame 
 
 Were as a serpent's path which the light air 
 Erases, and the flat sands ejose behind I 
 Ye the oracle have heard : 
 Lift the victory-flashing sword, 
 And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, 
 Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind 
 
 Into a mass irrefragably firm 
 The axes and the rods which awe mankind. 
 
 The sound has poison in it ; 'tis the sperm 
 Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred. 
 Disdain not Thou, at thine appointed term, 
 To set thine armM heel on this reluctant worm. 
 
 16. "Oh that the wise from their bright minds would 
 
 kindle 
 Such lamps within the dome of this dim world 
 That the pale name of Priest might shrink and 
 dwindle 
 Into the hell from which it first was hurled, 
 A scofi" of impious pride from fiends impure ! 
 
 Till human thoughts might kneel alone. 
 Each before the judgment-throne 
 Of its own aweless soul, or of the Power unknown. 
 Oh that the words which make the thoughts obscure 
 From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering 
 dew 
 From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture, 
 
 "Were stripped of their thin masks and various hue, 
 And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, 
 Till in the nakedness of false and true 
 They stand before their lord, each to receive its due !
 
 212 OhE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 17. "He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever 
 
 Can be between the cradle and the grave 
 Crowned him the Kiug of Life. Oh vain endeavour. 
 
 If on his own high will, a willing slave, 
 He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor ! 
 What if earth can clothe and feed 
 Amplest millions at their need, 
 And power in thought be as the tree within the seed — 
 Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor, 
 
 Diving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, 
 Checks the great Mother stooping to caress her, 
 
 And cries, * Give me, thy child, dominion 
 Over all height and depth' — if Life can breed 
 
 New wants, and Wealth, from those who toil and 
 groan 
 Rend, of thy gifts and hers, a thousandfold for one ? 
 
 18. " Come Thou ! But lead out of the inmost cave 
 
 Of man's deep spirit — as the morning star 
 Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave — 
 
 Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car, 
 Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame ! 
 Comes she not ? And come ye not. 
 Rulers of Eternal thought, 
 To judge with solemn truth Life's ill-apportioned lot — 
 Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame 
 
 Of what has been, the Hope of what will be ? 
 Liberty — (if such could be thy name 
 
 Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from 
 thee)— 
 If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought 
 By blood or tears, have not the wise and free 
 Wept tears, and blood like tears ? " — The solemn 
 harmony
 
 ARETHUSA. 213 
 
 19. Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing 
 To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn. 
 Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging 
 Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, 
 Sinks headlong through the aerial golden light 
 On the heavy- sounding plain. 
 When the bolt has pierced its brain ; 
 As summer clouds dissolve unburthened of their rain ; 
 As a far taper fades with fading night ; 
 
 As a brief insect dies with dying day ; 
 My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, 
 
 Drooped. O'er it closed the echoes far away 
 
 Of the great voice which did its flight sustain — 
 
 As waves which lately paved his watery way 
 
 Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play. 
 
 ARETHUSA. 
 
 ARETHUSA arose 
 From her couch of snows 
 In tlie Acroceraunian mountains — 
 
 From cloud and from crag, 
 
 With many a jag, 
 Shepherding her bright fountainy. 
 
 She leapt down the rocks, 
 
 With her rainbow locks 
 Streaming among the streams ; 
 
 Her steps paved with green 
 
 The downward ravine 
 Which slopes to the western gleams :
 
 And gliding and springing 
 She went, ever singing 
 
 In murmurs as soft as sleep. 
 
 The Earth seemed to love her, 
 And Heaven smiled above her, 
 
 As she lingered towards the deep. 
 
 Then Alpheus bold, 
 
 On his glacier cold, 
 With his trident the mountains strook, 
 
 And opened a chasm 
 
 In the rocks — with the spasm 
 All Erymanthus shook. 
 
 And the black south wind 
 
 It concealed behind 
 The urns of the silent snow, 
 
 And earthquake and tlmnder 
 
 Did rend in sunder 
 The bars of the spirits below. 
 
 The beard and the hair 
 
 Of the River-god were 
 Seen through the torrent's sweep, 
 
 As he followed the light 
 
 Of the fleet Kyniph's flight 
 To the brink of the Dorian deep, 
 
 ' ' Oh save me ! Oh guide me ! 
 And bid the deep hide me ! 
 
 For he grasps me now by the hair 1 " 
 The loud Ocean heard, 
 To its blue depth stirred, 
 
 And divided at her prayer ; 
 And under the water 
 The Earth's white daughter
 
 ARETHUSA. 215 
 
 Fled like a sunny beam ; 
 
 Behind her descended 
 
 Her billows, unblended 
 Witl) the brackish Dorian stream. 
 
 Like a gloomy stain 
 
 On the emerald main, 
 Alplieus rushed behind — 
 
 As an eagle pursuing 
 
 A dove to its ruin 
 Down the streams of the cloudy wind. 
 
 Under the bowers 
 Where the Ocean Powers 
 
 Sit on their pearled thrones ; 
 
 Through the coral woods 
 Of the weltering floods ; 
 
 Over heaps of unvalued stones ; 
 Through the dim beams 
 Which amid the streams 
 
 Weave a network of coloured light ; 
 And under the caves 
 Where the shadowy waves 
 
 Are as green as the forest's night : 
 Outspeeding the shark 
 And the sword-fish dark — 
 
 Under the ocean foam, 
 
 And up through the rifts 
 Of the mountain cliffs — 
 
 They passed to their Dorian home. 
 
 And now from their fountains 
 In Enna's mountains, 
 Down one vale where the morning baska,
 
 2i6 HYMN OF APOLLO, 
 
 Like friends once parted 
 Grown single-hearted, 
 
 They ply their watery tasks. 
 At sunrise they leap 
 From their cradles steep 
 
 In the cave of the shelving hill ; 
 At noontide they flow 
 Through the woods below, 
 And the meadows of asphodel ; 
 And at night they sleep 
 In the rocking deep 
 
 Beneath the Ortygian shore — 
 Like spirits that lie 
 In the azure sky, 
 
 When they love but live no more. 
 
 Pisa. 
 
 I 
 
 HYMN OF APOLLO. 
 
 THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, 
 Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries 
 From the broad moonlight of the sky, 
 Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, 
 Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, 
 Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. 
 
 Then I arise, and, climbing heaven's blue dome, 
 I walk over the mountains and the waves, 
 
 Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam — • 
 
 My footsteps pave the clouds vith fire ; the caves 
 
 Are filled with my bright presence ; and the air 
 
 Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.
 
 The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill 
 Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day ; 
 
 All men who do or even imagine ill 
 Fly me, and from the glory of my ray 
 
 Good minds and open pctions take new might, 
 
 Until diminished by the reign of Night. 
 
 I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers, 
 With their ethereal colours ; the moon's globe, 
 
 And the pure stars in their eternal bowers, 
 Are cinctured with my power as with a robe ; 
 
 Whatever lamps on earth or heaven may shine 
 
 Are portions of one power, which is mine. 
 
 I stand at noon upon the peak of heaven ; 
 
 Then with unwilling steps I wander down 
 Into the clouds of the Atlantic even ; 
 
 For grief that I depart they weep and frown. 
 What look is more delightful than the smile 
 With which I soothe them from the western isle ? 
 
 I am the eye with which the universe 
 Beholds itself, and knows itself divine ; 
 
 All harmony of instrument or verse. 
 All prophecy, all medicine, are mine, 
 
 All light of art or nature — to my song 
 
 Victory and praise in its own right belong.
 
 HYMN OF PAN. 
 
 FROM the forests and highlands 
 We come, we come ; 
 From the river-girt islands, 
 
 Where loud waves are dumb 
 Listening to my sweet pipings. 
 
 The wind in the reeds and the rushes, 
 
 The bees on the bells of thym6> 
 The birds on the myrtle bushes, 
 The cicale above in the lime, 
 And the lizards below in the grass, 
 Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, 
 Listening to my sweet pipings. 
 
 Liquid Peneus was flowing, 
 And all dark Tempe lay 
 In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing 
 
 The light of the dying day, 
 Speeded by my sweet pipings. 
 
 The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, 
 
 And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, 
 To the edge of the moist river-lawns, 
 And the brink of the dewy caves, 
 And all that did then attend and follow, 
 Were silent with love — as you now, Apollo, 
 With envy of my sweet pipings. 
 
 I sang of the dancing stars, 
 
 I sang of the daedal earth, « 
 
 And of heaven, and the Giant wars, 
 And love, and death, and birtli. 
 
 And then I changed my pipings —
 
 THE QUESTION. 219 
 
 Singing how down the vale of Maenalus 
 I pursued a maiden, and clasped a reed : 
 
 Gods and men, we are all deluded thus ; 
 It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed. 
 
 All wept — as I think both ye now would, 
 
 If envy or age had not frozen your blood — 
 At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. 
 
 THE QUESTIOl^. 
 
 I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, 
 Bare winter suddenly was changed to Spring ; 
 And gentle odours led my steps astray, 
 
 Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring 
 Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 
 
 Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling 
 Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 
 But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in 
 dream. 
 
 There grew pied wind-flowers and violets ; 
 
 Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, 
 The constellated flower that never seta ; 
 
 Faint oxlips ; tender bluebells, at whose birth 
 The ^sod scarce heaved ; and that tall flower that 
 wets — 
 
 Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth — 
 Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears 
 When the low wind its playmate's voice it hears.
 
 220 THE QUESTION. 
 
 3. And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, 
 
 Green cow-biud and the moonlight-coloured may, 
 And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine 
 
 "Was the bright dew yet drained not by the Day ; 
 And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, 
 
 With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray ; 
 And flowers, azure, black, and streaked with gold, 
 Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. 
 
 4. And nearer to the river's trembling edge 
 
 There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked 
 with white. 
 And starry river-buds among the sedge, 
 
 And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, 
 Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge 
 
 With moonlight beams of their own watery light ; 
 And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green 
 As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. 
 
 5. Methought that of these visionary flowers 
 
 I made a nosegay, bound in such a way 
 That the same hues which in their natural bowers 
 
 Were mingled or opposed, the like array 
 Kept these iniprisoued children of the Hours 
 
 Within my i'aud — and then, elate and gay, 
 I hastened to the spot whence I had come, 
 That I might there present it — oh ! to whom ? 
 
 ""^^
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. ii\ 
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 1. A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew ; 
 
 jTjl And the young winds fed it with silver dew ; 
 And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, 
 And closed them beneath the kisses of Night. 
 
 2. And the Spring arose on the garden fair, 
 Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere ; 
 
 And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast 
 Eose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 
 
 3. But none ever trembled and panted with bliss 
 In the garden, the field, or tlie wilderness, 
 
 Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want, 
 As the companionless Sensitive Plant. 
 
