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POEMS BY TENNYSON. Illustrated by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale.

POEMS BY JOHN KEATS. Illustrated and de- corated by Robert Anning Bell. With an Introduction by Professor Walter Raleigh, M.A. Fourth Edition.

POEMS BY ROBERT BROWNING. Illustrated and decorated by Byam Shaw. With an Introduction by Richard Garnett, LL.D., C.B. Third Edition.

POEMS BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Illustrated and decorated by Robert Anning Bell. With an Introduction by Professor Walter Raleigh, M.A.

ENGLISH LYRICS FROM SPENSER TO

MILTON. Illustrated and decorated by R. Anning Bell. With an Introduction by John Dennis.

THE POEMS OF EDGAR ALLEN POE. Illus- trated and decorated by W. Heath Robinson. With an Introduction by H. Noel Williams. Second Edition.

LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS

POEMS

BY

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

POEMS BY PERCY BYSHE

SHELLEY

INTRODVCTION BY WALTER RALEIGH ILLVSTR ATIONS BY ROBERT ANN1NGBELL

LONDON- GEORGE BELL AND SONS.

First published, 1902. Cheaper Reissue 1907

CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

PAGE

ALASTOR ; or the Spirit of Solitude 5

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

A Summer Evening Churchyard — Lechlade,

Gloucestershire 33

To Coleridge 34

Sonnet to Wordsworth 36

ozymandias 36

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty . 37

Lines written among the Euganean Hills ... 40

Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples . . 51 Sonnet—

" Lift not the painted veil which those who live " . . 53

Ode to the West Wind 53

The Sensitive Plant 57

The Cloud 68

To a Skylark 73

Arethusa 77

Hymn of Apollo 82

Hymn of Pan . 84

The Question 87

vi CONTENTS

PAOB

The Two Spirits : An Allegory 89

Ode to Naples 92

Lines from "Fiordispina" 98

To Jane—

The Invitation 99

To Jane—

The Recollection 101

CHORUSES FROM "HELLAS"

"We strew these opiate flowers" . . "Life may change, but it may fly not" "In the great morning of the world" "Worlds on worlds are rolling ever" "The world's great age begins anew".

SHORTER LYRICS

109 no no 112 113

On Fanny Goodwin 119

Lines—

" That time is dead for ever, child " 119

Fragment on Home 120

Passage of the Apennines 121

The Past 121

To Mary—

" O Mary dear, that you were here" 122

The Indian Serenade 123

Two Fragments to Mary —

" My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone" . . 124

" The world is dreary " 124

Fragments —

Questions 125

Love the Universe 125

Visitations of Calm Thoughts 125

Love's Philosophy 126

To

" I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden " 127

Song—

" Rarely, rarely, comest thou " 127

Song of Proserpine, while gathering Flowers on

the Plain of Enna 130

To the Moon 131

CONTENTS vii

PAGE

The World's Wanderers 131

Time Long Past 132

To Night 132

From the Arabic: An Imitation 134

To Emilia Viviani 135

Time 136

To

" Music, when soft voices die " 136

Mutability 136

The Aziola 138

To-morrow . . • 138

To

" One word is too often profaned " 139

To

" When passion's trance is overpast " 140

A Bridal Song 141

Lines—

" When the Lamp is shattered " 141

To Jane —

" The keen stars are twinkling " 143

Song from "Charles I." —

" A Widow Bird sate mourning " 144

DIRGES AND LAMENTS

The Dirge of Beatrice (From " The Cenci ") ... 149

Autumn: A Dirge 150

Dirge for the Year 151

A Lament—

"O world! OLife! OTime!" 152

Remembrance 153

A Dirge —

" Rough wind, that moanest loud " 1 54

EPIPSYCHIDION 159

ADONAIS 181

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 207

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 235

b

INTRODUCTION

More than the others of that group of English poets who flourished at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and whose work, taken as a whole, gives to English literature its all but greatest glory, Shelley was the inheritor and the exponent of the ideas of the French Revo- lution. The French Revolution aroused and then disappointed Wordsworth, causing him to turn away from political ideals and to seek con- solation in universal nature ; it made Byron a rebel, and Southey a Laureate ; but it gave birth to Shelley. And the chief effect of the

x INTRODUCTION

Revolution on English life and thought is to be sought in literature rather than in politics. The great wave that broke over Europe in the roar of the Napoleonic wars spent its strength in vain on the political structure of these islands, but the air was long salt with its spray. And the poems of Shelley, if it be not too fanciful to prolong the figure, are the rainbow lights seen in the broken wave.

The ideas of the Revolution and the passion of the Revolution glitter and vibrate in Shelley's poems. And these ideas, it must be remem- bered, in their earlier and cruder political forms, had but a short spell of life. They bred the giant that killed them ; the modern scientific and historical temper finds it wellnigh impossible to regain the outlook of those who stood breath- lessly waiting for the revelation of a new heaven and a new earth. So that it is not to be won- dered at if the poetry that sprang from the political creed has been to some extent involved in the downfall of the creed. Certain it is that few of his readers, even among his professed admirers, read Shelley for his meaning ; few, even among his critics, treat his message seri- ously. The people of England, said Burke, want " food that will stick to their ribs " ; and the remark condenses in a phrase all that dissatis- faction with theory and dream which is heard as an undertone in most of the authoritative criticisms of Shelley. The poet has achieved immortality, but not on his own terms. He is

INTRODUCTION xi

" a beautiful and ineffectual angel " — a decora- tor's angel, one might almost say, designed for a vacant space, not the authentic messenger of the will of Heaven. Or he is a moonlight visitant that soothes the soul with melodious words and beautiful images when the bonds of reality are loosened. As a prophet he is lightly esteemed, but when once the prophet's mantle is gently removed from his shoulders by tender official hands, he is welcome to stay with us, and to delight us in all restful places by the subtle marvels of his lyrical craft, and the iri- descent play of his creative fancy.

Yet seeing that a poet is a poet only in so far as he reveals the beauty and the power that is universal and enduring caught from the con- fused lights and shadows of his own time, it is worth the pains to examine the main ideas that animate the poetry of Shelley. Some of these, it may not be denied, are utterly fallen from power. Like other revolutionary thinkers, Shelley hopes for the salvation and perfection of mankind by way of an absolute breach with the past. History is to him at best a black business, an orgy of fantastic and luxurious cruelty. Commerce is "the venal interchange of all that human art and nature yield." Gold — how far would gold have enthralled the im- agination of poets if it had been a dull black substance with a slightly unpleasant scent ? — gold is a god, or demon, of dreadful strength. Education and tradition, institution and custom

xii INTRODUCTION

are made the marks of the same impassioned invective, simple sometimes almost to thought- lessness, as in that passage of " Laon and Cythna" where British parental authority is thus described :

" The land in which I lived by a fell bane Was withered up. Tyrants dwelt side by side And stabled in our homes ; "

Sometimes rising to heights of grave denuncia- tion, as in that other passage where is described how

" The Queen of Slaves, The hood-winked angel of the blind and dead, Custom, with iron mace points to the graves Where her own standard desolately waves Over the dust of Prophets and of Kings."

Yet this multiplied oppression, which is im- posed on man by man himself, which has grown with his growth and is intertwined with his dearest interests, is conceived of by the revo- lutionary theorists and, at least in his earlier poems, by Shelley himself, as a thing separable from man, a burden laid on him by some dark unknown power, a net weaved around him by foreign enemies. One resolute act of inspired insurrection, and the burden may be cast off for ever, the net severed at a blow, leaving man free, innocent and happy, the denizen of a golden world.

In his later and maturer poems we may de- tect Shelley's growing suspicion that the burden of man is none other than the weight of " the

INTRODUCTION xiii

superincumbent hour," or of the atmosphere that he breathes ; that the net has its fibres entangled with the nerves of his body and the veins and arteries that feed his life. Yet he neither faltered nor repented ; he had learned

" To hope, till hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ; "

and if the tyrant that oppresses mankind is immitigable Reality, he will be a rebel against Reality in the name of that fairer and no less immortal power, the desire of the heart.

Shelley is the poet of desire. To him, as to Blake, the promptings of desire were the voice of divinity in man, and instinct and impulse bore the authentic stamp of the Godhead. His pure and clear and wonderfully simple spirit could hardly conceive of a duty that travels by a dim light through difficult and uncertain ways, still less of a duty that calculates and balances and chooses. When he was lifted on the crest of some over-mastering emotion, he saw all clear ; dropped into the hollow, he could only wait for another wave. It is as if he could not live save in the keen and rarified air of some great joy or heroic passion ; and his large capacity for joy made him the more susceptible to all that thwarts or depresses or interrupts it. These two strains, of rapture and of lament, of delight in love and beauty, and of protest against a world where love and beauty are not fixed eternal forms, run through all the poetry of Shelley, answering

xiv INTRODUCTION

each other like the voices of a chorus. Our life on earth seems to him a stormy vision, a wintry forest, a " cold common hell " ; but it has moments of exaltation which belie it, and by their power and intensity hold out a promise of deliverance. Thought and passion transform the dull suffering of this life into the likeness of " a fiery martyrdom," and by their very intensity bear witness to the greatness of the issues at stake.

It is somewhat absurdly made a charge against Shelley that the ideal which he sets before humanity is not a practicable or possible one. He had to deal with this sort of criticism during his lifetime, and in the preface to " Prometheus Unbound " he offers a grave explanation : " It is a mistake," he says, "to suppose that I dedi- cate my poetical compositions solely to the direct enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in any degree as containing a reasoned system on the theory of human life." No exact politi- cal programme is deducible from his works. No coherent or satisfactory account can be given of the changes that would be necessary to bring in the idyllic society that mocks his vision in the distance. But if the aspirations of a poet are to be tethered to what is demonstrably attainable, the loftiest legitimate ambition ever breathed in English verse would perhaps be found in those lines of " The Excursion" where an earnest wish is expressed for a System of National Education established universally by Govern-

INTRODUCTION xv

ment. The creed of the Revolution was a noble creed, and although Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, considered as the basis of a political system, have been sadly battered by critical artillery, they have not yet been so completely disgraced that it is forbidden to a poet to desire them. Only in a world where they shall be more desired than they are with us can they ever become possible. And the gist of Shelley's teaching lies not in this or that promise held out of future good, but in the means that he in- sists on for its realization. The elusive vague- ness of the millenium pictured in the weakest part of "Prometheus Unbound" detracts no whit from the loftiness and truth of the great speech of Demogorgon and the closing World- symphony. The early Christians, too, were deceived in their hopes of the millennium, but they, like the early alchemists, went not un- rewarded by " fair, unsought discoveries by the way."

The very vagueness of Shelley's poetry is an essential part of its charm. He speaks the language of pure emotion, where definite per- ceptions are melted in the mood they generate. Possessed by the desire of escape, he gazes calmly and steadily on nothing of earthly build. Every visible object is merely another starting- point for the cobwebs of dreams. Like his own poet,

" He will watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume

xvi INTRODUCTION

The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, Nor heed nor see, what things they be ; But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality."

His thoughts travel incessantly from what he sees to what he desires, and his goal is no more distinctly conceived than his starting-place. His desire leaps forth towards its mark, but is consumed, like his fancied arrow, by the speed of its own flight. His devotion is "to some- thing afar from the sphere of our sorrow " ; the voices that he hears bear him vague messages and hints

" Of some world far from ours Where music and moonlight and feeling are one."

And this perfect lyrical vagueness produces some of the most ghostly and bodiless descrip- tions to be found in all poetry. His scenery is dream-scenery ; it can hardly be called cloud- scenery, for the clouds that tumble in a June sky are shapes of trim and substantial jollity compared with the shifting and diffused ether of his phantom visions. The scene of his poems is laid among

" Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves, And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist."

And the inhabitants are even less definite in outline ; the spaces of his imagination are

" Peopled with unimaginable shapes,

Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep."

INTRODUCTION xvii

The poet is himself native to this haunted and scarce visible world ; and when, in " Epipsychi- dion," he tells of the Being who communed with him in his youth, it is in this world that they meet:

" On an imagined shore, Under the grey beak of some promontory She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, That I beheld her not."

It is pleasant to consider what a critic of the school of Johnson, if any had survived, would have said of these lines. " Here, Sir," he might have said, "he tells us merely that in a place which did not exist he met nobody. Whom did he expect to meet ? " Yet the spirit of Romance, which will listen to no logic but the logic of feeling, is prompt to vindicate Shelley. The kind of human experience that he sets himself to utter will not admit of chastened and exact language ; the homeless desires and intimations that seem to have no counterpart and no cause among visible things must create or divine their origin and object by suggestion and hyperbole, by groping analogies, and fluttering denials. To Shelley life is the great unreality, a painted veil, the triumphal procession of a pretender. Yet, here and there, in the works of Nature and of Art — " flowers, ruins, statues, music, words," — there are sudden inexplicable glories that speak of reality beyond. It is from the images and thoughts that are least of a piece with the daily economy of life, from the faithful attend-

xviii INTRODUCTION

ants that hang on the footsteps of our exiled per- ceptions, and from the dwellers on the boundary of our alienated world, from shadows and echoes, dreams and memories, yearnings and regrets, that he would learn to give expression to this hidden reality. Yet the very attempt defeats itself and is reduced to the bare negation of appearances. The highest beauty, as he de- scribes it, is always invisible ; the liveliest emo- tion passes into swoon, and takes on the likeness of death. Demogorgon, the lord of the Uni- verse, is " a mighty darkness, filling the seat of power."

So habitual and familiar was Shelley's con- verse with this spectral world that both in his thought and in his expression it held the place of what is commonly called the real world. The figures of his poetry illustrate what is strange by what is familiar, and it is the shadows and spirits that are familiar. The autumn leaves scurrying before the wind remind him of " ghosts from an enchanter fleeing." The skylark in the heavens is " like a poet hidden in the light of thought." The avalanche on the mountain is piled flake by flake, as thought by thought is piled in heaven-defying minds,

"Till some great truth Is loosened, and the nations echo round, Shaken to their roots."

It is his outward perceptions that he seeks to explain and justify by a reference to the ex-

INTRODUCTION xix

istences and forms that filled and controlled his daily meditations.