 4. The snowdrop, and then the violet. 
 
 Arose from the ground with warm rain wet ; 
 And their breath was mixed with fresh odour sent 
 From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 
 
 5. Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, 
 And narcissi, the fairest among them all, 
 Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess 
 Till they die of their own dear loveliness ; 
 
 G. And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, 
 
 Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale. 
 That the light of its tremulous bells is seen 
 Through their pavilions of tender green ; 
 
 7. And the hyacinth, purple, and white, and blue, 
 Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
 
 222 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 Of music so delicatCj soft, and intense, 
 It was felt like an odour within the sense ; 
 
 8. And the rose, like ?. x.ymph to the bath addressed, 
 Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast. 
 Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
 
 The soul of her beauty and love lay bare ; 
 
 9. And the wand-like lily, which lifted up. 
 As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup, 
 Till the fiery star which is its eye 
 
 Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky ; 
 
 10. And the jessamime faint, and the sweet tuberose — 
 The sweetest flower for scent that blows — 
 
 And all rare blossoms from every clime. 
 Grew in that garden in purest prime. 
 
 11. And on the stream whose inconstant bosom 
 
 Was pranked under boughs of embowering blossom. 
 With golden and green light slanting through 
 Their heaven of many a tangled hue, 
 
 12. Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, 
 And starry river-buds glimmered by ; 
 
 And around them the soft stream did glide and dance 
 With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. 
 
 13. And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss 
 Which led through the garden along and across. 
 Some open at once to the sun and the breeze. 
 Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees, 
 
 14. Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells 
 As fair as the fabulous asphodels,
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 11^ 
 
 And flowerets which, drooping as day drooped too, 
 Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, 
 To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew. 
 
 15. And from this undefiled paradise 
 
 The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes 
 Smile on its mother, whose singinff sweet 
 Can first lull and at last must awaken it), 
 
 16. When heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them 
 As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, 
 
 Shone smiling to heaven, and every one 
 Shared jcy in the light of the gentle sun ; 
 
 17. For each one was interpenetrated 
 
 With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, 
 Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear, 
 Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere. 
 
 18. But the Sensitive Plant, which could give small 
 
 fruit 
 Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root. 
 Received more than all ; it loved more than ever, 
 Where none wanted but it, could belong to the 
 
 giver — 
 
 19. For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower ; 
 Radiance and odour are not its dower ; 
 
 It loves even like Love — its deep heart is full ; 
 It desires what it has not, the beautiful. 
 
 20. The light winds which from unsustaining wings 
 Shed the music of many murmurings ; 
 
 The beams which dart from many a star 
 Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar ;
 
 224 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 21. The plumM insects swift and free, 
 Like golden boats on a sunny sea, 
 Laden with light and odour, which pass 
 Over the gleam of the living grass ; 
 
 22. The unseen clouds of the dew which lie 
 Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, 
 Then wander like spirits among the spheres, 
 Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears ; 
 
 23. The quivering vapours of dim noontide, 
 "Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, 
 In which every sound, and odour, and beam 
 Move as reeds in a single stream — 
 
 24. Each and all like ministerihg angels were 
 For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, 
 Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by, 
 Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky. 
 
 25. And, when evening descended from heaven above. 
 And the earth was all rest, and the air was all love, 
 And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, 
 And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep— 
 
 26. And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were 
 
 di'owned 
 In an ocean of dreams without a sound, 
 "Whose waves never mark though they ever impress 
 The light sand which paves it, consciousness — 
 
 27. (Only overhead the sweet nightingale 
 Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, 
 And snatches of its elysian chant 
 
 Were udxed with the dream of the Sensitive Plant) —
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 225 
 
 28. The Sensitive Plant was the earliest 
 Upgathered into the bosom of rest ; 
 A sweet child weary of its delight, 
 The feeblest and yet the favourite, 
 Cradled within the embrace of Night. 
 
 1. There was a power in this sweet place. 
 An Eve in this Eden ; a ruling Grace 
 
 Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, 
 Was as God is to the starry scheme. 
 
 2. A Lady, the wonder of her kind, 
 
 AVhose form was upborne by a lovely mind, 
 Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion 
 Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean, 
 
 3. Tended the garden from morn to even : 
 And the meteors of that sublunar heaven. 
 
 Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth, 
 Laughed round her footsteps up from the earth. 
 
 4. She had no companion of mortal race ; 
 
 But her tremulous breath and her flushing face 
 Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, 
 That her dreams were less slumber than paradise : 
 
 5. As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake 
 
 Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake, 
 
 As if y«t around her he lingering were. 
 
 Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. 
 
 6. Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed : 
 You might hear, by the heaving of her breast, 
 
 •p
 
 226 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 That the coming and going of the wind 
 Brought pleasure there, and left passion behind. 
 
 7. And, wherever her airy footstep trod, 
 Her trailing hair from the grassy sod 
 Erased its liglit vestige with shadowy sweep, 
 Like a sunny storm o'er the dark-green deep. 
 
 8. I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet 
 Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet ; 
 
 I doubt not they felt the spirit that came 
 
 From her glowing fingers through all their frame. 
 
 9. She sprinkled bright water from the stream 
 
 On those that were faint mth the sunny beam ; 
 And out of the cups of the heavy flowers 
 She emptied the rain of the thunder-showers. 
 
 10. She lifted their heads with her tender hands, 
 And sustained them with rods and osier bands ; 
 If the flowers had been her own infants, she 
 Could never have nursed them more tenderly. 
 
 11. And all killing insects and gnawing worms, 
 And things of obscene and unlovely forms, 
 She bore in a basket of Indian woof 
 
 Into the rough woods far aloof — 
 
 12. In a basket of grasses and wild flowers full, 
 The freshest her gentle hands could pull 
 For the poor banished insects, whose intent, 
 Although they did ill, was innocent. 
 
 13. But the bee, and the beamlike ephemeris [kiss 
 Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 227 
 
 The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she 
 Make her attendant angels be. 
 
 14. And many an antenatal tomb 
 
 Where butterflies dream of the life to come 
 She left clinging round the smooth and dark 
 Edge of the odorous cedar bark. 
 
 15. This fairest Creature from earliest Spring 
 Thus moved through the garden ministering 
 All the sweet season of summer tide : 
 
 And, ere the first leaf looked brown, she died. 
 
 PAET III. 
 
 1. Three days the flowers of the garden fair 
 Like stars when the moon is awakened were, 
 Or the waves of Baise ere luminous 
 
 She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius. 
 
 2. And on the fourth the Sensitive Plant 
 Felt the sound of the funeral chant ; 
 
 And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow ; 
 And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low ; 
 
 3. The weary sound and the heavy breath ; 
 And the silent motions of passing death ; 
 And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, 
 Sent through the pores of the coffin plank. 
 
 4. The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, 
 "Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass ; 
 From their sighs the Wind caught a mournful tone, 
 And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan.
 
 228 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 5. The garden, once fair, became cold and foul, 
 Like the corpse of her who had been its soul ; 
 Which at first was lovely as if in sleep. 
 Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap 
 
 To make men tremble who never weep. 
 
 6. Swift summer into the autumn flowed ; 
 And frost in the mist of the morning rode, 
 Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright, 
 Mocking the spoil of the secret night. 
 
 7. The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, 
 Paved the turf and the moss below : 
 
 The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, 
 Like the head and the skin of a dying man ; 
 
 8. And Indian plants, of scent and hue 
 The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, 
 Leaf after leaf, day after -lay, 
 
 "Were massed into the common clay. 
 
 9. And the leaves, brown, yellow, and grey, and red, 
 And white with the whiteness of what is dead, 
 Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed : 
 Their whistling noise made the birds aghast. 
 
 10. And the gusty winds waked the wingM seeds 
 Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds. 
 
 Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem, 
 Which rotted into the earth with them. 
 
 11. The water-blooms under the rivulet 
 
 Fell from the stalks on which they were set ; 
 And the eddies drove them^hero and there. 
 As the winds did those of the upper air.
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 229 
 
 12. Then the rain came down ; and the broken stalks 
 "Were bent and tangled across the walks ; 
 
 And the leafless network of parasite bowers 
 Massed into ruin, and all sweet flowers. 
 
 13. Between the time of the wind and the snow, 
 All loathliest weeds began to grow. 
 
 Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a 
 
 speck. 
 Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back ; 
 
 14. And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank. 
 And the dock, and henbane ; and hemlock dank 
 Stretched out its long and hollow shank, 
 
 And stifled the air till the dead wind stank. 
 
 15. And plants at whose names the verse feels loth 
 Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth. 
 Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue. 
 Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. 
 
 16. And agarics and fungi, with mildew and mould. 
 Started like mist from the wet ground cold ; 
 Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead 
 
 With a spirit of growth had been animated. 
 
 17. Their moss rotted off them flake by flake, 
 
 Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, 
 Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high, 
 Infecting the winds that wander by. 
 
 18. Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, 
 Made the running rivulet thick and dumb. 
 And at its outlet flags huge as stakes 
 
 Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes.
 
 230 THE SENSITIVE PLANT, 
 
 19. And hour by hour, when the air was still, 
 The vapours arose which have strength to kill : 
 At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt, 
 At night they were darkness no star could melt. 
 
 20. And unctuous meteors from spray to spray 
 Crept and flitted in broad noonday 
 Unseen ; every branch on which they alit 
 By a venomous blight was burned and bit. 
 
 21. The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid, 
 "Wept, and the tears within each lid 
 
 Of its folded leaves which together grew, 
 Were changed to a blight of frozen glue. 
 
 22. For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon 
 By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn ; 
 The sap shrank to the root through every pore, 
 As blood to a heart that will beat no more. 
 
 23. For Winter came : the wind was his whip ; 
 One choppy finger was on his lip : 
 
 He had torn the cataracts from the hills, 
 And they clanked at his girdle like manacles. 
 
 24. His breath was a chain which without a sound 
 The earth, and the air, and the water bound ; 
 He came, fiercely driven in his chariot-throne 
 By the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone. 
 
 25. Then the weeds, which were forms of living death, 
 Fled from the frost to the earth beneath : 
 
 Their decay and sudden flight from frost 
 Was but like the vanishing of a ghost.
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 231 
 
 26. And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant 
 The moles and the dormice died for want : 
 The birds dro})ped stiff from the frozen air, 
 
 And were caught in the branches naked and bare. 
 
 27. First there came down a thawing rain, 
 
 And its dull drops froze on the boughs again ; 
 Then there steamed up a freezing dew 
 Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew ; 
 
 28. And a northern "Whirlwind, wandering about 
 Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, 
 Shook the boughs, thus laden, and heavy, and stiff, 
 And snapped them off with his rigid griff. 
 
 29. "When Winter had gone, and Spring came back, 
 The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck ; 
 
 But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and 
 
 darnels 
 Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 1. Whethek the Sensitive Plant, or that 
 Which within its boughs like a spirit sat 
 Ere its outward form had known decay, 
 Now felt this change, I cannot say. 
 
 2. Whether that Lady's gentle mind, 
 No longer with the form combined 
 Which scattered love as stars do light. 
 Found sadness where it left delight. 
 
 I dare not guess. But, in this life 
 Of error, ignorance, and strife,
 
 232 THE CLOUD, 
 
 Where nothing is hut all things seem, 
 And we the shadows of the dream, 
 
 4. It is a modest creed, and yet 
 Pleasant if one considers it, 
 
 To own that death itself must be, 
 Like all the rest, a mockery. 
 
 5. That garden sweet, that Lady fair, 
 And all sw«et shapes and odours there, 
 In truth have never passed away : 
 
 'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed ; not they. 
 
 6. For love, and beauty, and delight. 
 
 There is no death nor change ; their might 
 Exceeds our organs, which endure 
 No light, being themselves obscure. 
 
 THECLOUD. 
 
 I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers 
 From the seas and the streams ; 
 I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 
 
 In their noonday dreams. 
 From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 
 
 The sweet buds every one, 
 When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast, 
 
 As she dances about the sun. 
 I wield the flail of the lashing hail. 
 
 And whiten the green plains undi^r ; 
 And then again I dissolve it in rain, 
 And laugh as I pass in thunder.
 
 THE CLOUD, 233 
 
 2. I sift the snow on the mountains below, 
 
 And their great pines groan aghast ; 
 And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 
 
 While I sleep in the arms of the Blast 
 Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers 
 
 Lightning my pilot sits ; 
 In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder, 
 
 It struggles and howls at fits. 
 Over earth and ocean with gentle motion 
 
 This pilot is guiding me, 
 Lured by the Love of the Genii that move 
 
 In the depths of the purple sea ; 
 Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills. 
 
 Over the lakes and the plains, 
 Wherever he dream under mountain or stream 
 
 The Spirit he loves remains ; 
 And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, 
 
 Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 
 
 3. The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 
 
 And his burning plumes outspread. 
 Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, 
 
 When the morning star shines dead : 
 As on the jag of a mountain crag 
 
 Which an earthquake rocks and swings 
 An eagle alit one moment may sit 
 
 In the light of its golden wings. 
 And, when Sunset may breathe, from the lit 
 beneath 
 
 Its ardours of rest and of love. 
 And the crimson pall of eve may fall 
 
 From the depth of heaven above, 
 With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest, 
 
 As still as a brooding dove.
 
 2M THE CLOUD. 
 
 That orbM maiden with wliite fire laden 
 
 "Whom mortals call the Moon 
 Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor 
 
 By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
 And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 
 
 Which only the angels hear, 
 May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 
 
 The Stars peep beliind her and peer. 
 And I laugh to see them whirl and flee 
 
 Like a swarm of golden bees, 
 "When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent — 
 
 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, 
 Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 
 
 Are each jiaved with the moon and these, 
 
 I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, 
 
 And the iloon's with a girdle of pearl ; 
 The volcanoes are dim, and the Stars reel and swim, 
 
 "When the Whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
 From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape. 
 
 Over a torrent sea. 
 Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof ; 
 
 The mountains its columns be. 
 The trumplial arch through which I march, 
 
 With hurricane, fire, and snow. 
 When the Power of the air are chained to my chair 
 
 Is the million -coloured bow ; 
 The Sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 
 
 While the moist Earth was laughing below. 
 
 I am the daughter of Earth and Water, 
 
 And the nursling of the Sky : 
 I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 
 
 I change, but I cannot die.
 
 For after the rain, when with never a stain 
 
 The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
 And the winds, and sunbeams, with their convex 
 gleams, 
 
 Build up the blue dome of air, 
 I silently laugh at my own cenotaph — 
 
 And out of the caverns of rain, 
 Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the 
 tomb, 
 
 I arise, and unbuild it again. 
 
 TO A SKYLARK. 
 
 AIL to thee, blithe spirit — 
 Bird thou never wert — 
 That from heaven or near it 
 Pourest thy full heart 
 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 
 
 H 
 
 2, Higher still and higher 
 
 From the earth thou springest : 
 Like a cloud of fire, 
 
 The blue deep thou wingest, 
 And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever sinj 
 
 3. In the golden lightning 
 
 Of the sunken sun, 
 O'er which clouds are brightening, 
 Thou dost float and run, 
 Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.
 
 236 TO A SKYLARK, 
 
 4. The pale purple even 
 
 Melts around thy flight ; 
 Like a star of heaven 
 In the broad daylight, 
 Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight — 
 
 5. Keen as are the arrows 
 
 Of that silver sphere 
 Whose intense lamp narrows 
 In the white dawn clear, 
 Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there. 
 
 6. All the earth and air 
 
 With thy voice is loud, 
 As, when night is bare. 
 From one lonely cloud 
 The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 
 
 7. What thou art we know not ; 
 
 What is most like thee ? 
 From the rainbow clouds there flow not 
 Drops so bright to see 
 As from thy presence showers a rain of melody — 
 
 8. Like a poet hidden 
 
 In the light of thought, 
 Singing hymns unbidden. 
 Till the world is wrought 
 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 
 
 9. Like a high-bom maiden 
 
 In a palace tower, 
 Soothing her love-laden 
 Soul in secret hour 
 With music sweet as love which overflows her bower :
 
 TO A SKYLARK, 237 
 
 10. Like a glow-worm golden 
 
 In a dell of dew, 
 Scattering unbeholden 
 Its aerial hue 
 Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the 
 view : 
 
 11. Like a rose embowered 
 
 In its own green leaves, 
 By warm winds deflowered, 
 Till the scent it gives 
 Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy wingfed 
 thieves, 
 
 12. Sound of vernal showers 
 
 On the twinkling grass. 
 Rain-awakened flowers — 
 All that ever was, 
 Joyous, and clear, and fresh — thy music doth surpass, 
 
 13. Teach us, sprite or bird, 
 
 "What sweet thoughts are thine : 
 I have never heard 
 Praise of love or wine 
 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 
 
 14. Chorus hymeneal 
 
 Or triumphal chant, 
 Matched with thine, would be all 
 But an empty vaunt — 
 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 
 
 15. What objects are the fountains 
 Of thy happy strain ?
 
 238 TO A SKYLARK. 
 
 What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
 What shapes of sky or plain % 
 What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain \ 
 
 16. With thy clear keen joyance 
 
 Langour cannot be : 
 Shadow of annoyance 
 Never came near thee : 
 Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 
 
 17. Waking or asleep, 
 
 Thou of death must deem 
 Things more true and deep 
 Than we mortals dream, 
 Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 
 
 18. We look before and after, 
 
 And pine for what is not : 
 Our sincerest laughter 
 
 With some pain is fraught ; 
 Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought 
 
 19. Yet, if we could scorn 
 
 Hate, and pride, and fear, 
 If we were things born 
 Not to shed a tear, 
 I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 
 
 20. Better than all measures 
 
 Of delightful sound, 
 Better than all treasures 
 That in books are found. 
 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground J
 
 THE TWO SPIRITS. 239 
 
 21. Teach me half the gladness 
 
 That thy brain must know ; 
 Such harmonious madness 
 From my lips would flow 
 The world should listen then as I am listening now. 
 
 TO 
 
 I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden ; 
 Thou needest not fear mine — 
 My spifit is too deeply laden 
 Ever to burthen thine. 
 
 I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion 
 Thou needest not fear mine — 
 
 Innocent is the heart's devotion 
 With which I worship thine. 
 
 THE TWO SPIRITS. 
 
 AN ALLEGORY. 
 FIRST SPIRIT. 
 
 OTHOU who plumed with strong desire 
 Wouldst float above the earth, beware ! 
 A shadow tracks thy flight of fire — 
 Night is coming !
 
 240 THE TWO SPIRITS. 
 
 Bright are the regions of the air, 
 And among the winds and beams 
 It were delight to wander there — 
 Night is coming ! 
 
 SECOND SPIRIT. 
 
 The deathless stars are bricjht above : 
 If I would cross the shade of night, 
 Within my heart is the lamp of love, 
 And that is day ; 
 And the moon will shine with gentle light 
 On my golden plumes where'er they move ; 
 The meteors will linger round my flight, 
 And make night day. 
 
 FIRST SPIRIT. 
 
 But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken 
 Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain ? 
 
 See, the bounds of the air are shaken — 
 The red swift clouds of the hurricane 
 
 Yon declining sun have overtaken. 
 
 The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain — 
 Night is coming I 
 
 SECOND SPIRIT. 
 
 I see the light, and I hear the sound. 
 
 I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark, 
 With the calm within and the light around 
 Which makes night day : 
 And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark 
 Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound ; 
 My moonlike flight thou then mayst mark 
 On high, far away.
 
 SONG OF PROSERPINE. 241 
 
 Some say there is a precipice 
 
 Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin 
 O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice 
 'Mid Alpine mountains ; 
 And that the languid storm, pursuing 
 That winged shape, for ever flies 
 
 Round tliose hoar branches, aye renewing 
 Its aery fountains. 
 
 Some say, when nights are dry and clear, 
 
 And the death-dews sleep on the morass, 
 Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller, 
 Which make night day : 
 At)d a silver shape like his early love doth pass, 
 Upborne by her wild and glittering hair ; 
 And, when he a^'akes on the fragrant grass. 
 He finds night day. 
 
 SONG OF PROSERPINE, 
 
 WHILST GATHERING FLOWERS ON" THE PLAIN OF ENNA. 
 
 SACRED Goddess, Mother Earth, 
 Thou from whose immortal bosom 
 Gods, and men, and beasts have birth, 
 
 Leaf, and blade, and bud, and blossom, 
 Breathe thine influence most divine 
 On thine own child, Proserpine. 
 
 If with mists of evening dew 
 Thou dost nourish these young flowers 
 * Q
 
 242 LETTER TO MARIA CIS BORNE. 
 
 Till they grow iu scent and hue 
 Fairest children of the Hours, 
 Breathe thine influence most divine 
 On thine own child, Proserpine. 
 
 LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 
 
 Leghorn, \si July 1820. 
 
 THE spider spreads her webs, whether she be 
 In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree ; 
 The silk- worm in the dark-green mulberry leaves 
 His winding-sheet and cradle ever weaves : 
 So I, a thing whom moralists call worm, 
 Sit spinning still round this decaying form, 
 From the fine threads of rare and subtle tli night — 
 No net of words in garish colours wrought 
 To catch the idle buzzers of the day — 
 But a soft cell where, when that fades away, 
 Memory may clothe in wings my. living name, 
 And feed it with the asphodels of fame 
 Which in tliose hearts which must remember me 
 Grow, making love an immortality. 
 