His poetry, as might be expected, has been found too remote and unsubstantial to satisfy the taste of many readers and even of some few lovers of poetry. It is lacking in human interest. The figures that he sets in motion are for the most part creatures of his own making, who have no tangible being outside the realm of his imagination. Minds that move naturally and easily only in the world of concrete existences are compelled to translate Shelley's poetry, as it were, into another dialect of the universal language, if they would grasp his meaning. Too often they have refused the task ; they have been content to float along on his melody, and to indulge their sense of colour with the delicate tints of his vision. Even when he is thus read, there is no denying the matchless quality of his poetic genius, or the absolute mastery of his art. But the wisdom of his reading of life, and the scope and depth of his thought, have some- times been questioned.

He died young, and the accumulated wis- dom of old experience was never within his reach. Yet before he died he had graduated in the school of suffering, and had there learned lessons that only the wise heart learns. " Pro- metheus Unbound " is something more than a dance of prismatic lights and a concert of sweet sounds ; it is a record of spiritual experience, subtle in its analysis, profound in its insight.

xx INTRODUCTION

The supreme torture of Prometheus, inflicted by the Furies, comes to him in the form of doubt — doubt lest his age-long sufferings should all be vain, and worse than vain. The Furies, who are "hollow underneath, like death," and who darken the dawn with their multitude, are the ministers of pain and fear, of mistrust and hate. They plant self-contempt and shame in young spirits ; they live in the heart and brain in the shape of base desires and craven thoughts. Of all passions, the ugliest in Shelley's eyes is Hate ; the most terrible and maleficent is Fear. But Prometheus through his long agony feels no fear, and no rancour ; the pity and love that endure in his heart are at last victorious, and the Furies, baffled, take themselves away. The first act is full of psychological study, and Shelley throughout is speaking of what he has felt and known and observed. But he embodies it in such unearthly forms, and so carefully avoids the allegorical manner, that the details of the drama, difficult as they often are of interpreta- tion, have been wrongly regarded as freaks of ornament and fantasy. The main idea, the conception of Love and Life as a dualism, and of Love as the sole principle of freedom, joy, beauty and harmony, in Nature and in Man, appears in Shelley's earlier poems, and strengthens with his growth, until it reaches its most magnificent expression in the radiant figure of Asia and the closing rhapsody of " Adonais."

INTRODUCTION xxi

"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."

His early death, though it has endeared him the more to his lovers, has also deprived him of a full meed of critical appreciation. The bulk of reputable criticism is written by middle-aged men, who have made their peace with the world, on reasonable and honourable terms, perhaps, but not without concessions. How should they do full justice to the young rebels, the Marlowes and the Shelleys, who died under the standard of revolt ? They are tender to them, and tolerant, as to their younger selves. But they have accepted, where these refused, and they cannot always conceal their sense of the headstrong folly of the refusal. Nor can their judgment be disabled, for they have knowledge on their side, and experience, and the practical lore of life. Further, they can enlist poet against poet, and over against the heart that defies Power which seems omnipotent, they can set the heart that watches and receives. Is there not more of human wisdom to be learned from the quiet harvester of the twilight than from the glittering apostle of the dawn ? Yet there is a wisdom that is not born of acceptance; and the spirit

xxii INTRODUCTION

that is to be tamed to the uses of this world, if it has much to learn, has something also to for- get. The severest criticism that the world and the uses of the world are called upon to undergo is that which looks out on them, ever afresh, from the surprised and troubled eyes of a child. In the debate of Youth and Age, neither can expect to have it all his own way. It is therefore no unqualified condemnation of Shelley's poetry to say that it appeals chiefly to the young. And it is not true to say that it appeals to no others. Many men, it has been said, are poets in their youth ; it would be truer to say that many born subjects of prose are tickled by sentiment in their youth, and beguiled by sense into believ- ing, for a time, that they love poetry. The love of poetry is not so easily eradicable ; it is not Time's fool,

"though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come,"

and wherever there are poets, to the end of time, Shelley will find lovers.

Walter Raleigh.

It is hoped that the present selection of Shelley's poems will be found to contain all of his best-loved lyrical pieces. There is no great poet who offers a more hopeless task to the illustrator, if by illustration is understood a drawing that helps to the understanding of the poem. But Art begets Art, and there is surely nothing illicit about an embroidery of fair designs suggested by a reading of the poems. If they be found superfluous or irrelevant, they must share that condemnation with the preface.

POEMS

BY

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

ALASTOR

OH THE SPIRIT OF| SOLITUDE

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare. — Confess. St. August.

ALASTOR

OR THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE

Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood ! If our great Mother has imbued my soul With aught of natural piety to feel Your love, and recompense the boon with mine ; If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, And solemn midnight's tingling silentness ; If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, And winter robing with pure snow and crowns Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs ; If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me ; If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast

6 ALASTOR

I consciously have injured, but still loved And cherished these my kindred ; then forgive This boast, beloved 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 mysteries. 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 alchymist 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 charmed 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, Has shone within me, that serenely now And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre Suspended in the solitary dome Of some mysterious and deserted fane, I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain May modulate with murmurs of the air, And motions of the forests and the sea, And voice of living beings, and woven hymns Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.

ALASTOR

There was a Poet whose untimely tomb No human hands 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 wreath, 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 sung, 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, And 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, 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 wide 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 overcanopies Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes

8 ALASTOR

On black bare pointed islets ever beat With 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 immeasureable 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 whene'er 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 Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx, Dark Aethiopia in her desert hills Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, Stupendous columns, and wild images Of more than man, where marble daemons watch The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, He lingered, poring on memorials

ALASTOR 9

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.

The Poet wandering on, through Arabie 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 Cashmire, 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 that 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 thought ; its music long, Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held His inmost sense suspended in its web

io ALASTOR

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,

Herself 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

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 sunk 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 a while,

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 —

ALASTOR ii

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 ;

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,

O 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,

Conduct, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms ?

This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart,

The insatiate hope which it awakened stung

His brain even like despair.

While day-light 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

12 ALASTOR

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 moon-light snake,

He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,

Shedding the mockery of its vital hues

Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on

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 suffering

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 burning 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 its 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

ALASTOR 15

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 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 sky, 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 silent 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.

16 ALASTOR

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 ;

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 Leaped 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 ruining 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

ALASTOR 17

That canopied his path o'er the waste deep ; 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 More 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 aetherial cliffs 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 Ingulphed 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 ! "

The boat pursued The windings of the cavern. Day-light shone

c

18 ALASTOR

At length upon that 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 knarled 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,

Ridge 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 gulph 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 !

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}

ALASTOR 19

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 their 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 Of the tall cedar overarching, frame 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,

20 ALASTOR

These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs

Uniting their close union ; the woven leaves

Make net-work 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. One darkest glen

Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,

A soul-dissolving odour, to invite

To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,

Silence and Twilight 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.

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 sprung 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

ALASTOR 21

To stand beside him — clothed 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 leaping 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 pensiveness, . . . 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 That overhung its quietness. — " O stream ! Whose source is inaccessibly profound, Whither do thy mysterious waters tend ? Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulphs, 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 T the passing wind ! "

22 ALASTOR

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 knarled 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, 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 and barren pinnacles In the light of evening, and its precipice Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above, 'Mid toppling stones, black gulphs and yawning caves, Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues To the loud stream. Lo ! where the pass expands

ALASTOR 23

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 tracts 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, Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged 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 for ever 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 leaves, whose decay, Red, yellow, or aetherially pale, Rivals the pride of summer. Tis the haunt

24 ALASTOR

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 varying cheek,

That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.

The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge That overflowed its mountains. Yellow misti 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. — O, storm of death ! Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night : And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still 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 He hath prepared, prowling around the world ; Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,

ALASTOR 25

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 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 jagged hills It rests, and still as the 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.

26 ALASTOR

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 and 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

The breath of heaven did wander — a bright stream

Once fed with many-voiced waves — a dream

Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever,

Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.

O, 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 ! O, 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 ! O, 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 Robes 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,

ALASTOR 27

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 even in 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 simple 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 shows 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.

flflTHEBND Sfi

MISCELLANEOUS

POEMS

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

A SUMMER-EVENING CHURCH-YARD Lechlade, Gloucestershire

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere 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.

They breathe 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 motions as they pass.

D

34 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

Thou too, aerial Pile ! whose pinnacles

Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,

Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,

Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,

Around whose lessening and invisible height

Gather among the stars the clouds of night.

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,

And mingling with the still night and mute sky

Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.

Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild

And terrorless as this serenest night : Here could I hope, like some enquiring 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 COLERIDGE AAKPTSI AlOISn nOTMON AIIOTMON

O ! THERE are spirits of the air,

And genii of the evening breeze, And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair

As star-beams among twilight trees : — Such lovely ministers to meet Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 35

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.

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 ?

Ah ! wherefore didst thou build 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.

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 have now departed ;

Thine own soul still is true to thee,

But changed to a foul fiend through misery.

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.

36 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

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 wert 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.

SONNET

OZYMANDIAS

I MET 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, 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.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 37

HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY

1

The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen amongst us, — visiting This various world with an inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, — Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, 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 BEAUTY, 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,

38 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

Frail spells — whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,

From all we hear and all we see,

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.

4 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 darkness to a dying flame ! 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 sped

Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, 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 fed, I was not heard — I saw them not — When musing deeply on the lot Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming, — Sudden, thy shadow fell on me ; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy !

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers

To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow ? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatched with me the envious night — They know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou — O 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 or 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 human kind.

LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS

October, 1818

Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on 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-brimming 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

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 41

Still recedes, as ever still

Longing with divided will,

But no power to seek or shun,

He is ever drifted on

O'er the unreposing wave

To the haven of the grave.

What if there no friends will greet ;

What if there no heart will meet

His with love's impatient beat ;

Wander wheresoe'er he may,

Can he dream before that day

To find refuge from distress

In friendship's smile, in love's caress ?

Then 'twill wreak him little woe

Whether such there be or no :

Senseless is the breast, and cold,

Which relenting love would fold ;

Bloodless are the veins and chill

Which the pulse of pain did fill ;

Every little living nerve

That from bitter words did swerve

Round the tortured lips and brow,

Are like sapless leaflets 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,

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When 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.

Aye, many flowering islands lie

In the waters of wide Agony :

To such a one this morn was led,

My bark 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 ;

Gathering 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 sunlit 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,

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 43

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 reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline ; 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 conquest-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,

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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 his watery way, Wandering at the close of day, Will spread his sail and seize his oar 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 aerial gold, As I now behold them here, Would imagine not they were Sepulchres, where human 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 flowers, In the waste of years and hours,

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From your dust new nations spring With more kindly blossoming. Perish — let there only be Floating o'er thy hearthless sea, As the garment of thy sky Clothes 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 From 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 can 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 love from Petrarch's urn, Yet amid yon hills doth burn,

46 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

A quenchless lamp by which the heart Sees things unearthly ; — 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-domed 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.

Padua, thou within whose walls

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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, aye, 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 by tyranny.

As the Norway woodman quells,

In the depth of piny dells,

One light flame among the brakes

While the boundless forest shakes

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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 a myriad tongues victoriously, And sinks down in fear : so thou, O Tyranny, beholdest now Light around thee, and thou hearest The loud flames ascend, and fearest : Grovel on the earth : aye, 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-dissolved 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 ; The dun 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

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 49

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 morn, (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 sufferers fleeing, And its ancient pilot, Pain, Sits beside the helm again.

Other flowering isles must be In the sea of life and agony : Other spirits float and flee O'er that gulph : even now, perhaps, On some rock the wild wave wraps, With folding wings they waiting sit For my bark, to pilot it To some calm and blooming cove, Where for me, and those I love, E

50 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

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 inspired 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

With its own mild brotherhood :

They, not it, would change ; and soon

Every sprite beneath the moon

Would repent its envy vain,

And the earth grow young again.

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STANZAS, WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES

1 The sun is warm, the sky is clear,

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 floods,

The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

II I see the Deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple seaweeds strown ; I see the waves upon the shore,

Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown :

I sit upon the sands alone, The lightning of the noon-tide ocean

Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet ! did any heart now share in my emotion.

Ill Alas ! I have nor hope 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.

52

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IV

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 Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

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 untimely moan ;

They might lament — for I am one Whom men love not, — and yet regret,

Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 53

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 weave Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and 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, the 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 the Preacher found it not.

ODE TO THE WEST WIND

1 O, WILD 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 : O, 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

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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 :

Wild Spirit, which art moving every where ; Destroyer and preserver ; hear, O, hear !

II Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven 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 sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst : O, hear !

Ill 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's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 55

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 ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves : O, hear !

IV

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 Than thou, O, 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 my 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.

v

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : What if my leaves are falling like its own ! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

56 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

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 ! O, wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ?

THE SENSITIVE PLANT

PART FIRST

A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew, 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.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair, Like the Spirit of Love felt every where ; And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, Like a doe in the noon-tide with love's sweet want, As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snow-drop, 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.

58 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

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 ;

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 ;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, It was felt like an odour within the sense ;

And the rose like a nymph 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 :

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 ;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, The sweetest flower for scent that blows ; And all rare blossoms from every clime Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom Was prankt under boughs of embowering blossom, With golden and green light, slanting through Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water lilies lay tremulously, And starry river-buds glimmered by,

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And around them the soft stream did glide and dance With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

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,

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells As fair as the fabulous asphodels, And flowrets which drooping as day drooped too Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew

And from this undefiled Paradise The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them, As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun ;

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.

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 :

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 !

60 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

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 ;

The plumed 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 ;

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 ;

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 ;

Each and all like ministering 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.

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,

And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were

drowned In an ocean of dreams without a sound ; Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress The light sand which paves it, consciousness ;

(Only over head the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail,

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And snatches of its Elysian chant

Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.)

The Sensitive Plant was the earliest Up-gathered into the bosom of rest ; A sweet child weary of its delight, The feeblest and yet the favourite, Cradled within the embrace of night.

PART SECOND

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.

A Lady, the wonder of her kind, Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean,

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 !

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 :

As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake

Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake,

As if yet around her he lingering were,

Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her.

Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed ; You might hear by the heaving of her breast,

62 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

That the coming and going of the wind Brought pleasure there and left passion behind.

And wherever her airy footsteps trod, Her trailing hair from the grassy sod Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep, Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep.

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.

She sprinkled bright water from the stream On those that were faint with the sunny beam ; And out of the cups of the heavy flowers She emptied the rain of the thunder showers.

She lifted their heads with her tender hands, And sustained them with rods and ozier bands ; If the flowers had been her own infants she Could never have nursed them more tenderly.

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,

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.

But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she Make her attendant angels be.

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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.

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 !

PART THIRD

Three days the flowers of the garden fair Like stars when the moon is awakened were, Or the waves of Baiae, ere luminous She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius.

And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant Felt the sound of the funeral chaunt, And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow, And the sobs of the mourners deep and low ;

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 ;

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.

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.

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Swift summer into the autumn flowed, And frost in the mist of morning rode, Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright, Mocking the spoil of the secret night.

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.

And Indian plants, of scent and hue The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, Leaf by leaf, day after day, Were massed into the common clay.

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.

And the gusty winds waked the winged 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.

The water-blooms under the rivulet Fell from the stalks on which they were set ; And the eddies drove them here and there, As the winds did those of the upper air.

Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks Were bent and tangled across the walks ; And the leafless net-work of parasite bowers Massed into ruin ; and all sweet flowers.

Between the time of the wind and the snow, All loathliest weeds began to grow,

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 6$

Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back.

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.

And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth, Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, Livid, and starred with a lurid dew.

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 !

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.

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.

And unctuous meteors from spray to spray Crept and flitted in broad noon-day Unseen ; every branch on which they alit By a venomous blight was burned and bit.

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.

F

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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.

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 ;

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.

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 !

And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant The moles and the dormice died for want : The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air And were caught in the branches naked and bare.

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 ;

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.

When winter had gone and spring came back The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck ;

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But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and

darnels, Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels.

Conclusion

Whether 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.

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, Where nothing is, but all things seem, And we the shadows of the dream,

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.

That garden sweet, that Lady fair, And all sweet shapes and odours there, In truth have never passed away: Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed ; not they.

For love, and beauty, and delight, There is no death nor change : their might Exceeds our organs, which endure No light, being themselves obscure.

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 noon-day 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 under, And then again I dissolve it in rain,

And laugh as I pass in thunder.

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,

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 71

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.

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 sea 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.

That orbed maiden with white 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 behind 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 paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ;

72 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

The volcanos 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 triumphal arch through which I march

With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers 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.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit !

Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

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 singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun, O'er which the clouds are brightning,

Thou dost float and run ; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

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The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight ; Like a star of heaven In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

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.

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.

What thou art we know not ;

What is most like thee ? From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

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 :

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower :

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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 :

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-winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

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 :

Chorus Hymenaeal,

Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain ? What fields, or waves, or mountains ?

What shapes of sky or plain ? What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ?

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With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be : Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee : Thou lovest ; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

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 ?

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.

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.

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 !

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.

Arethusa arose

From her couch of snows

In the Acroceraunian mountains, — From cloud and from crag, With many a jag,

Shepherding her bright fountains. 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.

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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 thunder

Did rend in sunder The bars of the springs 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 nymph'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 ! "

The loud Ocean heard,

To its blue depth stirred, And divided at her prayer ;

And under the water

The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam ;

Behind her descended

Her billows, unblended With the brackish Dorian stream : —

Like a gloomy stain

On the emerald main Alpheus rushed behind, —

As an eagle pursuing

A dove to its ruin Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

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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 net-work 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 clifts They passed to their Dorian home.

And now from their fountains

In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks,

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 noon-tide 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. G

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HYMN OF APOLLO

I 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.

II 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 with fire ; the caves Are filled with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare.

Ill

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 actions take new might,

Until diminished by the reign of night.

IV I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers

With their aetherial 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.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

S3

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 ?

VI

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 their own right belong.

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 thyme 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.

ii

Liquid Peneus was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay

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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.

HI I sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the daedal Earth, And of Heaven — and the giant wars, And Love, and Death, and Birth, —

And then I changed my pipings, — Singing how down the vale of Menalus

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 QUESTION

I 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

88 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

II There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets ;

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.

HI And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cowbind 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.

IV And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt 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.

V 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 imprisoned children of the Hours

Within my hand, — and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it ! — oh ! to whom ?

THE TWO SPIRITS: AN ALLEGORY

First Spirit

O THOU, who plumed with strong desire Wouldst float above the earth, beware ! A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire — Night is coming ! 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 bright above ; If I would cross the shade of night,

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Within my heart is the lamp of love, And that is day ! And the moon will smile 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 — Night is coming ! The red swift clouds of the hurricane Yon declining sun have overtaken,

The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain — Night is coming !

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 moon-light flight thou then mayst mark On high, far away.

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 those hoar branches, aye renewing Its aery fountains.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

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 : And a silver shape like his early love doth pass Upborne by her wild and glittering hair, And when he awakes on the fragrant grass, He finds night day.

91

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 ;

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 93

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.

EPODE II a

Then gentle winds arose With many a mingled close Of wild Aeolian 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 kings of Melody. Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm The horizontal aether ! heaven stripped bare Its depths over Elysium, where the prow Made the invisible water white as snow ; From that Typhaean mount, Inarime,

There streamed a sunlight vapour, like the standard Of some aetherial host ; Whilst from all the coast, Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered Over the oracular woods and divine sea

94 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

Prophesyings which grew articulate —

They seize me — I must speak them — be they fate !

Strophe a i

Naples ! thou Heart of men which ever pantest

Naked, beneath the lidless eye of heaven ! Elysian City which to calm enchantest

The mutinous air and sea : they round thee, even

As sleep round Love, are driven ! Metropolis of a ruined Paradise

Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained ! Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice,

Which armed Victory offers up unstained

To Love, the flower-enchained ! 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 0 2

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 Pleadest 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 legends move !

Hail, hail, all hail !

ANTISTROPHE 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 Actaeon's error

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Shall theirs have been — devoured by their own hounds !

Be thou like the imperial Basilisk Killing thy foe with unapparent 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 (S 2

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.

ANTISTROPHE a y Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling paean

From land to land re-echoed solemnly, Till silence became music ? From the Aeaean 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. — O hail !

96 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

ANTISTROPHE (3 y

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,

As athlete 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 ! O hail !

EPODE I &

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, Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory, 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 !

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Epode II j3

Great Spirit, deepest Love ! Which rulest and dost move All 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 ; O bid those beams be each a blinding brand

Of lightning ! bid those showers be dews 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 harmonizing 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 swiftly flee Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds. — Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine Thou yieldest or withholdest, Oh let be This city of thy worship ever free !

11

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

LINES FROM " FIORDISPINA "

THE season was the childhood of sweet June, Whose sunny hours from morning until noon Went creeping through the day with silent feet, Each with its load of pleasure, slow yet sweet ; Like the long years of blessed Eternity Never to be developed. Joy to thee, Fiordispina and thy Cosimo, For thou the wonders of the depth canst know Of this unfathomable flood of hours, Sparkling beneath the heaven which embowers —

***** They were two cousins, almost like to twins, Except that from the catalogue of sins Nature had rased their love — which could not be But by dissevering their nativity. And so they grew together like two flowers Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers Lull or awaken in their purple prime, Which the same hand will gather — the same clime Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see All those who love — and who e'er loved like thee, Fiordispina ? Scarcely Cosimo, Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow The ardours of a vision which obscure The very idol of its portraiture. He faints, dissolved into a sea of love ; But thou art as a planet sphered above ; But thou art Love itself — ruling the motion Of his subjected spirit : such emotion Must end in sin and sorrow, if sweet May Had not brought forth this morn — your wedding-day.

TO JANE— THE INVITATION

Best and brightest, come away ! Fairer far than this fair Day, Which, like thee to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough Year just awake In its cradle on the brake. The brightest hour of unborn Spring, Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn To hoar February born ; Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, It kissed the forehead of the Earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free, And waked to music all their fountains, And breathed upon the frozen mountains, And like a prophetess of May Strewed flowers upon the barren way, Making the wintry world appear Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

ioo MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs — To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music lest it should not find An echo in another's mind, While the touch of Nature's art Harmonizes heart to heart. I leave this notice on my door For each accustomed visitor : — " I am gone into the fields To take what this sweet hour yields ; — Reflexion, you may come to-morrow, Sit by the fireside with Sorrow. — You with the unpaid bill, Despair, — You tiresome verse-reciter, Care, — I will pay you in the grave, — Death will listen to your stave. Expectation too, be off ! To-day is for itself enough ; Hope, in pity mock not Woe With smiles, nor follow where I go ; Long having lived on thy sweet food, At length I find one moment's good After long pain — with all your love, This you never told me of."

Radiant Sister of the Day, Awake ! arise ! and come away ! To the wild woods and the plains, And the pools where winter rains Image all their roof of leaves, Where the pine its garland weaves Of sapless green and ivy dun Round stems that .never kiss the sun ; Where the lawns and pastures be, And the sand-hills of the sea ; —

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Where the melting hoar-frost wets The daisy-star that never sets, And wind-flowers, and violets, Which yet join not scent to hue, Crown the pale year weak and new ; When the night is left behind In the deep east, dun and blind, And the blue noon is over us, And the multitudinous Billows murmur at our feet, Where the earth and ocean meet, And all things seem only one In the universal sun.

TO JANE— THE RECOLLECTION

I

Now the last day of many days, All beautiful and bright as thou, The loveliest and the last, is dead, Rise, Memory, and write its praise ! Up to thy wonted work ! come, trace

The epitaph of glory fled, — For now the Earth has changed its face, A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

II We wandered to the pine forest

That skirts the Ocean's foam, The lightest wind was in its nest,

The tempest in its home. The whispering waves were half asleep

The clouds were gone to play, And on the bosom of the deep,

The smile of Heaven lay ; It seemed as if the hour were one

Sent from beyond the skies,

102 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

Which scattered from above the sun A light of Paradise.

Ill We paused amid the pines that stood

The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude

As serpents interlaced, And soothed by every azure breath,

That under heaven is blown, To harmonies and hues beneath,

As tender as its own ; Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,

Like green waves on the sea, As still as in the silent deep

The ocean woods may be.

IV

How calm it was ! — the silence there

By such a chain was bound That even the busy woodpecker

Made stiller by her sound The inviolable quietness ;

The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less

The calm that round us grew. There seemed from the remotest seat

Of the white mountain waste, To the soft flower beneath our feet,

A magic circle traced, — A spirit interfused around,

A thrilling silent life, To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal nature's strife ; — And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there Was one fair form that filled with love

The lifeless atmosphere.

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v We paused beside the pools that lie

Under the forest bough ; Each seemed as 'twere a little sky

Gulphed in a world below ; A firmament of purple light,

Which in the dark earth lay, More boundless than the depth of night,

And purer than the day — In which the lovely forests grew

As in the upper air, More perfect both in shape and hue

Than any spreading there. There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,

And through the dark green wood The white sun twinkling like the dawn

Out of a speckled cloud. Sweet views which in our world above

Can never well be seen, Were imaged by the water's love

Of that fair forest green. And all was interfused beneath

With an elysian glow, An atmosphere without a breath,

A softer day below. Like one beloved the scene had lent

To the dark water's breast Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth expressed ; Until an envious wind crept by,

Like an unwelcome thought, Which from the mind's too faithful eye

Blots one dear image out. Though thou art ever fair and kind,

The forests ever green, Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind,

Than calm in waters seen.

CHORUSES FROM "HELLAS"

Chorus of Greek Captive Women. We strew these opiate flowers

On thy restless pillow, — They were stripped from Orient bowers, By the Indian billow. Be thy sleep Calm and deep, Like theirs who fell — not ours who weep !

Indian. Away, unlovely dreams !

Away, false shapes of sleep ! Be his, as Heaven seems, Clear, and bright, and deep ! Soft as love, and calm as death, Sweet as a summer night without a breath.

Chorus. Sleep, sleep ! our song is laden With the soul of slumber ;

no CHORUSES FROM "HELLAS"

It was sung by a Samian maiden, Whose lover was of the number Who now keep That calm sleep Whence none may wake, where none shall weep.

Indian. I touch thy temples pale !

I breathe my soul on thee ! And could my prayers avail, All my joy should be Dead, and I would live to weep, So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep.

II Life may change, but it may fly not ; Hope may vanish, but can die not ; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth ; Love repulsed, — but it returneth !

Yet were life a charnel where Hope lay coffined with Despair ; Yet were truth a sacred lie, Love were lust, if Liberty

Lent not life its soul of light, Hope its iris of delight, Truth its prophet's robe to wear, Love its power to give and bear.

Ill In the great morning of the world, The spirit of God with might unfurled The flag of Freedom over Chaos, And all its banded anarchs fled,

CHORUSES FROM "HELLAS" in

Like vultures frighted from Imaus,

Before an earthquake's tread. — So from Time's tempestuous dawn Freedom's splendour burst and shone : — Thermopylae and Marathon Caught, like mountains beacon-lighted,

The springing Fire. — The winged glory On Philippi half-alighted,

Like an eagle on a promontory. Its unwearied wings could fan The quenchless ashes of Milan. From age to age, from man to man,

It lived ; and lit from land to land

Florence, Albion, Switzerland.

Then night fell ; and, as from night,

Re-assuming fiery flight,

From the West swift Freedom came,

Against the course of Heaven and doom, A second sun arrayed in flame,

To burn, to kindle, to illume. From far Atlantis its young beams Chased the shadows and the dreams. France, with all her sanguine steams,

Hid, but quenched it not ; again

Through clouds its shafts of glory rain

From utmost Germany to Spain.

As an eagle fed with morning

Scorns the embattled tempests' warning,

When she seeks her aerie hanging

In the mountain-cedar's hair, And her brood expect the clanging

Of her wings through the wild air, Sick with famine : — Freedom, so To what of Greece remaineth now Returns ; her hoary ruins glow

ii2 CHORUSES FROM "HELLAS"

Like orient mountains lost in day ;

Beneath the safety of her wings Her renovated nurslings prey,

And in the naked lightnings Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes. Let Freedom leave— where'er she flies, A Desert, or a Paradise :

Let the beautiful and the brave

Share her glory, or a grave.

IV Worlds on worlds are rolling ever

From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river

Sparkling, bursting, borne away.

But they are still immortal

Who, through birth's orient portal And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro,

Clothe their unceasing flight

In the brief dust and light Gathered around their chariots as they go ;

New shapes they still may weave,

New gods, new laws receive, Bright or dim are they as the robes they last

On Death's bare ribs had cast.