 Whoever should behold me now, I wist, 
 
 Would think I were a mighty mechanist, 
 
 Bent with sublime i\rchiinedean art 
 
 To breathe a soul inco the iron heart 
 
 Ot some machine portentous, or strange gin, _ 
 
 Which by the force of figured spells miglit win 
 
 Its way over the sea, and sport therein—
 
 LETTER TO MARIA GIS BORNE, 243 
 
 For round the walls are hung dread engines, such 
 
 As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to dutch 
 
 Ixion or the Titan ; or the quick 
 
 Wit of that man of God, Saint Dominic, 
 
 To convince atheist, Turk, or heretic ; 
 
 Or those in philanthropic councils met 
 
 Who thought to pay some interest for the debt 
 
 They owed to Jesus Christ for their salvation 
 
 By giving a faint foretaste of damnation 
 
 To Shakespeare, Sydney, Spenser, and the rest 
 
 Who made our land an island of the blessed 
 
 (WTien lamp-like Spain, who now relumes her fire 
 
 Oil Freedom's hearth, grew dim with empire), 
 
 With thumbscrev\'s, wheels with tooth and spike and 
 
 jag, 
 Which fishers found under the utmost crag 
 Of Cornwall, and the storm-encompassed isles 
 Where to the sky the rude sea seldom smiles 
 Unless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn 
 When the exulting elements in scorn. 
 Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay 
 Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, 
 As panthers sleep. And other strange and dread 
 Magical forms the brick floor overspread. 
 Proteus transformed to metal did not make 
 More figures, or more strange ; nor did he take 
 Such shapes of unintelligible brass, 
 Or heap himself in such a horrid mass 
 Of tin and iron not to be understood, 
 And forms of unimaginable wood, 
 To puzzle Tubal Cain and all his brood : 
 Great screws, and cones, and wheels, and groovM 
 
 blocks, 
 The elements of what will stand the shocks
 
 244 LETTER TO MARIA GIS BORNE, 
 
 Of wave and wind and time. — Upon the table 
 
 I^tore knacks and quips there be than I am able 
 
 To cataloi,ase in this verse of mine : 
 
 A pretty bowl of wood — not full of wine, 
 
 But quicksilver ; that dew which the gnomes drink 
 
 AVhen at their subterranean toil they swink, 
 
 Pledging the demons of the earthquake, who 
 
 Reply to them in lava — cry *' Halloo ! " — 
 
 And call out to the cities o'er their head. 
 
 Roofs, towns, and shrines, the dying and the dead, 
 
 Crash through the chinks of earth ; and then all 
 
 quaff 
 Another roupc, nad hold their sides and laugh. 
 This quicksilver no gnome has drunk ; within 
 The walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin. 
 In colour like the wake of light that stains 
 The Tuscan deep when from the moist moon rains 
 The inmost shower of its white fire — the breeze 
 
 I Is still — blue heaven smiles over the pale seas. 
 
 And in this bowl of quicksilver — for I 
 
 Yield to the impulse of an infancy 
 
 Outlasting manhood— I have made to float 
 
 A rude idealism of a paper boat, 
 
 A hollow screw with cogs : Henry will know 
 
 The thing I mean, and laugh at me. If so 
 
 He fears not I should do more mischief. — Next 
 
 Lie bills and calculations much perplexed 
 
 With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint. 
 
 Traced over them in blue and yellow paint. 
 
 Then comes a range of mathematical 
 
 Instruments, for plans nautical and statical ; 
 
 A heap of rosin ; a queer broken glass 
 
 With ink in it ; a china cup that was 
 
 (What it will never be again, I think)
 
 LETTER TO MARIA GIS BORNE. 245 
 
 A thing from which sweet lips were wont to drink 
 
 The liquor doctors rail at — and which I 
 
 Will quaff in spite of them ; and, when we die, 
 
 "We'll toss up who died first of drinking tea. 
 
 And cry out "Heads or tails ! " where'er we be. 
 
 Near that, a dusty paint-box, some old hooks, 
 
 A half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books, 
 
 Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms, 
 
 To great Laplace from Saunderson and Sims, 
 
 Lie heaped in their harmonious disarray 
 
 Of figures — disentangle them who may. 
 
 Baron de Tott's Memoirs beside them lie, 
 
 And some odd volumes of old chemistry. 
 
 Near them a most inexplicable thing, 
 
 With lead in the middle — I'm conjecturing 
 
 How to make Henry understand ; but no ! 
 
 I'll leave, as Spenser says "with many mo," 
 
 This secret in the pregnant womb of Time, 
 
 Too vast a matter for so weak a rhyme. 
 
 And here like some weird archimage sit I, 
 Plotting dark spells and devilish enginery — 
 The self-impelling steam- wheels of the mind. 
 Which pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind 
 The gentle spirit of our meek Reviews 
 Into a powdery foam of salt abuse, 
 Ruffling the ocean of their self-content. 
 I sit, and smile — or sigh, as is my bent, 
 But not for them. Libeccio rushes round 
 With an inconstant and an idle sound ; 
 I heed him more than them. The thunder-smoke 
 Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloak 
 Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare ; 
 The ripe corn under the undulating air
 
 246 LETTER TO MARIA GIS BORNE. 
 
 Undulates like an ocean ; and the vines 
 
 Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines ; 
 
 The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill 
 
 The empty pauses of the blast ; the hill 
 
 Looks hoary through the white electric rain ; 
 
 And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain, 
 
 The interrupted thunder howls ; above 
 
 ('ne chasm of heaven smiles, like the eye of Love 
 
 On the unquiet world ; while such things are, 
 
 How could one worth your friendship heed the war 
 
 Of worms — the shriek of the world's carrion jays, 
 
 Their censure or their wonder or their praise ? 
 
 You are not here ! The quaint witch Memory sees 
 
 In vacant chairs your absent images. 
 
 And points where once you sat, and now should be, 
 
 But are not. — I demand if ever we 
 
 Shall meet as then we met — and she replies, 
 
 Veiling in awe her second-sighted eyes, 
 
 " I know the past alone : but summon home 
 
 My sister Hope — she speaks of all to come." 
 
 But I, an old diviner who knew well 
 
 Every false verse of that sweet oracle, 
 
 Turned to the sad enchantress once again, 
 
 And sought a respite from my gentle pain 
 
 In citing every passage o'er and o'er 
 
 Of our communion — How on the sea shore 
 
 "VVe watched the ocean and the sky together. 
 
 Under the roof of blue Italian weather : 
 
 How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm. 
 
 And felt the transverse lightning linger warm 
 
 Upon my cheek ; and how we often made 
 
 Treats for each other where good-will outweighed 
 
 The frugal luxury of our country cheer
 
 LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 247 
 
 (As it well might, were it less firm and clear 
 
 Than ours must ever be). And how we spun 
 
 A shroud of talk t« hide us from the sun 
 
 Of this familiar life, which seems to be 
 
 But is not — or is but quaint mockery 
 
 Of all we would believe ; or sadly blame 
 
 The jarring and inexplicable frame 
 
 Of this wrong world, and then anatomise 
 
 The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes 
 
 Were closed in distant years ; or widely guess 
 
 The issue of the earth's great business. 
 
 When we shall be as we no longer are 
 
 (Like babbling gossips safe, who hear the war 
 
 Of winds, and sigh, but tremble not) ; or how 
 
 You listened to some interrupted flow 
 
 Of visionary rhyme, in joy and pain 
 
 Struck from the inmost fountains of my brain, 
 
 With little skill perhaps ; or how we sought 
 
 Those deepest wells of passion or of thought 
 
 Wrought by wise poets in the waste of years, 
 
 Staining the sacred waters with our tears, 
 
 Quenching a thirst ever to be renewed ; 
 
 Or how I, wisest lady ! then indued 
 
 The language of a land which now is free, 
 
 And, winged with thoughts of truth and majesty 
 
 Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloud, 
 
 And bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud, 
 
 " My name is Legion ! " — that majestic tongue 
 
 Which Calderon over the desert flung 
 
 Of ages and of nations, and which found 
 
 An echo in our hearts, and with the sound 
 
 Startled Oblivion. Thou wert then to me 
 
 As is a nurse when inarticulately 
 
 A child would talk as its grown parents do.
 
 248 LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 
 
 If living winds the rapid clouds pursue, 
 
 If hawks chase doves through the aerial way, 
 
 Huntsmen the innocent deer, and beasts their prey, 
 
 Why should not we rouse with the spirit's blast 
 
 Out of the forest of the pathless past 
 
 These recollected pleasures ? 
 
 You are now 
 In London ; that great sea whose ebb and flow 
 At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore 
 Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. 
 Yet in its depth what treasures ! You will see 
 That which was Godwin — greater none than he ; 
 Though fallen, and fallen on evil times, to stand. 
 Among the spirits of our age and land, 
 Before the dread tribunal of To-come 
 The foremost, whilst rebuke cowers pale and dumb. 
 You will see Coleridge ; he who sits obscure 
 In the exceeding lustre and the pure 
 Intense irradiation of a mind 
 Which, with its own internal lightning blind, 
 Flags wearily through darkness and despair — 
 A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, 
 A hooded eagle among blinking owls. 
 You will see Hunt ; one of those happy souls 
 Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom 
 This world would smell like what it is — a tomb ; 
 Who is what others seem. His room no doubt 
 Is still adorned by many a cast from Shout ; 
 With graceful flowers tastefully placed about, 
 And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, 
 And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung. 
 The gifts of the most learned among some dozens 
 Of female friends, sisters-in-law, and cousins. 
 And there is he with his eternal puns,
 
 LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE.-^ 2^<) 
 
 Which beat the dullest braiu for smiles, like dims 
 
 Thundering for money at a poet's door ; 
 
 Alas ! it is no use to say •' I'm poor ! " — 
 
 Or oft in graver mood, when he will look 
 
 Things wiser than were ever read in book, 
 
 Except in Sliakespeare's wisest tenderness. 
 
 You will see Hogg ; and I cannot express 
 
 His virtues (though I know that they are great), 
 
 Because he locks, then barricades, the gate 
 
 Within which they inhabit. Of his wit 
 
 And wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit. 
 
 He is a pearl within an oyster-shell. 
 
 One of the richest of the deep. And there 
 
 Is English Peacock, with his mountain fair — 
 
 Turned into a Flamingo, that shy bird 
 
 That gleams i' the Indian air. Have you not heard, 
 
 When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo, 
 
 His best friends hear no more of him ? But you 
 
 Will see him, and will like him too, I hope, 
 
 With the milk-white Snowdonian antelope 
 
 Matched with this camelopard. His fine wit 
 
 Makes such a wound the knife is lost in it ; 
 
 A strain too learned for a shallow age, 
 
 Too wise for selfish bigots — let his page 
 
 Which charms the chosen spirits of the time 
 
 Fold itself up for a serener clime 
 
 Of years to come, and find its recompense 
 
 In that just expectation. Wit and sense, 
 
 Virtue and human knowledge, all that might 
 
 Make this dull world a business of delight. 
 
 Are all combined in Horace Smith. And these 
 
 (With some exceptions, which I need not teaze 
 
 Your patience by descanting on) are all 
 
 You and 1 know in Loudon.
 
 250 LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 
 
 I recall 
 My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night. 
 As water does a sponge, so the moonlight 
 Fills the void, hollow, universal air. 
 What see you ? Unpavilioned heaven is fair ; 
 Whether the Moon, into her chamber gone, 
 Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan 
 Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep ; 
 Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep, 
 Piloted by the many-wandering blast, 
 And the rare stars rush through them, dim and fast 
 All this is beautiful in every land. 
 But what see you beside ? A shabby stand 
 Of hackney-coaches — a brick house or wall 
 Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl 
 Of our unhappy politics ; or worse — 
 A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse. 
 Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade, 
 You must accept in place of serenade, 
 Or yellow-haired Pollouia murmuring 
 To Henry some unutterable thing, 
 
 / see a chaos of green leaves and fruit 
 
 Built round dark caverns, even to the root 
 
 Of the living stems who feed them, in whose bowers 
 
 There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers. 
 
 Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn 
 
 Trembles not in the slumbering air ; and, borne 
 
 In circles quaint and ever-changing dance. 
 
 Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance, 
 
 Pale in the open moonshine, but each one 
 
 Under the dark trees seems a little sun, 
 
 A meteor tamed, a fixed star gone astray 
 
 From the silver regions of the milky way.
 
 LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 251 
 
 Afar the contadino's song is heard, 
 Kude but made sweet by distance, and a bird 
 Which cannot be a nightingale, and yet 
 I know none else that sings so sweet as it 
 At this late liour — and then all is still. 
 Now, Italy or London, which you will ! 
 
 Next winter you must pass with me. I'll have 
 
 My house by that time turned into a grave 
 
 0{' dead despondence and low-thoughted care. 
 
 And all the dreams which our tormentors are. 
 
 Oh, that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock, and Smith were there, 
 
 With everything belonging to them fair ! 
 
 We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek ; 
 
 And ask one week to make another week 
 
 As like his father as I'm unlike mine. 
 
 Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine, 
 
 Yet let's be merry. We'll have tea and toast ; 
 
 Custards for supper ; and an endless host 
 
 Of syllabubs and jellies and mince- pies, 
 
 And other such lady-like luxuries — • 
 
 Feasting on which we will philosophise. 
 
 And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood, 
 
 To tliaw the six weeks' winter in our blood. 
 
 And then we'll talk — what shall we talk about ? 
 
 Oh ! there are themes enough for many a bout 
 
 Of thought-entangled descant ! As to nerves — 
 
 With cones, and parallelograms, and curves 
 
 I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare 
 
 To bother me, when you are with me there ; 
 
 And they shall never more sip laudanum 
 
 From Helicon or Himeros. Well, come, 
 
 And in despair of * * * and of the devil 
 
 We'll make our friendly philosophic revel
 
 252 ODE TO NAPLES. 
 
 Outlast the leafless time ; till buds and flowers 
 Warn the obscure inevitable hours 
 Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew — 
 "To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." 
 
 ODE TO NAPLES. 
 
 EPODE I. a. 
 
 I STOOD within the city disinterred ; 
 And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls 
 Of spirits passing through the streets ; and heard 
 The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals 
 Thrill through those roofless halls. 
 The oracular thunder penetrating shook 
 
 The listening soul in my suspended blood ; 
 I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke — 
 
 I felt, but heard not. Through white columns 
 glowed 
 The isle-sustaining ocean-flood, 
 A plane of light between two heavens of azure. 
 
 Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre. 
 Of whose pure beauty Time, as if his pleasure 
 "Were to spare Death, had never made erasure ; 
 But every living lineament was clear 
 
 As in the sculptor's thought, and there 
 The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine, 
 
 Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow, 
 Seemed only not to move and grow 
 Because the crystal silence of the air 
 Weighed on their life, even as the Power divine 
 Which then lulled all things brooded upon mine.
 
 ODE TO NAPLES. 253 
 
 EPODE II. a, 
 Theu gentle winds arose, 
 With many a mingled close 
 Of wild iEolian sound and mountain odour keen. 
 And where the Baian ocean 
 Welters, with air-like motion, 
 Within, above, around its bowers of starry green. 
 Moving the sea- flowers in those purple caves. 
 Even as the ever stormless atmosphere 
 Floats o'er the elysian realm, 
 It bore me (like an angel, o'er the waves 
 Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air 
 No storm can overwhelm). 
 I sailed where ever flows 
 Under the calm serene 
 A spirit of deep emotion 
 
 From the unknown graves 
 Of the dead kinirs of melody. 
 Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm 
 The horizontal ether ; heaven stripped bare 
 Its depths over Elysium, where the prow 
 Made the invisible water white as snow ; 
 From that Typh^ean mount, Inarime, 
 
 There streamed a sunlit vapour, like the standard 
 Of some ethereal host ; 
 
 Whilst from all the coast, [wandered 
 
 Louder and louder, gathering round, there 
 Over the oracular woods and divine sea 
 Prophesyings which grew articulate — 
 They seize me — I must speak them — be they fate ! 
 
 STROPHE I. a. 
 
 Naples ! thou heart of men which ever pantest 
 
 Naked beneath the lidiess eye of heaven I
 
 254 ODE TO NAPLES. 
 
 Elysian City, ■\v>iich to calm enchantest 
 The mutinous air and sea — they round thee, even 
 As Sleep ;oun.l Love, are driven ! 
 Metropolis of a ruined paradise 
 
 Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained ! 
 Bright altar of the bloodless sacrifice 
 Which armM Victory ofl'ers up unstained 
 To Love the llower-enchaiued ! 
 Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, 
 Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free. 
 If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail — 
 Hail, hail, all hail ! 
 
 STROPHE II. 6. 
 
 Thou youngest giant birth 
 "Which from the groaning earth 
 Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale ! 
 Last of the intercessors 
 Who 'gainst the crowned transgressors 
 Pkadest before God's love ! arrayed in wisdom's mail, 
 Wave thy lightning lance in mirth ; 
 Nor let thy high heart fail, 
 Though from their hundred gates the leagued 
 
 oppressors 
 With hurried legions move ! Hail, hail, all hail ! 
 
 ANTISTROPHE I. a. 
 
 What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme 
 
 Freedom and thee ? Thy shield is as a mirror 
 To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam 
 To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer ; 
 A new Action's error 
 Shall theirs have beenr-devoured by their own 
 hounds 1
 
 ODE TO NAPLES. 255 
 
 Be thou like the imperial basilisk, 
 Killing thy foe with unapx>afont wounds ! 
 Gaze on Oppression, till, at that dread risk 
 Aghast, she pass from the earth's disk ; 
 Fear not, but gaze — for freemen mightier grow, 
 And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe. 
 If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail, 
 Thou shalt be great — All hail ! 
 
 ANTISTROPHE II. h. 
 
 From^ Freedom's form divine. 
 From Nature's inmost shrine. 
 Strip every impious gawd, rend error veil by veil : 
 O'er Ruin desolate, 
 O'er Falsehood's fallen state, 
 Sit thou sublime, unawed ; be the Destroyer pale ! 
 And equal laws be thine, 
 And winged words let sail, 
 Freighted with truth even from the throne of God ! 
 That wealth, surviving fate, be thine. — All hail ! 
 
 STROPHE III, c. 
 
 Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling pgean 
 
 Fl-om land to land re-echoed solemnly, 
 Till silence became music ? From the iEan 
 
 To the cold Alps, eternal Italy 
 
 Starts to hear thine ! The sea 
 Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs 
 
 In light and music ; widowed Genoa wan, 
 By moonlight, spells ancestral epitaphs, 
 
 Murmuring, " Where is Doria ? " fair Milan, 
 Within whose veins long ran 
 The viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel 
 To bruise his head. The signal and the seal
 
 (If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail) 
 Art thou of all these hopes. — Oh hail 1 
 
 STROPHE lY. d. 
 Florence, beneath the sun, 
 Of cities fairest one, 
 Blushes within her bower for freedom's expectation : 
 From eyes of quenchless hope 
 Rome tears the priestly cope, 
 As ruling once by power, so now by admiration — 
 An atbl.'te stripped to run • 
 From a remoter station 
 For the high prize lost on Philippi's shore — 
 As then Hope, Truth, and Justice, did avail, 
 So now may Fraud and Wrong ! Oh hail ! 
 
 EPODE I. b. 
 Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms, 
 
 Arrayed against the ever-living gods ? 
 The crash and darkness of a thousand storms 
 Bursting their inaccessible abodes 
 Of crags and thunder-clouds ? 
 See ye the banners blazoned to the day. 
 
 Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride ? 
 Dissonant threats kill silence far away ; 
 
 The serene heaven which wraps our Eden wide 
 With iron light is dyed. 
 The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions, 
 
 Like chaos o'er creation, uncreating ; 
 An hundred tribes nourished on strange religions 
 And lawless slaveries. Down the aerial regions 
 Of the white Alps, desolating. 
 Famished wolves that bide no waiting, 
 Blottijig tlie glowing footsteps of old glory,
 
 ODE TO NAPLES, 257 
 
 Trampling our columned cities into dust, 
 Their dull and savage lust 
 On beauty's corse to sickness satiating — 
 They come ! The fields they tread look black and 
 hoary 
 With fire — from their red feet the streams run gory! 
 
 EPODE II. c. 
 
 Great Spirit, deepest love, 
 Which rulest and dost move 
 A.11 things which live and are within the Italian shore; 
 Who spreadest heaven around it, 
 Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it ; 
 Who sittest in thy star, o'er ocean's western floor ! 
 Spirit of Beauty, at whose soft command 
 
 The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison 
 From the earth's bosom chill ! 
 Oh bid those beams be each a blinding brand 
 
 Of lightning ! bid those showers be dew of poison ! 
 Bid the earth's plenty kill ! 
 Bid thy bright heaven above, 
 
 Whilst light and darkness bound it, 
 Be their tomb who planned 
 To make it ours and thine ! 
 Or with thine harmonising ardours fill 
 
 And raise thy sons, as o'er the prone horizon 
 Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire ! 
 Be man's high hope and unextinct desire 
 The instrument to work thy will divine ! 
 
 Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from 
 leopards. 
 And frowns and fears from thee, 
 Would not more swifty flee 
 Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.
 
 258 SUMMER AND WINTER. 
 
 Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine 
 Thou yieldest or withholdest, oh let be 
 The City of thy worship ever free ! 
 
 lUh August 1820. 
 
 SUMMER AND WINTER. 
 
 IT was a bright and cheerful afternoon, 
 Towards the end of the sunny month of June, 
 When the north wind congregates in crowds 
 The floating mountains of the silvery clouds 
 From the horizon, and the stainless sky 
 Opens beyond them like eternit)'. 
 All things rejoiced beneath the sun — the weeds, 
 The river, and the cornfields, and the reeds, 
 The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze, 
 And the firm foliage of the larger trees. 
 
 It was a Winter such as when birds die 
 In the deep forests ; and the fishes lie 
 Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes 
 Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes 
 A wrinkled clod as hard as brick ; and when, 
 Among their children, comfortable men 
 Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold r 
 Alas then for the homeless beggar old !
 
 LINES TO A REVIEWER. 259 
 
 LINES TO A REVIEWER. 
 
 ALAS ! good friend^ what profit can you see 
 In hating such a hateless thing as me ? 
 There is no sport in hate, where all the rage 
 Is on one side. In vain would you assuage 
 Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, 
 In which not even contempt lurks, to beguile 
 Your heart by some faint sympathy of hate. 
 Oh ! conquer what you cannot satiate : 
 For to your passion I am far more coy 
 Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy 
 In winter noon. Of your antipathy 
 If I am the Narcissus, you are free 
 To pine into a sound with hating me. 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 A DIRGK. 
 
 THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, 
 The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are 
 
 dying. 
 
 And the Year 
 On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead. 
 Is lying. 
 