A power from the unknown God, A Promethean conqueror came ;

Like a triumphal path he trod The thorns of death and shame. A mortal shape to him Was like the vapour dim Which the orient planet animates with light ; Hell, Sin, and Slavery came, Like blood-hounds mild and tame, Nor preyed, until their Lord had taken flight ;

CHORUSES FROM "HELLAS" 113

The moon of Mahomet Arose, and it shall set : While blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon The cross leads generations on.

Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep

From one whose dreams are Paradise Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep,

And day peers forth with her blank eyes ;

So fleet, so faint, so fair,

The Powers of earth and air Fled from the folding star of Bethlehem :

Apollo, Pan, and Love,

And even Olympian Jove, Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them ;

Our hills and seas and streams

Dispeopled of their dreams, Their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears,

Wailed for the golden years.

v The world's great age begins anew,

The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn : Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains

From waves serener far ; A new Peneus rolls his fountains

Against the morning-star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. I

ii4 CHORUSES FROM "HELLAS"

A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize ;

Another Orpheus sings again, And loves, and weeps, and dies.

A new Ulysses leaves once more

Calypso for his native shore.

O, write no more the tale of Troy, If earth Death's scroll must be !

Nor mix with Laian rage the joy Which dawns upon the free :

Although a subtler Sphinx renew

Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

The splendour of its prime ; And leave, if naught so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose Shall burst, more bright and good

Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued :

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,

But votive tears and symbol flowers.

O cease ! must hate and death return ?

Cease ! must men kill and die ? Cease ! drain not to its dregs the urn

Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, O might it die or rest at last !

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ON FANNY GODWIN

Her voice did quiver 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 — O Misery, This world is all too wide for thee.

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 hopes which thou and I beguiled

To death on life's dark river.

120

SHORTER LYRICS

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 flee In the light of life's dim morning.

FRAGMENT ON HOME

Dear home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys, The least of which wronged Memory ever makes Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.

SHORTER LYRICS 121

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.

THE PAST

I Wilt thou forget the happy hours Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers, Heaping over their corpses cold Blossoms and leaves instead of mould ? Blossoms which were the joys that fell, And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.

II Forget the dead, the past ? O yet There are ghosts that may take revenge for it, 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.

122

SHORTER LYRICS

TO MARY

0 MARY dear, that you were here With your brown eyes bright and clear, And your sweet voice, like a bird Singing love to its lone mate

In the ivy bower disconsolate ;

Voice the sweetest ever heard !

And your brow more . . .

Than the sky

Of this azure Italy.

Mary dear, come to me soon,

1 am not well whilst thou art far ; As sunset to the sphered moon, As twilight to the western star, Thou, beloved, art to me.

O Mary dear, that you were here ; The Castle echo whispers " Here ! "

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 — who knows how ? To thy chamber window, Sweet !

II

The wandering airs they faint On the dark, the silent stream — And the Champak's odours fail Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; The nightingale's complaint, It dies upon her heart ; — As I must on thine, O ! beloved as thou art !

124

SHORTER LYRICS

III

0 lift me from the grass !

1 die ! I faint ! I fail ! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas ! My heart beats loud and fast ; — Oh ! press it to thine own again, Where it will break at last.

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone, And left me in this dreary world alone ! Thy form is here indeed — a lovely one — But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road, That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode ; Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair,

Where For thine own sake I cannot follow thee.

II

The world is dreary,

And I am weary Of wandering on without thee, Mary ;

A joy was erewhile

In thy voice and thy smile, And 'tis gone, when I should be gone too, Mary.

SHORTER LYRICS 125

FRAGMENT: QUESTIONS

Is it that in some brighter sphere We part from friends we meet with here ? Or do we see the Future pass Over the Present's dusky glass ? Or what is that that makes us seem To patch up fragments of a dream, Part of which comes true, and part Beats and trembles in the heart ?

FRAGMENT: LOVE THE UNIVERSE

And who feels discord now or sorrow ?

Love is the universe to-day — These are the slaves of dim to-morrow,

Darkening Life's labyrinthine way.

FRAGMENT: CALM THOUGHTS

Ye gentle visitations of calm thought — Moods like the memories of happier earth, Which come arrayed in thoughts of little worth

Like stars in clouds by the weak winds enwrought, But that the clouds depart and stars remain,

While they remain, and ye, alas, depart !

126 SHORTER LYRICS

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY

I

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 spirit meet and mingle ; —

Why not I with thine ? —

II

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 is all this sweet work worth

If thou kiss not me?

SHORTER LYRICS 127

TO

1 I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden,

Thou needest not fear mine ; My spirit is too deeply laden

Ever to burthen thine.

II I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,

Thou needest not fear mine ; Innocent is the heart's devotion

With which I worship thine.

SONG

I Rarely, rarely, comest thou,

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.

II 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.

Ill As a lizard with the shade Of a trembling leaf,

128 SHORTER LYRICS

Thou with sorrow art dismayed ;

Even the sighs of grief Reproach thee, that thou art not near, And reproach thou wilt not hear.

IV

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, and thou wilt stay.

V 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.

VI

I love snow, and all the forms

Of the radiant frost ; I love waves, and winds, and storms,

Every thing almost Which is Nature's, and may be Untainted by man's misery.

VII

I love tranquil solitude,

And such society As is quiet, wise and good ;

Between thee and me What difference ? but thou dost possess The things I seek, not love them less.

SHORTER LYRICS

129

VIII I love Love— though he has wings,

And like light can flee, But above all other things,

Spirit, I love thee — Thou art love and life ! O come, Make once more my heart thy home.

WHILE 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.

II If with mists of evening dew

Thou dost nourish these young flowers Till they grow, in scent and hue,

Fairest children of the hours, Breathe thine influence most divine On thine own child, Proserpine.

SHORTER LYRICS 131

TO THE MOON

Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,

Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth,- And ever changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy ?

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS

1 Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light Speed thee in thy fiery flight, In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now ?

II Tell me, moon, thou pale and grey Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way, In what depth of night or day Seekest thou repose now ?

Ill Weary wind, who wanderest Like the world's rejected guest, Hast thou still some secret nest On the tree or billow ?

132 SHORTER LYRICS

TIME LONG PAST

I

Like the ghost of a dear friend dead

Is Time long past. A tone which is now forever fled, A hope which is now forever past, A love so sweet it could not last, Was Time long past.

II There were sweet dreams in the night

Of Time long past: And, was it sadness or delight, Each day a shadow onward cast Which made us wish it yet might last- That Time long past.

Ill 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.

TO NIGHT

I Swiftly walk over the western wave,

Spirit of Night ! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, Which make thee terrible and dear, —

Swift be thy flight !

SHORTER LYRICS 133

11 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 o'er city, and sea, and land, Touching all with thine opiate wand —

Come, long sought !

Ill

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, And the weary Day turned to his rest, Lingering like an unloved guest,

I sighed for thee.

IV Thy brother Death came, and cried,

Wouldst thou me ? Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmured like a noon-tide bee, Shall I nestle near thy side ? Wouldst thou me ? — And I replied,

No, not thee !

v 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, beloved 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 flight Bore thee far from me ; My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, Did companion thee.

II Ah ! fleeter far than fleetest storm 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.

TO EMILIA VIVIANI

Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me

Sweet basil and mignonette, Embleming love and health, which never yet In the 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.

Send the stars light, but send not love to me,

In whom love ever made Health like a heap of embers soon to fade.

136 SHORTER LYRICS

TIME

Unfathomable Sea ! whose waves are years,

Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears !

Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality !

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore ;

Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea ?

TO

MUSIC, when soft voices die Vibrates in the memory ; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken ; Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved's bed ; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.

MUTABILITY

I THE flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow dies ; All that we wish to stay

Tempts and then flies. What is this world's delight ? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.

SHORTER LYRICS

137

II

Virtue, how frail it is !

Friendship how rare ! Love, how it sells poor bliss

For proud despair ! But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call.

Ill

Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay,

Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day ;

Whilst yet the calm hours creep,

Dream thou — and from thy sleep Then wake to weep.

138 SHORTER LYRICS

THE AZIOLA

I " Do you not hear the Aziola cry ? Methinks she must be nigh," Said Mary, as we sate In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought ; And I, who thought This Aziola was some tedious woman,

Asked, " Who is Aziola ?" How elate

I felt to know that it was nothing human,

No mockery of myself to fear or hate :

And Mary saw my soul,

And laughed, and said, " Disquiet yourself not ;

'Tis nothing but a little downy owl."

II Sad Aziola ! many an eventide

Thy music I had heard By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side,

And fields and marshes wide, Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,

The soul ever stirred ; Unlike and far sweeter than them all. Sad Aziola ! from that moment I

Loved thee and thy sad cry.

TO-MORROW

I Where art thou, beloved To-morrow ?

When young and old and strong and weak, Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow,

Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, — In thy place — ah ! well-a-day ! We find the thing we fled — To-day.

SHORTER LYRICS 139

11

If I walk in Autumn's even

While the dead leaves pass, If I look on Spring's soft heaven, —

Something is not there which was. Winter's wondrous frost and snow, Summer's clouds, where are they now ?

TO

I

One word is too often profaned

For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained

For thee to disdain it. One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear

Than that from another.

II I can give not what men call love,

But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above

And the Heavens reject not, — The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow ?

140

SHORTER LYRICS

TO

WHEN passion's trance is overpast, If tenderness and truth could last Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep Some mortal slumber, dark and deep, I should not weep, I should not weep !

II

It were enough to feel, to see

Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,

And dream the rest — and burn and be

The secret food of fires unseen,

Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

Ill

After the slumber of the year The woodland violets re-appear, All things revive in field or grove And sky and sea, but two, which move And form all others, life and love.

SHORTER LYRICS 141

A BRIDAL SONG

1 The golden gates of Sleep unbar

Where Strength and Beality met together, Kindle their image like a star In a sea of glassy weather. Night, with all thy stars look down, —

Darkness, weep thy holiest dew, — Never smiled the inconstant moon

On a pair so true. Let eyes not see their own delight ; — Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight Oft renew.

II Fairies, sprites, and angels keep her !

Holy stars, permit no wrong ! And return to wake the sleeper, Dawn, — ere it be long ! Oh joy ! oh fear ! what will be done In the absence of the sun ! Come along !

LINES

1

When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead —

When the cloud is scattered The rainbow's glory is shed.

When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not

When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot.

i42 SHORTER LYRICS

II

As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute,

The heart's echoes render No song when the spirit is mute, —

No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell,

Or the mournful surges That ring the dead seaman's knell.

Ill

When hearts have once mingled Love first leaves the well-built nest, —

The weak one is singled To endure what it once possessed.

O, Love ! who bewailest The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home and your bier ?

IV

Its passions will rock thee As the storms rock the ravens on high :

Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky.

From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home

Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.

SHORTER LYRICS 143

TO JANE

1 The keen stars were twinkling, And the fair moon was rising among them, Dear Jane ! The guitar was tinkling, But the notes were not sweet till you sung them Again.

II As the moon's soft splendour O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven Is thrown, So your voice most tender To the strings without soul had then given Its own.

Ill The stars will awaken, Though the moon sleep a full hour later, To-night ; No leaf will be shaken Whilst the dews of your melody scatter Delight.

IV Though the sound overpowers, Sing again, with your dear voice revealing A tone Of some world far from ours, Where music and moonlight and feeling Are one.

144

SHORTER LYRICS

SONG

A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love

Upon a wintry bough ; The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,

No flower upon the ground, And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound.

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DIRGES AND

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LAMENTS

DIRGES AND LAMENTS

THE DIRGE OF BEATRICE

FALSE friend, wilt thou smile or weep When my life is laid asleep ? Little cares for a smile or a tear The clay-cold corpse upon the bier !

Farewell ! Heigho !

What is this whispers low ? There is a snake in thy smile, my dear ; And bitter poison within thy tear.

Sweet sleep, were death like to thee, Or if thou couldst mortal be, I would close these eyes of pain ; When to wake ? Never again.

O, World ! Farewell !

Listen to the passing bell ! It says, thou and I must part, With a light and a heavy heart.

150 DIRGES AND LAMENTS

AUTUMN

A DIRGE

I THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are signing, 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 cold year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

II 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.

DIRGES AND LAMENTS 151

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR

1 Orphan hours, the year is dead, —

Come and sigh, come and weep ! Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep. See, it smiles as it is sleeping, Mocking your untimely weeping.

II As an earthquake rocks a corse

In its coffin in the clay, So White Winter, that rough nurse,

Rocks the death-cold year to-day ; Solemn hours ! wail aloud For your mother in her shroud.

Ill 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.

IV January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave ; February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave And April weeps — but O, ye hours, Follow with May's fairest flowers.

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A LAMENT

i Oh, world ! oh, life ! oh, time ! On whose last steps I climb

Trembling at that where I had stood before ; When will return the glory of your prime ? No more — 0,„ never more !

II Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight ;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more — O, never more !

DIRGES AND LAMENTS 153

REMEMBRANCE

1 Swifter far than summer's flight — Swifter far than youth's delight — Swifter far than happy night,

Art thou come and gone — As the wood when leaves are shed, As the night when sleep is fled, As the heart when joy is dead,

I am left lone, alone.

II The swallow summer comes again — The owlet night resumes his reign — But the wild-swan youth is fain

To fly with thee, false as thou. My heart each day desires the morrow ; Sleep itself is turned to sorrow ; Vainly would my winter borrow

Sunny leaves from any bough.

Ill Lilies for a bridal bed — Roses for a matron's head — Violets for a maiden dead —

Pansies let my flowers be : On the living grave I bear Scatter them without a tear — Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.

154

DIRGES AND LAMENTS

A DIRGE

ROUGH wind, that moanest loud

Grief too sad for song ; Wild wind, when sullen cloud

Knells all the night long ; Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Bare woods, whose branches stain, Deep caves and dreary main,

Wail, for the world's wrong !

EPIPSYCHIDION

"L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nel infinite) un Mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro."

Her own 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 them that they are dull, And bid them own that thou art beautiful.

Verses addressed to the Noble and Unfor- tunate Lady, Emilia Viviani, now imprisoned in the Convent of St. Anne's, Pisa

Sweet Spirit ! Sister of that orphan one, Whose empire is the name thou weepest on In my heart's temple I suspend to thee These votive wreaths of withered memory.

Poor 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-winged Heart ! who dost for ever Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour, Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed It over-soared this low and worldly shade,

160 EPIPSYCHIDION

Lie shattered ; and thy panting, wounded breast Stains with dear blood its immaternal nest ! I weep vain tears : blood would less bitter be, Yet poured forth gladlier, could 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 immortality ! 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 Nature's art ! Thou Mirror In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on ! Aye, 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 may not die.

I never thought before my death to see Youth's vision thus made 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 name my heart lent to another Could be a sister's bond for her and thee, Blending two beams of one eternity ! Yet were one lawful 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 part of thee.

EPIPSYCHIDION 161

Sweet 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 bless'd and bless ? A well of sealed and secret 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 beloved 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-shrouded grave of Woe ? — 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, Were less aetherially 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-winged 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 sun-beams of those wells which ever leap

M

162 EPIPSYCHIDION

«

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 unintermitted blood, which there

Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air

The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,)

Continuously prolonged, and ending never,

Till they are lost, and in that 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 tress

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,

Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt

Into the bosom of a frozen bud.

See where she stands ! 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 Reflexion 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, warning, With smiles and tears, Frost the Anatomy Into his summer grave.

Ah, woe is me !

EPIPSYCHIDION 163

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 ! O too late Beloved ! O 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. 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 shake 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. I 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 By the broad highway of the world, and so With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, The dreariest and the longest journey go.

164 EPIPSYCHIDION

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 phantasy, As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills The universe with glorious beams, and kills Error, the worm, with many a sun-like 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 thereby A sepulchre for its eternity.

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 and 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 the fairy isles of sunny lawn, Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves

EPIPSYCHIDION 165

Of divine sleep, 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 loud,

And from the rain of every passing cloud,

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, colour — 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 loadstar of my one desire, I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight Is as a dead leaf's 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

166 EPIPSYCHIDION

Yawned like a gulph whose spectres are unseen :

When a voice said : — " O Thou of hearts the weakest,

" The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest."

Then I — " where ? " the world's echo answered " where !

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 ;

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 night-shade 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.

EPIPSYCHIDION 167

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 : And One was true — oh ! why not true to me ? Then, as a hunted deer that could 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 noon-day 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 Moon, the Queen of Heaven's bright

isles, Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles, That wandering shrine 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, She 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 sate 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,

1 68 EPIPSYCHIDION

Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother, The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother, And through the cavern without wings they flew, And cried " Away, he is not of our crew." I wept, and though it 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 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. Weep 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 changed to love, this glorious One Floated into the cavern where I lay,

EPIPSYCHIDION 169

And called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay 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 Was penetrating me with living light : I knew it was the Vision veiled from me So many years — that it was Emily.

Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth, This world of love, this me ; and into birth Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart 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 The armies of the rainbow-winged showers ; And, as those married lights, which from the towers Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe ; 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. Thou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce, Who drew the heart of this frail Universe 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 !

170

EPIPSYCHIDION

Be there love's folding-star at thy return ; 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. 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.

EPIPSYCHIDION 171

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,

Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way

Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array

Of arms : more strength has Love than he or they ;

For it can burst its charnel, and make free

The limbs in chains, the heart in agony,

The soul in dust and chaos.

■ Emily,

A ship is floating in the harbour now, A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow ; 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 forsworn 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 air Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, — Simple and spirited, innocent and bold. The blue Aegean girds this chosen home, With ever-changing sound and light and foam,

172 EPIPSYCHIDION

Kissing the sifted sands and caverns hoar ;

And all the winds wandering along the shore

Undulate with the undulating tide :

There are thick woods where sylvan forms 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 goats and deer

(Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year,)

Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls

Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls

Illumining, with sound that never fails

Accompany the noon-day 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 in 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-peaks ; blind vultures, they

Sail onward far upon their fatal way :

The winged storms, chaunting their thunder-psalm

To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm

Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew,

From which its fields and woods ever renew

EPIPSYCHIDION 173

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 draw 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 of th' Eternal, whose own smile

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,

An 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

The volumes of their many-twining stems ;

Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems

The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky

Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery

With Moon-light patches, or star atoms keen,

174 EPIPSYCHIDION

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 ring-dove, 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 ; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moon-light Before our gate, and the slow, silent night Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. Be this our home in life, and when years heap Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay, Let us become the over-hanging day, The living soul of this Elysian isle, Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile We two will rise, and sit, and walk together,

EPIPSYCHIDION 175

Under the roof of blue Ionian weather,

And wander in the meadows, or ascend

The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend

With lightest winds, to touch their paramour ;

Or linger, 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 and 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 seclusion, close as Night's,

Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights ;

Sleep, the fresh dew of languid 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,

Harmonizing 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 life, 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 within 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 ; ever still

176 EPIPSYCHIDION

Burning, yet ever inconsumable :

In one another's substance rinding food,

Like flames 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 overshadowing minds, one life, one death,

One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality,

And one annihilation. Woe is me !

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 Oblivion's cave, 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 bless'd : And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, And come and be my guest, — for I am Love's.

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ADONAIS

I WEEP for Adonais — he is dead ! O, weep for Adonais ! though our tears Thaw not the 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.

182 ADONAIS

II 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.

Ill O, weep for Adonais — he 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 ; Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

IV Most musical of mourners, weep again ! Lament anew, Urania ! — He died, Who was the Sire 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 gulph of death ; but his clear Sprite Yet reigns o'er earth ; the third among the sons of light.

ADONAIS 183

v

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 some yet live, treading the thorny road, Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.

VI

But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished, The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew, 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 hope, the loveliest and the last, The bloom, whose petals, nipped before they blew, Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ; The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast.

VII 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.

1 84 ADONAIS

VIII

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 pale 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.

IX O, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams, The passion- winged Ministers of thought, Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught The love which was its music, wander not, — 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, They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again.

x

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head, And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries ; " Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; " See, on the silken fringe of his faint 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 out wept its rain.

ADONAIS 185

XI

One from a lucid urn of starry dew Washed his light limbs as if embalming them ; Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw The wreath upon 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.

XII

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 icy lips ; And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.

XIII And others came . . . Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies ; 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.

1 86 ADONAIS

XIV

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 aerial eyes that kindle day ; Afar the melancholy thunder moaned, Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.

XV 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 disdain she pined away Into a shadow of all sounds : — a drear Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.

XVI 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.

GRIEF MADE THE YOUNG SPRING WILD

ADONAIS 189

XVII 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 soul that was its earthly guest !

XVIII

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 reappear ; Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' 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.

XIX Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst As it has ever done, with change and motion From the great morning of the world when first God dawned on Chaos ; in its stream 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 renewed might.

190 ADONAIS

xx

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 ; Naught we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows Be as a sword consumed before the sheath By sightless lightning ? — th' intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.

XXI Alas ; that all we loved of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself 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 urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

XXII

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 fading Splendour sprung.

ADONAIS 191

XXIII 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 Adonais lay.

XXIV Out of her secret Paradise she sped, Through camps and cities 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

they, Rent the soft Form they never could repel, Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.

xxv 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, f! 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.

192 ADONAIS

XXVI " Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again ; " 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 ! " But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart !

XXVII

" Oh 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.

XXVIII " 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.

ADONAIS 193

XXIX

" 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."

xxx

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 I erne sent The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue.

XXXI

Midst others of less note, came one frail Form, A phantom among men, companionless As the last cloud of an expiring storm Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, Actaeon-like, and now he fled 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.

O

194 ADONAIS

XXXII

A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift — A Love in desolation masked ; — a Power Girt round 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.

XXXIII

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 grew 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.

xxxiv All stood aloof, and at his partial moan Smiled 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, He sung 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 !

ADONAIS 195

XXXV

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.

xxxvi Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh ! What deaf and viperous murderer could crown Life's early cup with such a draft 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.

XXXVII 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 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.

196 ADONAIS

XXXVIII 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 pure 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.

XXXIX

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. — We decay Like corpses in a charnel ; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

XL

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 in vain ; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

ADONAIS 197

XLI 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 moan ! 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 !

I XLII

He is made one with Nature : there is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan Of 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 itself 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.

XLIII 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 th' unwilling dross that checks its flight To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light.

198 ADONAIS

XLIV The splendours of the firmament of time May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ; Like stars to their appointed height they climb And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, And love and life contend in it, for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

XLV The inheritors of unfulfilled renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, 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.

XLVI 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 Song. " Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng !

ADONAIS 199

XLVII Who mourns for Adonais ? oh come forth Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright. 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.

XLVIII Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, O, not of him, but of our joy : 'tis naught 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.

XLIX 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.

200 ADONAIS

L And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 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.

LI 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 ?

LII The One remains, the many change and pass ; Heaven's light forever 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.

ADONAIS 201

LIII Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart ? Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! A light is past from the revolving year, 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, No more let Life divide what Death can join together.

LIV 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.

LV 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 given ; 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.

THE TRIUMPH

OF LIFE

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

SWIFT as a spirit hastening to his task Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth Rejoicing in his splendour, and the mask

Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth — The smokeless altars of the mountain snows Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth

Of light, the Ocean's orison arose,

To which the birds tempered their matin lay.

All flowers in field or forest which unclose

Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, Swinging their censers in the element, With orient incense lit by the new ray

Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air ; And, in succession due, did continent,

Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear The form and character of mortal mould, Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear

Their portion of the toil, which he of old Took as his own, and then imposed on them : But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold

Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem The cone of night, now they were laid asleep Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem

208 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

Which an old chesnut flung athwart the steep

Of a green Apennine : before me fled

The night ; behind me rose the day ; the deep

Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head, When a strange trance over my fancy grew Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread

Was so transparent, that the scene came through As clear as when a veil of light is drawn O'er evening hills they glimmer ; and I knew

That 1 had felt the freshness of that dawn, Bathed in the same cold dew my brow and hair, And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn

Under the self-same bough, and heard as there The birds, the fountains and the ocean hold Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air, And then a vision on my brain was rolled.

As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay, This was the tenour of my waking dream : — Methought I sate beside a public way

Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream Of people there was hurrying to and fro, Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,

All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know Whither he went, or whence he came, or why He made one of the multitude, and so

Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky One of the million leaves of summer's bier ; Old age and youth, manhood and infancy

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 209

Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,

Some flying from the thing they feared, and some

Seeking the object of another's fear ;

And others, as with steps towards the tomb, Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath, And others mournfully within the gloom

Of their own shadow walked and called it death ; And some fled from it as it were a ghost, Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath :

But more, with motions which each other crossed, Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw, Or birds within the noon-day aether lost,

Upon that path where flowers never grew, — And, weary with vain toil and faint for thirst, Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew

Out of their mossy cells for ever burst ;

Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told

Of grassy paths and wood-lawns interspersed

With overarching elms and caverns cold,

And violet banks where sweet dreams brood j but they

Pursued their serious folly as of old.

And, as I gazed, methought that in the way The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June When the south wind snakes the extinguished day ;

And a cold glare, intenser than the noon, But icy cold, obscured with blinding light The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon

P

210 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

When on the sunlit limits of the night Her white shell trembles amid crimson air, And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might

Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear

The ghost of its dead mother, whose dim form

Bends in dark aether from her infant's chair, —

So came a chariot on the silent storm

Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape

So sate within, as one whom years deform,

Beneath a dusky hood and double cape,

Crouching within the shadow of a tomb ;

And o'er what seemed the head a cloud-like crape

Was bent, a dun and faint aetherial gloom Tempering the light. Upon the chariot-beam A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume

The guidance of that wonder-winged team ; The shapes which drew it in thick lightnings Were lost : — I heard alone on the air's soft stream

The music of their ever-moving wings.

All the four faces of that charioteer

Had their eyes banded ; little profit brings

Speed in the van and blindness in the rear, Nor then avail the beams that quench the sun Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere

Of all that is, has been or will be done ; So ill was the car guided — but it passed With solemn speed majestically on.

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 211

The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast, Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance, And saw, like clouds upon the thunder-blast,

The million with fierce song and maniac dance Raging around — such seemed the jubilee As when to greet some conqueror's advance

Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea From senate-house, and forum, and theatre, When upon the free

Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear. Nor wanted here the just similitude Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er

The chariot rolled, a captive multitude

Was driven ; — all those who had grown old in power

Or misery, — all who had their age subdued

By action or by suffering, and whose hour

Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,

So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower ; —

All those whose fame or infamy must grow Till the great winter lay the form and name Of this green earth with them for ever low ; —

All but the sacred few who could not tame Their spirits to the conquerors — but, as soon As they had touched the world with living flame,

Fled back like eagles to their native noon, Or those who put aside the diadem Of earthly thrones or gems . . .

212 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

Were there, of Athens or Jerusalem,

Were neither 'mid the mighty captives seen,

Nor 'mid the ribald crowd that followed them,

Nor those who went before fierce and obscene. The wild dance maddens in the van, and those Who lead it — fleet as shadows on the green,

Outspeed the chariot, and without repose Mix with each other in tempestuous measure To savage music ; wilder as it grows,

They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure, Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure

Was soothed by mischief since the world begun, Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair ; And, in their dance round her who dims the sun,

Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air As their feet twinkle ; they recede, and now Bending within each other's atmosphere,

Kindle invisibly — and as they glow,

Like moths by light attracted and repelled,

Oft to their bright destruction come and go,

Till like two clouds into one vale impelled

That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle

And die in rain — the fiery band which held

Their natures, snaps — while the shock still may tingle ; One falls and then another in the path Senseless — nor is the desolation single,

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 213

Yet ere I can say where — the chariot hath Passed over them — nor other trace I find But as of foam after the ocean's wrath

Is spent upon the desert shore ; — behind, Old men and women, foully disarrayed, Shake their grey hairs in the insulting wind,

And follow in the dance, with limbs decayed, Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still Farther behind and deeper in the shade.

But not the less with impotence of will

They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose

Round them and round each other, and fulfil

Their work, and in the dust from whence chey rose Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie, And past in these performs what in those.

Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry, Half to myself I said — " And what is this ? Whose shape is that within the car ? And why — "

I would have added — " is all here amiss ? — "

But a voice answered — " Life ! " — I turned, and knew

(O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness !)