 Come, Months, come away, 
 
 From November to May, 
 
 In your saddest array ; 
 
 Follow the bier 
 
 Of the dead eold Year, 
 And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
 
 26o LIBERTY. 
 
 The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling, 
 The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling 
 
 For the Year ; 
 The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone 
 To his dwelling. 
 
 Come, Months, come away ; 
 
 Put on white, black, and grey ; 
 
 Let your light sisters play — 
 
 Ye, follow the bier 
 
 Of the dead cold Year, 
 And make her grave green with tear on tear. 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 THE fiery mountains answer each other, 
 Their thunderings are echoed from zone to 
 zone ; 
 The tempestuous oceans awake one another, 
 
 And the ice -rocks are shaken round Winter's 
 
 throne, 
 When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. 
 
 From a single cloud the lightning flashes. 
 
 Whilst a thousand isles are ulumined around ; 
 
 Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes, [sound 
 An hundred are shuddering and tottering — the 
 Is bellowing underground. 
 
 But keener thy gaze than the lightning's glare. 
 
 And swifter thy step than the earthquake's 
 tramp ;
 
 THE TOWER OF FAMINE. 261 
 
 Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean ; thy stare 
 Makes blind the volcanoes ; the sun's bright 
 lamp 
 To thine is a fen-fire damp. 
 
 4. From billow, and mountain, and exhalation 
 
 The sunlight is darted through vapour and 
 blast ; 
 From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation, 
 From city to hamlet, tliy dawning is cast — 
 And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night 
 In the van of the morning light. 
 
 THE TOWER OF FAMINE. 
 
 AMID the desolation of a city 
 Which was the cradle and is now the gi-avo 
 Of an extinguished people, so that Pity 
 
 Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of oblivion's wave, 
 There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built 
 
 Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave 
 For bread, and gold, and blood : Pain linked to Guilt 
 
 Agitates the light flame of their hours. 
 Until its vital oil is spent or spilt. 
 
 There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers 
 And sacred domes, each marble-ribbM roof. 
 
 The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers 
 Of solitary wealth. The tempest -proof 
 
 Pavilions of the dark Italian air 
 Are by its presence dimmed — they stand aloof, 
 
 And are withdrawn — so that the world is bare—
 
 262 GOOD-NIGHT. 
 
 As if a spectre, wrapped in shapeless terror, 
 
 Amid a com]iany of ladies fair 
 Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror 
 
 Of all their beauty — and their hair and hue, 
 The life of their sweet eyes with all its error, 
 
 Should be absorbed till they to marble grew. 
 
 GOOD-NIGHT. 
 
 GOOD-NIGHT ! " No, love ! the night is ill 
 Which severs those it should unite ; 
 Let us remain together still — 
 
 Then it will be good night. 
 
 How were the night without thee good, 
 
 Though thy sweet wishes wing its flighl- ? 
 Be it not said, thought, understood — 
 Then it will be good night. 
 
 The hearts that on each other beat 
 
 From evening close to morning light 
 
 Have nights as good as they are sweet, 
 
 But never say " good-night" 
 
 TIME LONG PAST. 
 
 LIKE the ghost of a dear friend doad 
 Is time long past. 
 A tone which is now forever ned, 
 A hope which is now forever past,
 
 SONNET. 263 
 
 A love so sweet it could not last, 
 
 "Was time long past. 
 
 There were sweet dreams in the night 
 Of time long past : 
 And, was it sadnrcs or delight, 
 Each day a shadow onward cast 
 Which made us wish it yet might last- 
 That time long past. 
 
 There is regret, almost remorse, 
 
 For time long past. 
 
 'Tis like a child's beloved corse 
 
 A father watches, till at last 
 
 Beauty is like remembrance cast 
 
 From time long past. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 YE hasten to the dead : what seek ye then.. 
 Ye restless thoughts and busy pur})0"^<>H 
 Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wcht i 
 
 thou quick heart, which pantest to possess 
 All that anticipation feigneth fair — 
 
 Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess 
 Whence thou didst come and whither thou mayst go, 
 And that which never yet was known wouldst know — 
 
 Oh ! whither hasten ye, that thus ye press 
 
 Witli such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, 
 Seeking alike from happiness and woe 
 
 A refuge in the cavern of grey death ? [thou 
 
 heart, and mind, and thoughts ! what thing dost 
 Hope to inherit in the grave below ?
 
 ADONAIS ; 
 
 AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS 
 
 I 
 
 WEEP for Adonais — he is dead ! 
 Oh ! weep for Adonais, though our tears 
 Thaw not tlie frost which binds so dear a head ! 
 And thou, sad Hour selected from all years 
 To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 
 And teach them thine own sorrow ! Say : * ' With 
 me 
 Died Adonais ! Till the future dares 
 Forget the past, his fate and fame shall be 
 An echo and a light unto eternity. " 
 
 I. Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 
 
 When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
 In darkness ? Where was lorn Urania 
 When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 
 'Mid listening Echoes, in her paradise 
 She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 
 
 Rekindled all the fading melodies 
 With which, like flowers that mock the corse 
 beneath, 
 He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of Death.
 
 ADONAIS. 26s 
 
 3. Oh ! weep for Adonais — lie is dead ! 
 
 Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! — 
 Yet wherefore ? Quench within their burning bed 
 
 Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep. 
 
 Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 
 For he is gone where all things wise and fair 
 
 Descend. Oh ! dream not that the amorous deep 
 
 Will yet restore him to the vital air ; [despair. 
 
 Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our 
 
 4. Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 
 
 Lament anew, Urania ! — He died 
 Who was the i?ire of an immortal strain, 
 
 Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride 
 The priest, the slave, and the liberticide, 
 Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
 
 Of lust and blood. He went unterrified 
 Into the gulf of death ; but his clear sprite 
 Yet reigns o'er earth, the third among the Sons of 
 Light. 
 
 5. Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
 
 Not all to that bright station dared to climb ; 
 And happier they their happiness who knew, 
 
 Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 
 In which suns perished. Others more sublime, 
 Struck by the envious wrath of man or god. 
 
 Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; 
 And gome yet live^ treading the thorny road 
 Wliich leads, tiiroBgk toil and hate, to Fame's serene 
 aboch. 
 
 6. But now thy youngest, dearew om has perished, 
 
 The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
 
 266 ADO NATS. 
 
 Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished. 
 
 And fed with true-love tears instead of dew. 
 
 Most musical of mourners,''weep anew ! 
 Thy extreme Lope, the loveliest and the last, 
 
 The bloom whose petals, nipped before they blew 
 Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ; 
 'Cfte broken lily lies — the storm is overpassed. 
 
 7. To that high Capital where kingly Death 
 
 Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay 
 He came ; and bought, with price of purest breath, 
 
 A grave among the eternal. — Come away ! 
 
 Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 
 Is yet his fitting charnel-roof, while still 
 
 He lies as if in dewy sleep he lay. 
 Awake him not ! surely he takes his fill 
 Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 
 
 8. He will awake no more, oh never more ! 
 
 "Within the twilight chamber spreads apace 
 The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
 
 Invisible Corruption waits to trace 
 
 His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place ; 
 The Eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
 
 Soothe her ]i3le rage, nor dares she to deface 
 So fair a prey, till darkness and the law 
 Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw 
 
 9. Oh weep for Adonais 1 — The quick Dreams, 
 
 The passiou-^viDgM ministers of thought. 
 Who were his flock's, whom near the living streams 
 Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught 
 Tlie love which was its music, wander not —
 
 A DO NATS. 267 
 
 "Wander no more from kindling brain to brain, 
 But droop there whence they sprung ; and mourn 
 their lot 
 Round the cold heart where, after their sweet pain, 
 Tbey ne'er will gather strength op find a home again. 
 
 16. And one with trembling hand clasps his cold head, 
 And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries, 
 ' * Our love, our hope, ojir sorrow, is not dead ! 
 Sfee, on the silken fringe of his fkint eyes. 
 Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 
 A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." 
 Lost angel of a ruined paradise ! 
 She knew not 'twas her own — as with no stain 
 She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 
 
 11. On.e from a lucid urn of starry dew 
 
 Washed his light Hmbs, as if embalming them ; 
 Another dipt her profuse locks, and threw 
 
 The wreath up«n him, like an anadem 
 
 Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 
 Another in her wilful grief would break 
 
 Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
 
 A greater loss with one which was more weak. 
 
 And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. 
 
 12. Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 
 
 That mouth whence it was wont to draw the 
 breath 
 Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, 
 
 And pass into the panting heart beneath 
 
 With lightning and with music ; the damp death 
 Quenched its caress upon his iey lips ; 
 
 And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath
 
 268 ADONAIS. 
 
 Of moonlight vapour which the cold night clips, 
 It flushed through hia pale limbs, and passed to its 
 eclipse. 
 
 13. And others came — Desires and Adorations, 
 
 "WingM Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, 
 Splendours, and Glooma, and glimmering incar- 
 nations 
 Of Hopes and Fears, and twilight Fantasies. 
 And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 
 And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam 
 
 Of her own dying smile instead of eyes. 
 Came in slow pomp — the moving pomp might seem 
 Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. 
 
 14. All he had loved, and moulded into thought 
 
 From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound, 
 Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 
 
 Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, 
 
 Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, 
 Dimmed the aSrial eyes that kindle day ; 
 
 Afar the melancholy Thunder moaned, 
 Pale Ocean in unquiet slumb«r lay, [dismay. 
 
 And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their 
 
 15. Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, 
 
 And feeds her grief with his remembered lay, 
 And will no more reply to winds or fountains. 
 Or amorous birds perched on the young green 
 
 spray, 
 Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day ; 
 Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear 
 
 Than those for whose digdain she pined away 
 Into a shadow of all sounds — a dr«ar 
 l^Iurmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.
 
 ADONAIS. 269 
 
 18. Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw 
 down 
 Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, 
 Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is flown, 
 For whom should she have waked the sullen 
 
 Year? 
 To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, 
 Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both 
 
 Thou, Adonais ; wan they stand and sere 
 Amid the faint companions of their youth. 
 With dew all turned to tears — odour, to sighing 
 ruth. 
 
 17. Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, 
 
 Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain ; 
 Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
 
 Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
 Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, 
 Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 
 As Albion wails for thee : the curse of Cain 
 Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast. 
 And scared the angel song that was its earthly guest ! 
 
 18. Ah woe is me ! Winter is come and gone, 
 
 But grief returns with the revolving year. 
 The airs and streams renew their joyous tone ; 
 The ants, the bees, the swallows, re-appear ; 
 Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Season's 
 bier ; 
 The amorous birds now pair in every brake. 
 
 And build their mossy homes in field and brere ; 
 And the green lizard and the golden snake. 
 Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.
 
 270 ADONAIS, 
 
 19. Throngh wood, and stream, and field». and hill, and 
 
 ocean, 
 A quickening life from the Earth's heart bis 
 burst, 
 Afl it has eyer done, with change and motion, 
 From the great morning of the world when first 
 God dawned on chaos. In its steam immersed. 
 The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light ; 
 
 All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst. 
 Diffuse themselves, and spend in love's delight 
 The beauty and the joy of their renewM might. 
 