That what I thought was an old root which grew To strange distortion out of the hill-side, Was indeed one of those deluded crew,

And that the grass, which methought hung so wide And white, was but his thin discoloured hair, And that the holes he vainly sought to hide

214 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

Were or had been eyes : — " If thou canst, forbear To join the dance, which I had well forborne ! " Said the grim Feature (of my thought aware).

" I will unfold that which to this deep scorn Led me and my companions, and relate The progress of the pageant since the morn ;

"If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate,

Follow it thou even to the night, but I

Am weary." — Then like one who with the weight

Of his own words is staggered, wearily

He paused ; and ere he could resume, I cried :

" First, who art thou ? " — " Before thy memory,

" I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died, And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit Had been with purer nutriment supplied,

;' Corruption would not now thus much inherit Of what was once Rousseau, — nor this disguise Stain that which ought to have disdained to wear it ;

" If I have been extinguished, yet there rise

A thousand beacons from the spark I bore " —

" And who are those chained to the car ? " — " The wise,

" The great, the unforgotten, — they who wore Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light, Signs of thought's empire over thought — their lore

" Taught them not this, to know themselves ; their might

Could not repress the mystery within,

And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 215

" Caught them ere evening." — " Who is he with chin Upon his breast, and hands crossed on his chain ? " " The child of a fierce hour ; he sought to win

" The world, and lost all that it did contain Of greatness, in its hope destroyed ; and more Of fame and peace than virtue's self can gain

" Without the opportunity which bore

Him on its eagle pinions to the peak

From which a thousand climbers have before

" Fallen, as Napoleon fell." — I felt my cheek

Alter, to see the shadow pass away,

Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak,

That every pigmy kicked it as it lay ;

And much I grieved to think how power and will

In opposition rule our mortal day,

And why God made irreconcilable

Good and the means of good ; and for despair

I half disdained mine eyes' desire to fill

With the spent vision of the times that were

And scarce have ceased to be. — " Dost thou behold,"

Said my guide, " those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,

" Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold, And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage —

names which the world thinks always old,

" For in the battle Life and they did wage, She remained conqueror. I was overcome By my own heart alone, which neither age,

216 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

" Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb Could temper to its object." — * Let them pass," I cried, " the world and its mysterious doom

" Is not so much more glorious than it was, That I desire to worship those who drew New figures on its false and fragile glass

" As the old faded." — " Figures ever new Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may ; We have but thrown, as those before us threw,

" Our shadows on it as it passed away.

But mark how chained to the triumphal chair

The mighty phantoms of an elder day ;

" All that is mortal of great Plato there Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not ; The star that ruled his doom was far too fair,

1 And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not, Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain, Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.

" And near him walk the twain,

The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.

" The world was darkened beneath either pinion Of him whom from the flock of conquerors Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion ;

" The other long outlived both woes and wars, Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept The jealous key of truth's eternal doors,

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 217

" If Bacon's eagle spirit had not leapt

Like lightning out of darkness — he compelled

The Proteus shape of Nature as it slept

" To wake, and lead him to the caves that held

The treasure of the secrets of its reign.

See the great bards of elder time, who quelled

" The passions which they sung, as by their strain May well be known : their living melody Tempers its own contagion to the vein

"Of those who are infected with it — I Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain ! And so my words have seeds of misery —

" Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs." And then he pointed to a company,

'Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirs

Of Caesar's crime, from him to Constantine ;

The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares

Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line,

And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad :

And Gregory and John, and men divine,

Who rose like shadows between man and God '; .

Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven,

Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode,

For the true sun it quenched — " Their power was given But to destroy," replied the leader : — " I Am one of those who have created, even

218 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

" If it be but a world of agony." —

" Whence earnest thou ? and whither goest thou ?

How did thy course begin ? " I said, " and why ? "

" Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow

Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thought —

Speak ! " — " Whence I am, I partly seem to know,

" And how and by what paths I have been brought To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess ; Why this should be, my mind can compass not ;

" Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less ; — But follow thou, and from spectator turn Actor or victim in this wretchedness,

" And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn From thee. Now listen : — In the April prime, When all the forest tips began to burn

" With kindling green, touched by the azure clime Of the young season, I was laid asleep Under a mountain, which from unknown time

" Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep ;

And from it came a gentle rivulet,

Whose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep

11 Bent the soft grass, and kept for ever wet

The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove

With sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget

" All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love, Which they had known before that hour of rest ; A sleeping mother then would dream not of

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 219

" Her only child who died upon the breast At eventide — a king would mourn no more The crown of which his brows were dispossessed

" When the sun lingered o'er his ocean floor,

To gild his rival's new prosperity.

Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore

" Ills, which if ills can find no cure from thee, The thought of which no other sleep will quell, Nor other music blot from memory,

" So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell ; And whether life had been before that sleep The heaven which I imagine, or a hell

" Like this harsh world in which I wake to weep,

I know not. I arose, and for a space

The scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,

" Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace Of light diviner than the common sun Sheds on the common earth, and all the place

" Was filled with magic sounds woven into one

Oblivious melody, confusing sense

Amid the gliding waves and shadows dun ;

" And, as I looked, the bright omnipresence Of morning through the orient cavern flowed, And the sun's image radiantly intense

" Burned on the waters of the well that glowed Like gold, and threaded all the forest's maze With winding paths of emerald fire ; there stood

220 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

" Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze

Of his own glory, on the vibrating

Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,

" A Shape all light, which with one hand did fling Dew on the earth, as if she were the dawn, And the invisible rain did ever sing

" A silver music on the mossy lawn ; And still before me on the dusky grass Iris her many-coloured scarf had drawn :

" In her right hand she bore a crystal glass, Mantling with bright Nepenthe ; the fierce splendour Fell from her as she moved under the mass

" Of the deep cavern, and with palms so tender, Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow, Glided along the river, and did bend her

" Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow, Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream That whispered with delight to be its pillow.

" As one enamoured is upborne in dream

O'er lily-paven lakes 'mid silver mist,

To wondrous music, so this shape might seem

" Partly to tread the waves with feet which kissed The dancing foam, partly to glide along The air which roughened the moist amethyst,

" Or the faint morning beams that fell among The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees ; And her feet, ever to the ceaseless song

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 221

" Of leaves, and winds, and waves, and birds, and bees, And falling drops, moved in a measure new Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze,

" Up from the lake a shape of golden dew Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon, Dances i' the wind, where never eagle flew ;

" And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune

To which they moved, seemed as they moved to blot

The thoughts of him who gazed on them ; and soon

" All that was, seemed as if it had been not ; And all the gazer's mind was strewn beneath Her feet like embers ; and she, thought by thought,

" Trampled its sparks into the dust of death ; As day upon the threshold of the east Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath

" Of darkness re-illumine even the least Of heaven's living eyes—like day she came, Making the night a dream ; and ere she ceased

" To move, as one between desire and shame Suspended, I said — ■ If, as it doth seem, Thou comest from the realm without a name,-

" ' Into this valley of perpetual dream,

Show whence I came, and where I am, and why —

Pass not away upon the passing stream.'

" * Arise and quench thy thirst,' was her reply. And as a shut lily stricken by the wand Of dewy morning's vital alchemy

222 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

" I rose ; and, bending at her sweet command, Touched with faint lips the cup she raised, And suddenly my brain became as sand

" Where the first wave had more than half erased The track of deer on desert Labrador ; Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,

" Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore, Until the second bursts ; — so on my sight Burst a new vision, never seen before,

" And the fair shape waned in the coming light, As veil by veil the silent splendour drops From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite

"Of sun-rise ere it tinge the mountain tops ; And as the presence of that fairest planet, Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes

" That his day's path may end as he began it, In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,

" Or the soft note in which his dear lament The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress That turned his weary slumber to content ;

" So knew I in that light's severe excess

The presence of that shape which on the stream

Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,

" More dimly than a day-appearing dream,

The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep ;

A light of heaven, whose half-extinguished beam

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 223

" Through the sick day in which we wake to weep, Glimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost ; So did that shape its obscure tenour keep

" Beside my path, as silent as a ghost ;

But the new Vision, and the cold bright car,

With solemn speed and stunning music, crossed

" The forest, and as if from some dread war Triumphantly returning, the loud million Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.

" A moving arch of victory, the vermilion And green and azure plumes of Iris had Built high over her wind-winged pavilion,

" And underneath aetherial glory clad The wilderness, and far before her flew The tempest of the splendour, which forbade

" Shadows to fall from leaf and stone ; the crew Seemed, in that light, like atomies to dance Within a sunbeam ; — some upon the new

" Embroidery of flowers, that did enhance The grassy vesture of the desert, played, Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance ;

" Others stood gazing, till within the shade Of the great mountain its light left them dim Others outspeeded it ; and others made

" Circles around it, like the clouds that swim Round the high moon in a bright sea of air ; And more did follow, with exulting hymn,

224 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

" The chariot and the captives fettered there : — But all like bubbles on an eddying flood Fell into the same track at last, and were

" Borne onward. — I among the multitude

Was swept — me, sweetest flowers delayed not long ;

Me, not the shadow nor the solitude ;

" Me, not that falling stream's Lethean song ; Me, not the phantom of that early form, Which moved upon its motion — but among

" The thickest billows of that living storm I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.

" Before the chariot had begun to climb The opposing steep of that mysterious dell, Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme

" Of him who from the lowest depths of hell, Through every paradise and through all glory, Love led serene, and who returned to tell

" The words of hate and awe ; the wondrous story How all things are transfigured except Love ; For deaf as is a sea, which wrath makes hoary,

" The world can hear not the sweet notes that move The sphere whose light is melody to lovers — A wonder worthy of his rhyme. — The grove

" Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers, The earth was grey with phantoms, and the air Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 225

" A flock of vampire bats before the glare

Of the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening,

Strange night upon some Indian isle ; — thus were

" Phantoms diffused around ; and some did fling Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves, Behind them ; some like eaglets on the wing

" Were lost in the white day ; others like elves Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves ;

" And others sate chattering like restless apes

On vulgar hands,

Some made a cradle of the ermined capes

" Of kingly mantles ; some across the tiar Of pontiffs sate like vultures ; others played Under the crown which girt with empire

" A baby's or an idiot's brow, and made

Their nests in it. The old anatomies

Sate hatching their bare broods under the shade

" Of daemon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes

To re-assume the delegated power,

Arrayed in which those worms did monarchize,

Who made this earth their charnel. Others more Humble, like falcons, sate upon the fist Of common men, and round their heads did soar ;

" Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist On evening marshes, thronged about the brow Of lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist ; —

Q

226 THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

" And others, like discoloured flakes of snow On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair, Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow

" Which they extinguished ; and, like tears, they were A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained In drops of sorrow. I became aware

" Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained The track in which we moved. After brief space, From every form the beauty slowly waned ;

" From every firmest limb and fairest face

The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left

The action and the shape without the grace

" Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft

With care ; and in those eyes where once hope shone,

Desire, like a lioness bereft

" Of her last cub, glared ere it died ; each one

Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly

These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown

"In autumn evening from a poplar tree. Each like himself and like each other were At first ; but some distorted seemed to be

" Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air ; And of this stuff the car's creative ray Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there,

" As the sun shapes the clouds ; thus on the way Mask after mask fell from the countenance And form of all ; and long before the day

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 227

" Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glance The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died ; And some grew weary of the ghastly dance,

" And fell, as I have fallen, by the way-side ; —

Those soonest from whose forms most shadows passed,

And least of strength and beauty did abide.

" Then, < What is life ? ' I cried."—

R-An-R

DRAMATIS PERSONA

Prometheus.

Demogorgon.

Jupiter.

The Earth.

Ocean.

Apollo.

Mercury.

Hercules.

Asia

Panthea

Ione

Oceanides.

The Phantasm of Jupiter. The Spirit of the Earth. The Spirit of the Moon. Spirits of the Hours. Spirits. Echoes. Fauns. Furies.

ACT I

SCENE, A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. PROMETHEUS is discovered bound to the Precipice. PANTHEA and IONE are seated at his feet. TIME, Night. During the Scene, Morning slowly breaks.

Prometheus. Monarch of Gods and Daemons, and all Spirits But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds Which Thou and I alone of living things Behold with sleepless eyes ! regard this Earth Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts, With fear and self-contempt and barren hope. Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate, Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn, O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge. Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours, And moments aye divided by keen pangs Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, Scorn and despair, — these are mine empire. More glorious far than that which thou surveyest From thine unenvied throne, O, Mighty God ! Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame

236 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured ; without herb, Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. Ah me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever !

No change, no pause, no hope ! Yet I endure. I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt ? I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun, Has it not seen ? The Sea, in storm or calm, Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below, Have its deaf waves not heard my agony? Ah me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever !

The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears Of their moon-freezing crystals, the bright chains Eat with their burning cold into my bones. Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips His beak in poison not his own, tears up My heart ; and shapeless sights come wandering by, The ghastly people of the realm of dream, Mocking me : and the Earthquake-fiends are charged To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds When the rocks split and close again behind : While from their loud abysses howling throng The genii of the storm, urging the rage Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail. And yet to me welcome is day and night, Whether one breaks the hoar-frost of the morn, Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs The leaden-coloured east ; for then they lead The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom — As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim — Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood From these pale feet, which then might trample thee If they disdained not such a prostrate slave. Disdain ! Ah no ! I pity thee. What ruin

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 237

Will hunt thee undefended through the wide Heaven !

How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror,

Gape like a hell within ! I speak in grief,

Not exultation, for I hate no more,

As then ere misery made me wise. The curse

Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains,

Whose many-voiced Echoes, through the mist

Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell !

Ye icy springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost,

Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept

Shuddering through India ! Thou serenest Air,

Through which the Sun walks burning without beams !

And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poised wings

Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss,

As thunder, louder than your own, made rock

The orbed world ! If then my words had power,

Though I am changed so that aught evil wish

Is dead within ; although no memory be

Of what is hate, let them not lose it now !

What was that curse ? for ye all heard me speak.

First Voice : from the Mountains. Thrice three hundred thousand years

O'er the Earthquake's couch we stood : Oft, as men convulsed with fears,

We trembled in our multitude.

Second Voice : from the Springs. Thunder-bolts had parched our water,

We had been stained with bitter blood, And had run mute, 'mid shrieks of slaughter,

Through a city and a solitude

Third Voice : from the Air. I had clothed, since Earth uprose,

Its wastes in colours not their own, And oft had my serene repose

Been cloven by many a rending groan.

238 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Fourth Voice : from the Whirlwinds. We had soared beneath these mountains

Unresting ages ; nor had thunder, Nor yon volcano's flaming fountains,

Nor any power above or under

Ever made us mute with wonder.

First Voice, But never bowed our snowy crest As at the voice of thine unrest.

Second Voice. Never such a sound before To the Indian waves we bore. A pilot asleep on the howling sea Leaped up from the deck in agony, And heard, and cried, " Ah, woe is me ! " And died as mad as the wild waves be.

Third Voice. By such dread words from Earth to Heaven My still realm was never riven : When its wound was closed, there stood Darkness o'er the day like blood.

Fourth Voice. And we shrank back : for dreams of ruin To frozen caves our flight pursuing Made us keep silence — thus — and thus — Though silence is a hell to us.

The Earth. The tongueless Caverns of the craggy hills Cried, " Misery ! " then ; the hollow Heaven replied " Misery ! " And the Ocean's purple waves, Climbing the land, howled to the lashing winds, And the pale nations heard it, " Misery ! "

Prometheus. I hear a sound of voices : not the voice

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 239

Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou

Scorn him, without whose all-enduring will

Beneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove,

Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist

Unrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me,

The Titan ? He who made his agony

The barrier to your else all-conquering foe ?

Oh, rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams,

Now seen athwart frore vapours, deep below,

Through whose o'ershadowing woods I wandered once

With Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes ;

Why scorns the spirit which informs ye, now

To commune with me ? me alone, who checked,

As one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer,

The falsehood and the force of him who reigns

Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves

Fills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses :

Why answer ye not, still ? Brethren !

The Earth. They dare not

Prometheus. Who dares ? for I would hear that curse again. Ha, what an awful whisper rises up ! 'Tis scarce like sound : it tingles through the frame As lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike. Speak, Spirit ! from thine inorganic voice I only know that thou art moving near And love. How cursed I him ?

The Earth. How canst thou hear

Who knowest not the language of the dead ?

Prometheus. Thou art a living spirit : speak as they.

The Earth. I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven's fell King Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain More torturing than the one whereon I roll. Subtle thou art and good, and though the Gods Hear not this voice, yet thou art more than God Being wise and kind : earnestly hearken now.

240 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Prometheus. Obscurely through my brain, like shadows dim, Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel Faint, like one mingled in entwining love ; Yet 'tis not pleasure.

The Earth. No, thou canst not hear :

Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known Only to those who die.

Prometheus. And what art thou,

O, melancholy Voice ?

The Earth. I am the Earth,

Thy mother ; she within whose stony veins, To the last fibre of the loftiest tree Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air, Joy ran, as blood within a living frame, When thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy ! And at thy voice her pining sons uplifted Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust, And our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here. Then, see those million worlds which burn and roll Around us : their inhabitants beheld My sphered light wane in wide Heaven ; the sea Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven's frown ; Lightning and Inundation vexed the plains ; Blue thistles bloomed in cities ; foodless toads Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled : When Plague had fallen on man, and beast, and worm, And Famine ; and black blight on herb and tree ; And in the corn, and vines, and meadow-grass, Teemed ineradicable poisonous weeds Draining their growth, for my wan breast was dry With grief ; and the thin air, my breath, was stained With the contagion of a mother's hate

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 241

Breathed on her child's destroyer ; aye, I heard Thy curse, the which, if thou rememberest not, Yet my innumerable seas and streams, Mountains, and caves, and winds, and yon wide air, And the inarticulate people of the dead, Preserve, a treasured spell. We meditate In secret joy and hope those dreadful words But dare not speak them.

Prometheus. Venerable mother !

All else who live and suffer take from thee Some comfort ; flowers, and fruits, and happy sounds, And love, though fleeting ; these may not be mine. But mine own words, I pray, deny me not.

The Earth. They shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust, The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, Met his own image walking in the garden. That apparition, sole of men, he saw. For know there are two worlds of life and death : One that which thou beholdest ; ,'but the other Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit The shadows of all forms that think and live Till death unite them and they part no more ; Dreams and the light imaginings of men, And all that faith creates or love desires, Terrible, strange, sublime and beauteous shapes. There thou art, and dost hang, a writhing shade, 'Mid whirlwind-peopled mountains ; all the gods Are there, and all the powers of nameless worlds, Vast, sceptred phantoms ; heroes, men, and beasts ; And Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom ; And he, the supreme Tyrant, on his throne Of burning gold. Son, one of these shall utter The curse which all remember. Call at will Thine own ghost, or the ghost of Jupiter, Hades or Typhon, or what mightier Gods From all-prolific Evil, since thy ruin,

R

242 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Have sprung, and trampled on my prostrate sons.

Ask, and they must reply : so the revenge

Of the Supreme may sweep through vacant shades,

As rainy wind through the abandoned gate

Of a fallen palace.

Prometheus. Mother, let not aught

Of that which may be evil, pass again My lips, or those of aught resembling me. Phantasm of Jupiter, arise, appear !

lone. My wings are folded o'er mine ears :

My wings are crossed o'er mine eyes : Yet through their silver shade appears,

And through their lulling plumes arise, A Shape, a throng of sounds ;

May it be no ill to thee O thou of many wounds ! Near whom, for our sweet sister's sake, Ever thus we watch and wake.

Panthea. The sound is of whirlwind underground,

Earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven ; The shape is awful like the sound,

Clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven. A sceptre of pale gold

To stay steps proud, o'er the slow cloud His veined hand doth hold. Cruel he looks, but calm and strong, Like one who does, not suffers wrong.

Phantasm of Jupiter. Why have the secret powers of this strange world Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither On direst storms ? What unaccustomed sounds Are hovering on my lips, unlike the voice

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 243

With which our pallid race hold ghastly talk

In darkness ? And, proud sufferer, who art thou ?

Prometheus. Tremendous Image, as thou art must be He whom thou shadowest forth. I am his foe, The Titan. Speak the words which I would hear, Although no thought inform thine empty voice.

The Earth. Listen ! And though your echoes must be mute, Grey mountains, and old woods, and haunted springs, Prophetic caves, and isle-surrounding streams, Rejoice to hear what yet ye cannot speak.

Phantasm. A spirit seizes me and speaks within : It tears me as fire tears a thunder-cloud.

Panthea. See, how he lifts his mighty looks, the Heaven Darkens above.

lone. He speaks ! O shelter me !

Prometheus. I see the curse on gestures proud and cold, i\nd looks of firm defiance, and calm hate, And such despair as mocks itself with smiles, Written as on a scroll : yet speak : Oh, speak !

Phantasm. Fiend, I defy thee ! with a calm, fixed mind,

All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do ; Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Human-kind,

One only being shalt thou not subdue. Rain then thy plagues upon me here, Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear ; And let alternate frost and fire Eat into me, and be thine ire Lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms.

Aye, do thy worst. Thou art omnipotent.

O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power, And my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent

To blast mankind, from yon aetherial tower.

244 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Let thy malignant spirit move

In darkness over those I love :

On me and mine I imprecate

The utmost torture of thy hate ; And thus devote to sleepless agony, This undeclining head while thou must reign on high.

But thou, who art the God and Lord : O, thou, Who fillest with thy soul this world of woe,

To whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow In fear and worship : all-prevailing foe !

I curse thee ! let a sufferer's curse

Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse ;

Till thy Infinity shall be

A robe of envenomed agony ; And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain, To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain.

Heap on thy soul, by virtue of this Curse,

111 deeds, then be thou damned, beholding good ; Both infinite as is the universe,

And thou, and thy self-torturing solitude. An awful image of calm power Though now thou sittest, let the hour Come, when thou must appear to be That which thou art internally. And after many a false and fruitless crime Scorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space and time.

Prometheus. Were these my words, O, Parent ?

The Earth. They were thine.

Prometheus. It doth repent me : words are quick and vain ; Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine. I wish no living thing to suffer pain.

The Earth. Misery, Oh misery to me,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 245

That Jove at length should vanquish thee.

Wail, howl aloud, Land and Sea,

The Earth's rent heart shall answer ye.

Howl, Spirits of the living and the dead,

Your refuge, your defence lies fallen and vanquished.

First Echo. Lies fallen and vanquished !

Second Echo. Fallen and vanquished !

lone. Fear not : 'tis but some passing spasm ;

The Titan is unvanquished still. But see, where through the azure chasm

Of yon forked and snowy hill Trampling the slant winds on high

With golden-sandalled feet, that glow Under plumes of purple dye, Like rose-ensanguined ivory,

A Shape comes now, Stretching on high from his right hand A serpent-cinctured wand.

Panthea. 'Tis Jove's world-wandering herald, Mercury.

lone. And who are those with hydra tresses

And iron wings that climb the wind, Whom the frowning God represses

Like vapours steaming up behind, Clanging loud, an endless crowd —

Panthea.

These are Jove's tempest-walking hounds, Whom he gluts with groans and blood, When charioted on sulphurous cloud

He bursts Heaven's bounds.

246 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

lone. Are they now led, from the thin dead On new pangs to be fed ?

Panthea. The Titan looks as ever, firm, not proud.

First Fury. Ha ! I scent life !

Second Fury. Let me but look into his eyes !

Third Fury. The hope of torturing him smells like a heap Of corpses to a death-bird after battle.

First Fury. Darest thou delay, O Herald ! take cheer, Hounds Of Hell : what if the Son of Maia soon Should make us food and sport — who can please long The Omnipotent?

Mercury. Back to your towers of iron,

And gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail, Your foodless teeth. Geryon, arise ! and Gorgon, Chimaera, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiends Who ministered to Thebes Heaven's poisoned wine, Unnatural love, and more unnatural hate : These shall perform your task.

First Fury. Oh, mercy ! mercy !

We die with our desire : drive us not back !

Mercury. Crouch then in silence.

Awful Sufferer To thee unwilling, most unwillingly I come, by the great Father's will driven down, To execute a doom of new revenge. Alas ! I pity thee, and hate myself That I can do no more : aye from thy sight Returning, for a season, Heaven seems Hell, So thy worn form pursues me night and day, Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good, But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife Against the Omnipotent ; as yon clear lamps That measure and divide the weary years

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 247

From which there is no refuge, long have taught

And long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms

With the strange might of unimagined pains

The powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell,

And my commission is to lead them here,

Or what more subtle, foul, or savage fiends

People the abyss, and leave them to their task.

Be it not so ! there is a secret known

To thee, and to none else of living things,

Which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven,

The fear of which perplexes the Supreme :

Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne

In intercession ; bend thy soul in prayer,

And like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane,

Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart :

For benefits and meek submission tame

The fiercest and the mightiest.

Prometheus. Evil minds

Change good to their own nature. I gave all He has ; and in return he chains me here Years, ages, night and day : whether the Sun Split my parched skin, or in the moony night The crystal-winged snow cling round my hair : Whilst my beloved race is trampled down By his thought-executing ministers. Such is the tyrant's recompense : 'tis just : He who is evil can receive no good ; And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost, He can feel hate, fear, shame ; not gratitude : He but requites me for his own misdeed. Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge. Submission, thou dost know I cannot try : For what submission but that fatal word, The death-seal of mankind's captivity, Like the Sicilian's hair-suspended sword, Which trembles o'er his crown, would he accept,

248 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Or could I yield ? Which yet I will not yield.

Let others flatter Crime, where it sits throned

In brief Omnipotence : secure are they :

For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down

Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,

Too much avenged by those who err. I wait,

Enduring thus, the retributive hour

Which since we spake is even nearer now.

But hark, the hell-hounds clamour : fear delay :

Behold ! Heaven lowers under thy Father's frown.

Mercury. Oh, that we might be spared, — I to inflict And thou to suffer ! Once more answer me : Thou knowest not the period of Jove's power ?

Prometheus. I know but this, that it must come.

Mercury. Alas !

Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain ?

Prometheus. They last while Jove must reign : nor more, nor less Do I desire or fear.

Mercury. Yet pause, and plunge

Into Eternity, where recorded time, Even all that we imagine, age on age, Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind Flags wearily in its unending flight, Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless ; Perchance it has not numbered the slow years Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved ?

Prometheus. Perchance no thought can count them : yet they pass.

Mercury. If thou might'st dwell among the Gods the while Lapped in voluptuous joy ?

Prometheus. I would not quit

This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.

Mercury. Alas ! I wonder at, yet pity thee.

Prometheus. Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven, Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 249

As light in the sun, throned : how vain is talk ! Call up the fiends.

lone. O, sister, look ! White fire

Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar ; How fearfully God's thunder howls behind !

Mercury. I must obey his words and thine : alas ! Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart !

Panthea. See where the child of Heaven, with winged feet, Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn.

lone. Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes Lest thou behold and die : they come : they come Blackening the birth of day with countless wings, And hollow underneath, like death.

First Fury. Prometheus !

Second Fury. Immortal Titan !

Third Fury. Champion of Heaven's slaves !

Prometheus. He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here, Prometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms, What and who are ye ? Never yet there came Phantasms so foul through monster-teeming Hell From the all-miscreative brain of Jove ; Whilst I behold such execrable shapes, Methinks I grow like what I contemplate, And laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy.

First Fury. We are the ministers of pain, and fear, And disappointment, and mistrust, and hate, And clinging crime ; and as lean dogs pursue Through wood and lake some struck and sobbing fawn, We track all things that weep, and bleed, and live, When the great King betrays them to our will.

Prometheus. Oh ! many fearful natures in one name, I know ye ; and these lakes and echoes know The darkness and the clangour of your wings. But why more hideous than your loathed selves Gather ye up in legions from the deep ?

2SO PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Second Fury. We knew not that : Sisters, rejoice, rejoice !

Prometheus. Can aught exult in its deformity ?

Second Fury. The beauty of delight makes lovers glad, Gazing on one another : so are we. As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels To gather for her festal crown of flowers The aerial crimson falls, flushing her cheek, So from our victim's destined agony The shade which is our form invests us round ; Else we are shapeless as our mother Night.

Prometheus. I laugh your power, and his who sent you here, To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain.

First Fury. Thou thinkest we will rend thee bone from bone, And nerve from nerve, working like fire within ?