 20. The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender, 
 
 Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath : 
 Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 
 
 Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death, 
 
 And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath. 
 Nought we know dies : shall that alone which knows 
 
 Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
 By sightless lightning % The intense atom glows 
 A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 
 
 21. Alas that all we loved of him should be. 
 
 But for our grief, as if it had not been, 
 And grief iteelf be mortal ! Woe is me ! 
 
 Whence are we, and why are we \ of what scene 
 The actors or spectators ? Great and mean 
 Meet massed in death, who lends what life must 
 borrow. 
 As long as skies are blue and fields are green, 
 Evening must usher night, night ur^e the morrow, 
 Month follow month with wot^and year wake year to 
 sorrow.
 
 ADONAIS. 271 
 
 22. He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 
 
 "Wake thou," cried Misery, " childless Mother ! 
 Rise 
 Out of thy sleep, and slake in thy heart's core 
 A wound more fierce than his, with tears and 
 
 sighs." 
 And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes. 
 And all the Echoes whom their Sister's song 
 Had held in holy silence, cried, "Arise ! " 
 Swift as a thought by the snake memory stung, 
 From her ambrosial rest the fa'ding Splendour sprung. 
 
 23. She rose like an autumnal Night that springs 
 
 Out of the east, and follows wild and drear 
 The golden Day, which, on eternal wings. 
 
 Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, 
 
 Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear 
 So struck, so roused, so rapt, Urania ; 
 
 So saddened round her like an atmosphere 
 Of stormy mist ; so swept her on her way, 
 Even to the mournful place where AdoL xis Iky. 
 
 24. Out of her secret paradise she sped. 
 
 Through camps and cfties rough with stone and 
 steel 
 And human hearts, which, to her aery tread 
 Yielding not, wounded the invisible 
 Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell. 
 And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than 
 th«y, 
 Rent the soft form they never could repel, 
 "Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 
 Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.
 
 25. In the death-chamber for a moment Death, 
 
 Shamed by the presence of that living might, 
 Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 
 Revisited those lips, and life's pale light, 
 Flashed through those limbs so late her dear 
 delight. 
 " Leave me not wild, and drear, and comfortless, 
 
 As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 
 Leave me not ! " cried Urania. Her distress 
 Roused Death : Death rose and smiled, and met her 
 vain caress. 
 
 26. •' Stay yet awhile I speak to me once again I 
 
 Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live ! 
 And in my heartless breast and burning brain 
 That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else 
 
 survive, 
 With food of saddest memory kept alive, 
 Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 
 Of thee, my Adonais ! I would give 
 All that I am, to be as thou now art — 
 Rut I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart. 
 
 27. "0 gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 
 
 Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 
 
 Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty 
 
 heart 
 
 Dare the unpastured dragon in his den ? 
 
 Defenceless as thou wert, oh ! where was then 
 
 Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear ? — 
 
 Or, hadst thou waited the full cycle when 
 Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, 
 The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like 
 deer.
 
 ADONAIS. 273 
 
 28. ' ' The herded wolves bold only to pursue, 
 
 The obscene ravens clamorous o'er the dead, 
 The vultures to the conqueror's banner true, 
 Who feed where desolation first has fed, 
 And whose wings rain contagion — how they fled, 
 When, like Apollo from his golden bow, 
 
 The Pythian of the age one arrow sped, 
 And smiled ! — The spoilers tempt no second blow, 
 They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying 
 low. 
 
 29. ' * The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn ; 
 
 He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
 Is gathered into death without a dawn, 
 
 And the immortal stars awake again. 
 
 So is it in the world of living men : 
 A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 
 
 Making earth bare and veiling heaven ; and, when 
 It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 
 Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night." 
 
 30. Thus ceased she : and the Mountain Shepherds 
 
 came. 
 Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent. 
 The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 
 Over his living head like heaven is bent, 
 An early but enduring monument, 
 Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
 
 In sorrow. From her wilds lerne sent 
 The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, 
 And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. 
 
 31. 'Midst others of less note came one frail form, 
 
 A phantom among men, companionlesa
 
 274 ADONAIS. 
 
 As the last cloud of an expiring storm 
 
 "WTiose thunder is its knell. He, as I guess, 
 Had gazed ou Nature's naked loveliness 
 
 Actaeon-like ; and now he lied astray 
 
 With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, 
 
 And his own thoughts along that rugged way 
 Pursued like raging hounds their father and their prey. 
 
 32. A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift — 
 
 A LiVf in desolation masked — a power 
 Girt rouiii with weakness ; it can scarce uplift 
 The weight of the superincumbent hour. 
 It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 
 A breaking billow — even whilst we speak 
 
 Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 
 The killing sun smiles brightly : on a cheek 
 The life can burn in blood even while the heart may 
 break. 
 
 33. His head was bound with pansies overblown. 
 
 And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue ; 
 And a light spear topped with a cypress cone. 
 
 Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses gre^" 
 
 Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, 
 Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 
 
 Shook the weak hand that grasped it. Of that crew 
 He came the last, neglected and apart ; 
 A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart 
 
 34. All stood aloof, and at his partial moan 
 
 Smded through their tears. Well knew that 
 gentle band 
 Who in another's fate now wept his own. 
 As in the accents of an unknown land
 
 ADONATS. 275 
 
 He sang new sorrow, sad Urania scanned 
 The Stranger's mien, and murmured, ' ' Who art 
 thou ? " 
 He answered not, but with a sudden hand 
 Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 
 Which was like Cain's or Christ's — Oh ! that it should 
 be so ! 
 
 35. What softer voice is hushed over the dead ? 
 
 Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? 
 What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, 
 In mockery of monumental stone, 
 The heavy heart heaving without a moan ? 
 If it be he who, gentlest of the wise, 
 
 Taught, soothed, loved, honoured, the departed 
 one, 
 Let me not vex with inharmonious sighs 
 The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 
 
 36. Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh ! 
 
 What d«if and viperous murderer could crown 
 Life's early cup with such a draught of woe ? 
 
 The nameless worm would now itself disown ; 
 
 It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone 
 Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong,. 
 
 But what was howling in one breast alone, 
 Silent with expectation of the song 
 Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. 
 
 37. Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 
 
 Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me, 
 Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! 
 But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! 
 And ever at thy season be thou free
 
 276 ADONAIS. 
 
 To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow ; 
 
 Remorse and self-contempt shall cling to thee, 
 Hot shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
 And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now. 
 
 38. Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
 
 Far from these carrion -kites that scream below. 
 He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
 Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. 
 Dust to the dust : but the poor spirit shall flow 
 Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
 A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 
 Through time and change, unquenchably the same, 
 Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of 
 shame. 
 
 39. Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep ! 
 
 He hath awakened from the dream of life. 
 'Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep 
 With phantoms an unprofitable strife. 
 And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife 
 Invulnerable nothings. Wt decay 
 
 Like corpses in a cbarnel ; fear and grief 
 Convulse us and consume us day by day, 
 Aijd cold hopes swarm like worms within our living 
 clay. 
 
 40. He has outsoared the shadow of our night. 
 
 Envy and calumny, and hate and pain 
 And that unrest which men miscall delight. 
 
 Can touch him not and torture not again. 
 
 From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
 He is secure ; and now can never mourn 
 
 A heart grown cold, a head grown grey, ia vain —
 
 ADONAIS, 277 
 
 Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, 
 With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 
 
 41. He lives, he wakes — 'tis Death is dead, not he ; 
 
 Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn, 
 Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee 
 The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ! 
 Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moau ! 
 Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains ! and, thou 
 Air, 
 Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst 
 thrown 
 O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare 
 Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair ! 
 
 42. He is made one with Nature. There is heard 
 
 His voice in all her music, from the moan 
 or thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird. 
 
 He is a presence to be felt and known 
 
 In darkness and in light, from herb and stone ; 
 Spreading itaelf where'er that Power may move 
 
 Which has withdrawn his being to its own, 
 Which wields the world with never-wearied love, 
 Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 
 
 43. He is a portion of the loveliness 
 
 Which once he made more lovely. He doth bear 
 His part, while the One Spirit's plastic stress 
 
 Sweeps through the dull dense world ; compelling 
 there 
 
 All new successions to the forms they wear ; 
 Torturing the unwilling dross, that checks its flight. 
 
 To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; '
 
 278 ADONATS. 
 
 And bursting in its beauty and its might 
 From trees, and beasts, and men, into the heaven's 
 light. 
 
 44. The splendours of the firmament of time 
 
 May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ; 
 Like stars to their appointed height they cli;nb. 
 And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
 The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
 Lifts a young heArt above its mortal l*ir, 
 
 And love and life ctjutend in it for what 
 Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, 
 And move like winds of light on dark and stormy 
 
 45. The inheritors of unfulfilled renown [thought 
 
 Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal 
 Far in the unapparent. Chatterton 
 
 Rose pale, his solemn agony had not 
 
 Yet faded from him ; Sidney, as he fought, 
 And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, 
 
 Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot, 
 Arose : and Lucan, by his death approved ; 
 Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 
 
 46. And many more, whose names on earth are dark, 
 
 But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 
 So long as fire outlives the parent spark. 
 
 Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 
 
 " Thou art become as one of us," they cry ; 
 ** It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 
 
 Swung blind in unascended majesty, 
 Silent alone amid an heaven of soag. 
 Assume tliy wiaged throne, thou Vesper of our throng ! "
 
 ADONATS. 279 
 
 47. Who mourns for Adonais ? Oh ! come forth, 
 
 Fond wretch, and know thyself and him arif,^lit 
 Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous earth ; 
 As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
 Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
 Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 
 Even to a point within our day and night ; 
 And keep thy heart light, lest it make thee sink. 
 When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the 
 brink. 
 
 48. Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre. 
 
 Oh, not of him, but of our joy. 'Tis nought 
 That ages, empires, and religions there 
 
 Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; 
 
 For such as he can lend — they borrow not 
 Glory from those who made the world their prey ; 
 
 And he is gathered to the kings of thought 
 Who waged contention with their time's decay, 
 And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 
 
 49. Go thou to Rome — at once the paradise, 
 
 The grave, the city, and the wilderness ; 
 And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise 
 
 And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dress 
 
 The bones of Desolation's nakedness, 
 Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead 
 
 Thy footsteps to a slope of green access. 
 Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead 
 A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. 
 
 50. And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
 
 Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ;
 
 28o ADONAIS. 
 
 And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 
 Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 
 This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
 Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath 
 
 A field is spread, on which a newer band 
 Have pitched in heaven's smile their camp of death, 
 "Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished 
 breath. 
 
 51. Here pause. These graves are all too young as yet 
 To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
 Its charge to each ; and, if the seal is set 
 Here on one fountain of a mourning mind, 
 Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 
 Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, 
 
 Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
 Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
 What Adonais is why fear we to become t 
 
 62. The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
 
 Heaven's light for ever shines, earth s shadows 
 fly; 
 Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
 Stains the white radiance.of eternity, 
 Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 
 If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! 
 
 Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky, 
 
 Flowers, ruins, statues, music — words are weak 
 
 The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 
 
 63. "Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart I 
 
 Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here 
 They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart 1 
 A light is past from the revolving year,
 
 ADO NATS. 281 
 
 And man and woman ; and what still is dear 
 Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
 
 The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near : 
 'Tis Adonais calls ! Oh, hasten thither 1 
 No more let life divide what death can join together. 
 
 64. That light whose smile kindles the universe, 
 
 That beauty in which all things work and move, 
 That benediction which the eclipsing curse 
 Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
 "Which, through the web of being blindly wove 
 By man, and beast, and earth, and air, and sea. 
 
 Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
 The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, 
 Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 
 
 55. The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
 Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
 Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
 Whose sails were never to the tempest giv«n. 
 The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 
 I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar ! 
 
 "Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, 
 The soul of Adonais, like a star. 
 Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
 
 POEMS WRITTEN IN 1821. 
 
 DIRGE FOR THE YEAR. 
 
 1. " i^RPHAN Hours, the Year is dead ! 
 
 V^ Come and sigh, come and weep t 
 "Merry Hours, smile instead, 
 
 For the Year is but asleep : 
 See, it smiles as it is sleeping, 
 
 Mocking your untimely weeping. " 
 
 2. "As an earthquake rocks a corse 
 
 In its coffin in the clay. 
 So white "Winter, that rough nurse, 
 
 Rocks the dead-cold Year to-day ; 
 Solemn Hours ! wail aloud 
 For your Mother in her shroud. " 
 
 3. "As the wild air stirs and sways 
 
 The tree-swung cradle of a child, 
 So the breath of these rude Days 
 
 Rocks the Year. Be calm and mild, 
 Trembling Hours ; she will arise 
 "With new love within her eyes.
 
 TO NIGHT. 283 
 
 4. * ' January grey is here, 
 
 Like a sexton by lier grave ; 
 
 February bears the bier ; 
 
 March with grief doth howl and rave ; 
 
 And April weeps — but 0, ye Hours ! 
 
 Follow with May's fairest flowers." 
 
 Is^ January 1821, 
 
 TO NIGHT. 
 
 1. QWIFTLY walk over the western wave, 
 Spirit of Night ! 
 Out of the misty eastern cave 
 Where, all the long and lone daylight, 
 Thou wo vest dreams of joy and fear 
 "Which make thee terrible and dear, 
 Swift be thy flight ! 
 
 2. Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, 
 Star-inwrought, 
 
 Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day ; 
 
 Kiss her until she be wearied out. 
 
 Then wander e'er city, and sea, and land 
 
 Touching all with thine opiate wand — 
 Come, long-sought ! 
 
 8. When I arose and saw the dawn, 
 I sighed for thee ; 
 When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 
 And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
 
 284 FROM THE ARABIC, 
 
 And the weary Day turned to her rest, 
 Lingering like an unloved guest, 
 I sighed for thee. 
 
 Thy brother Death came, and cried, 
 
 " Would'st thou me ? " 
 Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, 
 
 ^Murmured like a noontide bee, 
 " Shall I nestle near thy side ? 
 Wouldst thou me ? " — And I replied, 
 " No, not thee." 
 
 Death will come when thou art dead, 
 
 Soon, too soon — 
 Sleep will come when thou art fled. 
 Of neither would I ask the boon 
 I ask of thee, belovM Night — 
 Swift be thine approaching flight, 
 Come soon, soon ! 
 
 FROM THE ARABIC 
 
 AN IMITATION. 
 
 MY faint spirit was sitting in the light 
 Of thy looks, my love ; 
 It panted for thee like the hind at noon 
 For the brooks, my love. 
 Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's fight, 
 Bore thee far from me ; 
 My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, 
 Did companion thee.
 
 All ! fleeter far than fleetest stonn or steed, 
 Or the death they bear, 
 The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove 
 With the wings of care ; 
 In the battle, in the darkness, in the need, 
 Shall mine cling to thee, 
 Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love, 
 It may bring to thee. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 1. T^ ARELY, rarely comest tkon, 
 rV Spirit of Delight ! 
 "Wherefore hast thou left me now 
 
 Many a day and night ? 
 Many a weary night and day 
 'Tis since thou art fled away. 
 
 2. How shall ever one like me 
 
 "Win thee back again ? 
 "With the joyous and the free, 
 
 Thou wilt scoff at pain. 
 Spirit false ! thou hast forgot 
 All but those who need thee not 
 
 S. As a lizard with the shade 
 
 Of a trembling leaf. 
 Thou with sorrow art dismayed ; 
 
 Even the sighs of grief 
 Reproach thee that thou art not near, 
 And reproach thou wilt not hear.
 
 286 SONG, 
 
 4. Let me set my mournful ditty 
 
 To a merry measure — 
 
 Thou wilt never come for pity, 
 
 Thou wilt come for pleasure ; 
 
 Pity then will cut away 
 
 Those cruel wings, aud thou wilt stay. 
 
 5. I love all that thou lovest, 
 
 Spirit of Delight ! 
 
 The fresh earth in new leaves dressed, 
 
 And the starry night, 
 
 Autumn evening, and the morn 
 
 When the golden mists are born. 
 
 6. I love snow, and all the forms 
 
 Of the radiant frost ; 
 
 I love waves, and winds, and storms— 
 
 Everything almost 
 
 Which is Nature's, and may be 
 
 Untainted by man's misery. 
 
 7. I love tranquil solitude, 
 
 And such society 
 
 As is quiet, wise, and good. 
 
 Between thee and me 
 
 What ditference ? But thou dost possess 
 
 The things I seek, not love them less. 
 
 8. I love Love, though he has wiqgs, 
 
 And like light can flee ; 
 
 But above all other things. 
 
 Spirit, I love thee— 
 
 Thou art love and life ! Oh come 1 
 
 Make once more my heart thy home 1
 
 TO EMILIA VIVIANL 287 
 
 TO EMILIA VIVIANL 
 
 MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me 
 Sweet-basil and mignonette, 
 Embleming love and health, which never yet 
 In tlie same wreath might be % 
 Alas, and they are wet ! ; 
 
 Is it with thy kisses or thy tears % 
 For never rain or dew 
 Such fragrance drew 
 From plant or flower. The very doubt endears 
 My sadness ever new, 
 The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed, for thee. 
 
 March 1821. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 FAR, far away, ye 
 Halcyons of Memory ! 
 Seek some far calmer nest 
 Than this abandoned breast ; 
 No news of your false spring 
 To my heart's winter bring. 
 Once having gone, in vain 
 
 Ye come again. 
 Vultures who build your bowers 
 High in the future's towers ! 
 Withered hopes on hopes are spread s 
 Dying joys, choked by the dead. 
 Will serve your beaks for prey 
 Many a day.
 
 288 TIME. 
 
 TIME. 
 
 UNFATHOMABLE Sea, whose waves are years I 
 Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe 
 Are hrackkh with the salt of human tears ! 
 
 Thou shoreless flood which in thy ehb and flow 
 Claspest the limits of mortality, 
 And, sick of prey yet howling on for more, 
 Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore I 
 Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, 
 Who shall put forth on thee, 
 Unfathomable Sea \ 
 
 A SOXG. 
 
 HE came like a dream, in the dawn of life: 
 He fled like a shadow, before its noon. 
 He is gone, and my peace is turned to strife, 
 And I wander and wane like the weary moon. 
 sweet Echo, wake, 
 And for my sake 
 Make answer the while my heart shall break ! 
 
 But my heart has a music which Echo's lips, 
 
 Though temler and true, yet can answer not, 
 
 And the shadow that moves in the soul's eclipse 
 
 Can return not the kiss by his now forgot ; 
 
 Sweet lips ! he who hath 
 
 On my desolate path 
 
 Cast the darkness of absence, worse than death 1
 
 ARIEL TO MTRAhWA. 289 
 
 ARIEL TO MIRANDA. 
 
 ARTEL to Miraiula. — Take 
 This slave of Music, for the sake 
 Of him who is the slave of thee ; 
 And teach it all the harmony 
 In which thou canst, and only thou, 
 Make the delighted spirit glow. 
 Till joy denies itself again, 
 And, too intense, is turned to pain. 
 For, by permission and command 
 Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 
 Poor Ariel sends this silent token 
 Of more than ever can be spoken ; 
 Your guardian spirit Ariel, who 
 From life to life must still puraue 
 Your happiness, for thus alone 
 Can Ariel eve^; find his own. 
 From Prosperu's enchanted cell, 
 As the mighty verses tell, 
 To the tTirone of Naples he 
 Lit you o'er the trackless sea. 
 Flitting on, your prow before, 
 Like a living meteor. 
 
 When you die, the silent Moon 
 In her interlunar swoon 
 Is not sadder in her cell 
 Than deserted Ariel. 
 "When you live again on earth, — 
 Like an unseen star of birth, 
 Ariel guides you o'er the sea 
 Of life from your nativity. 
 * T
 
 J90 ARIEL TO MIRANDA 
 
 Many ch^^nges have been run 
 
 Since FeiJinand and yoa begun 
 
 Your course of love, and Ariel still 
 
 Has tracked your steps and served your will. 
 
 Now, in humbler happier lot, 
 
 This is all remembered not ; 
 
 And now, alas ! the poor Sprite is 
 
 Imprisoned for some fault of bis 
 
 In a body like a grave : 
 
 From you he only dares to crave, 
 
 For his service and his sorrow, 
 
 A smile to-day, a song to morrow. 
 
 The artist who this idol wrouglit, 
 
 To echo all harmonious thought, 
 
 Felled a tree while on the steep 
 
 The woods were in their winter sleep, 
 
 Rocked in that repose divine 
 
 On the wind-swept Appennine, 
 
 And dreaming, some of Autumn past. 
 
 And some of Spring approaching fast. 
 
 And some of April buds and showers, 
 
 And some of songs in July bowers. 
 
 And all of love. And so this tree — \ 
 
 Oh that such our death may be ! — 
 
 Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 
 
 To live in happier form again : 
 
 From wl;'ch, beneath heaven's fairest star, 
 
 The artist wrought this loved Guitar, 
 
 And taught it justly to reply, 
 
 To all who question skilfully, 
 
 In language gentle as thine own j 
 
 AVhispering in enamoured tone 
 
 Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
 
 ARIEL TO MIRANDA. 291 
 
 And summer winds in sylvan cells. 
 For it had learnt all harmonies 
 Of the plains and of the skies, 
 Of the forests and the mountains, 
 And the many-voiced fountains ; 
 The clearest echoes of the hills, 
 The softest notes of falling rills, 
 The melodies of birds and bees. 
 The murmuring of summer seas, 
 And pattering rain, and breathing dew, 
 And airs of evening ; and it knew 
 That seldom-heard mysterious sound 
 "Which, driven on its diurnal round 
 As it floats through boundless day, 
 Our world enkindles on its way. 
 All this it knows ; but will not tell 
 To those who cannot question well 
 The Spirit that inhabits it. 
 It talks according to the wit 
 Of its companions ; and no more 
 Is heard than has been felt before 
 By those who tempt it to betray 
 These secrets of an elder day. 
 But, sweetly as its answers will 
 Flatter hands of perfect skill, 
 It keeps its highest holiest tone 
 For our beloved Jane alone. 
 
 Printed by Walter Scott, FelUnr/, Newcastle -on-Tyne.
 
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