Prometheus. Pain is my element, as hate is thine ; Ye rend me now : I care not.

Second Fury. Dost imagine

We will but laugh into thy lidless eyes ?

Prometheus. I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer, Being evil. Cruel was the power which called You, or aught else so wretched, into light.

Third Fury. Thou think'st we will live through thee, one by one, Like animal life, and though we can obscure not The soul which burns within, that we will dwell Beside it, like a vain loud multitude Vexing the self-content of wisest men : That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain, And foul desire round thine astonished heart, And blood within thy labyrinthine veins Crawling like agony.

Prometheus. Why, ye are thus now ;

Yet I am king over myself, and rule

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 251

The torturing and conflicting throngs within, As Jove rules you when Hell grows mutinous.

Chorus of Furies. From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth, Where the night has its grave and the morning its birth,

Come, come, come ! Oh, ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth, When cities sink howling in ruin ; and ye Who with wingless footsteps trample the sea, And close upon Shipwreck and Famine's track, Sit chattering with joy on the foodless wreck ; Come, come, come ! Leave the bed, low, cold, and red, Strewed beneath a nation dead ; Leave the hatred, as in ashes

Fire is left for future burning : It will burst in bloodier flashes

When ye stir it, soon returning : Leave the self-contempt implanted In young spirits, sense-enchanted,

Misery's yet unkindled fuel : Leave Hell's secrets half unchanted

To the maniac dreamer ; cruel More than ye can be with hate Is he with fear.

Come, come, come ! We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate And we burthen the blast of the atmosphere But vainly we toil till ye come here.

lone. Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings.

Panthea. These solid mountains quiver with the sound Even as the tremulous air : their shadows make The space within my plumes more black than night.

252 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

First Fury. Your call was as a winged car Driven on whirlwinds fast and far ; It rapt us from red gulphs of war.

Second Fury. From wide cities, famine-wasted ;

Third Fury. Groans half heard, and blood untasted ;

Fourth Fury. Kingly conclaves stern and cold, Where blood with gold is bought and sold ;

Fifth Fury. From the furnace, white and hot, In which —

A Fury. Speak not : whisper not : I know all that ye would tell, But to speak might break the spell Which must bend the Invincible,

The stern of thought ; He yet defies the deepest power of Hell.

Fury. Tear the veil !

Another Fury. It is torn.

Chorus.

The pale stars of the morn Shine on a misery, dire to be borne. Dost thou faint, mighty Titan ? We laugh thee to scorn.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 253

Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for

man? Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran Those perishing waters ; a thirst of fierce fever, Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever. One came forth of gentle worth Smiling on the sanguine earth ; His words outlived him, like swift poison

Withering up truth, peace, and pity. Look ! where round the wide horizon

Many a million-peopled city Vomits smoke in the bright air. Mark that outcry of despair ! 'Tis his mild and gentle ghost

Wailing for the faith he kindled : Look again, the flames almost

To a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled : The survivors round the embers Gather in dread. J°y> joy, joy ! Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers, And the future is dark, and the present is spread Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.

Semichorus I. Drops of bloody agony flow From his white and quivering brow. Grant a little respite now : See a disenchanted nation Springs like day from desolation ; To Truth its state is dedicate, And Freedom leads it forth, her mate ; A legioned band of linked brothers Whom Love calls children —

Semichorus II.

'Tis another's : See how kindred murder kin :

254 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

'Tis the vintage-time for death and sin : Blood, like new wine, bubbles within : Till Despair smothers The struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win.

[All the FURIES vanish, except one.

lone. Hark, sister ! what a low yet dreadful groan Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart Of the good Titan, as storms tear the deep, And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves. Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him ?

Panthea. Alas ! I looked forth twice, but will no more.

lone. What didst thou see ?

Panthea. A woful sight : a youth

With patient looks nailed to a crucifix.

lone. What next?

Panthea. The heaven around, the earth below

Was peopled with thick shapes of human death, All horrible, and wrought by human hands, And some appeared the work of human hearts, For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles : And other sights too foul to speak and live Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear By looking forth : those groans are grief enough.

Fury. Behold an emblem : those who do endure Deep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heap Thousandfold torment on themselves and him.

Prometheus. Remit the anguish of that lighted stare ; Close those wan lips ; let that thorn-wounded brow Stream not with blood ; it mingles with thy tears ! Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death, So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix, So those pale fingers play not with thy gore. O, horrible ! Thy name I will not speak, It hath become a curse. I see, I see The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just, Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 255

Some hunted by foul lies from their heart's home, An early-chosen, late-lamented home ; As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind ; Some linked to corpses in unwholesome cells : Some — Hear I not the multitude laugh loud ? — Impaled in lingering fire : and mighty realms Float by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles, Whose sons are kneaded down in common blood By the red light of their own burning homes.

Fury. Blood thou canst see, and fire ; and canst hear groans ; Worse things, unheard, unseen, remain behind.

Prometheus. Worse?

Fury. In each human heart terror survives

The ruin it has gorged : the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true : Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man's estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare. The good want power, but to weep barren tears. The powerful goodness want : worse need for them. The wise want love ; and those who love want wisdom ; And all best things are thus confused to ill. Many are strong and rich, and would be just, But live among their suffering fellow-men As if none felt : they know not what they do.

Prometheus. Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes ; And yet I pity those they torture not.

Fury. Thou pitiest them ? I speak no more !

[ Vanishes.

Prometheus. Ah woe !

Ah woe ! Alas ! pain, pain ever, for ever ! I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear Thy works within my woe-illumined mind, Thou subtle tyrant ! Peace is in the grave.

256 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

The grave hides all things beautiful and good :

I am a God and cannot find it there,

Nor would I seek it : for, though dread revenge,

This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.

The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul

With new endurance, till the hour arrives

When they shall be no types of things which are.

Panthea. Alas ! what sawest thou ?

Prometheus. There are two woes ;

To speak, and to behold ; thou spare me one. Names are there, Nature's sacred watch-words, they Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry ; The nations thronged around, and cried aloud, As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love ! Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven Among them : there was strife, deceit, and fear : Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil. This was the shadow of the truth I saw.

The Earth. I felt thy torture, son, with such mixed joy As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits, Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought, And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind, Its world-surrounding aether : they behold Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass, The future : may they speak comfort to thee !

Panthea. Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather, Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather, Thronging in the blue air !

lone. And see ! more come,

Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb, That climb up the ravine in scattered lines. And, hark ! is it the music of the pines ? Is it the lake ? Is it the waterfall ?

Panthea. 'Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 257

Chorus of Spirits. From unremembered ages we Gentle guides and guardians be Of heaven-oppressed mortality ; And we breathe, and sicken not, The atmosphere of human thought : Be it dim, and dank, and grey, Like a storm-extinguished day, Travelled o'er by dying gleams ;

Be it bright as all between Cloudless skies and windless streams,

Silent, liquid, and serene ; As the birds within the wind,

As the fish within the wave, As the thoughts of man's own mind

Float through all above the grave ; We make there our liquid lair, Voyaging cloudlike and unpent Through the boundless element : Thence we bear the prophecy Which begins and ends in thee !

lone. More yet come, one by one ; the air around them Looks radiant as the air around a star.

First Spirit. On a battle-trumpet's blast I fled hither, fast, fast, fast, 'Mid the darkness upward cast. From the dust of creeds outworn, From the tyrant's banner torn, Gathering 'round me, onward borne, There was mingled many a cry — Freedom ! Hope ! Death ! Victory ! Till they faded through the sky ; And one sound, above, around, S

253 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

One sound beneath, around, above, Was moving ; 'twas the soul of love : 'Twas the hope, the prophecy, Which begins and ends in thee.

Second Spirit. A rainbow's arch stood on the sea, Which rocked beneath, immovably ; And the triumphant storm did flee, Like a conqueror, swift and proud, Between, with many a captive cloud, A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd, Each by lightning riven in half: I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh : Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff And spread beneath a hell of death O'er the white waters. I alit On a great ship lightning-split, And speeded hither on the sigh Of one who gave an enemy His plank, then plunged aside to die.

Third Spirit. I sate beside a sage's bed, And the lamp was burning red Near the book where he had fed, When a Dream with plumes of flame, To his pillow hovering came, And I knew it was the same Which had kindled long ago Pity, eloquence, and woe ; And the world awhile below Wore the shade, its lustre made. It has borne me here as fleet As Desire's lightning feet : I must ride it back ere morrow, Or the sage will wake in sorrow.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 259

Four tli Spirit. On a poet's lips I slept Dreaming like a love-adept In the sound his breathing kept ; Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, But feeds on the aerial kisses Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. He will watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, Nor heed nor see, what things they be ; But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality ! One of these awakened me, And I sped to succour thee.

lone. Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west Come, as two doves to one beloved nest, Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air On swift still winds glide down the atmosphere ? And, hark ! their sweet, sad voices ! 'tis despair Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound.

Panthea. Canst thou speak, sister ? all my words are drowned.

lone. Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float On their sustaining wings of skiey grain, Orange and azure deepening into gold : Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire.

Chorus of Spirits. Hast thou beheld the form of Love ?

Fifth Spirit.

As over wide dominions 1 sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's wildernesses,

2<5o PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided

pinions, Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial

tresses : His footsteps paved the world with light ; but as I passed

'twas fading, And hollow Ruin yawned behind : great sages bound in

madness, And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished,

unupbraiding, Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O King

of sadness, Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected glad- ness.

Sixth Spirit. Ah, sister ! Desolation is a delicate thing : It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air, But treads with killing footstep, and fans with silent wing The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and

gentlest bear ; Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet, Dream visions of aerial joy, and call the monster, Love, And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now

we greet.

Chorus. Though Ruin now Love's shadow be, Following him, destroyingly,

On Death's white and winged steed, Which the fleetest cannot flee,

Trampling down both flower and weed, Man and beast, and foul and fair, Like a tempest through the air ; Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, Woundless though in heart or limb.

f

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 261

Prometheus. Spirits ! how know ye this shall be ?

Chorus.

In the atmosphere we breathe, As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee,

From spring gathering up beneath, Whose mild winds shake the elder brake, And the wandering herdsmen know That the white-thorn soon will blow : Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace, When they struggle to increase,

Are to us as soft winds be

To shepherd boys, the prophecy

Which begins and ends in thee.

lone. Where are the Spirits fled ?

Panthea. Only a sense

Remains of them, like the omnipotence Of music, when the inspired voice and lute Languish, ere yet the responses are mute, Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul, Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll.

Prometheus. How fair these air-born shapes ! and yet I feel Most vain all hope but love ; and thou art far, Asia ! who, when my being overflowed, Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust. All things are still : alas ! how heavily This quiet morning weighs upon my heart ; Though I should dream I could even sleep with grief If slumber were denied not. I would fain Be what it is my destiny to be, The saviour and the strength of suffering man, Or sink into the original gulph of things : There is no agony, and no solace left ; Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more.

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PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Panthea. Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when The shadow of thy spirit falls on her ?

Prometheus. I said all hope was vain but love : thou lovest.

Panthea. Deeply in truth ; but the eastern star looks white, And Asia waits in that far Indian vale The scene of her sad exile ; rugged once And desolate and frozen, like this ravine ; But now invested with fair flowers and herbs, And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow Among the woods and waters, from the aether Of her transforming presence, which would fade If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell !

END OF THE FIRST ACT.

-

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SCENE I. Morning. A lovely Vale hi the Indian Caucasus. ASIA alone.

Asia. From all the blasts of heaven thou hast de- scended : Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes} And beatings haunt the desolated heart, Which should have learnt repose : thou hast descended Cradled in tempests ; thou dost wake, O Spring ! O child of many winds ! As suddenly Thou comest as the memory of a dream, Which now is sad because it hath been sweet ; Like genius, or like joy which riseth up As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds The desert of our life. This is the season, this the day, the hour ; At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine,

266 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Too long desired, too long delaying, come !

How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl !

The point of one white star is quivering still

Deep in the orange light of widening morn

Beyond the purple mountains : through a chasm

Of wind-divided mist the darker lake

Reflects it : now it wanes : it gleams again

As the waves fade, and as the burning threads

Of woven cloud unravel in pale air :

'Tis lost ! and through yon peaks of cloudlike snow

The roseate sun-light quivers : hear I not

The JEoYmn music of her sea-green plumes

Winnowing the crimson dawn ?

[PANTHEA enters. I feel, I see Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears, Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew. Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest The shadow of that soul by which I live, How late thou art ! the sphered sun had climbed The sea ; my heart was sick with hope, before The printless air felt thy belated plumes.

Panthea. Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint With the delight of a remembered dream, As are the noon-tide plumes of summer winds Satiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleep Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm Before the sacred Titan's fall, and thy Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity, Both love and woe familiar to my heart As they had grown to thine : erewhile I slept Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean Within dim bowers of green and purple moss, Our young Ione's soft and milky arms Locked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair, While my shut eyes and cheek were pressed within

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 267

The folded depth of her life-breathing bosom : But not as now, since I am made the wind Which fails beneath the music that I bear Of thy most worldless converse ; since dissolved Into the sense with which love talks, my rest Was troubled and yet sweet ; my waking hours Too full of care and pain.

Asia. Lift up thine eyes,

And let me read thy dream.

Panthea. As I have said

With our sea-sister at his feet I slept. The mountain mists, condensing at our voice Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes, From the keen ice shielding our linked sleep. Then two dreams came. One, I remember not. But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs Fell from Prometheus, and the azure night Grew radiant with the glory of that form Which lives unchanged within, and his voice fell Like music which makes giddy the dim brain, Faint with intoxication of keen joy : " Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world " With loveliness — more fair than aught but her, " Whose shadow thou art — lift thine eyes on me." I lifted them : the overpowering light Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er By love ; which, from his soft and flowing limbs, And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes, Steamed forth like vaporous fire ; an atmosphere Which wrapped me in its all-dissolving power, As the warm aether of the morning sun Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew. I saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt His presence flow and mingle through my blood Till it became his life, and his grew mine, And I was thus absorbed, until it passed, And like the vapours when the sun sinks down,

268 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Gathering again in drops upon the pines,

And tremulous as they, in the deep night

My being was condensed ; and as the rays

Of thought were slowly gathered, I could hear

His voice, whose accents lingered ere they died

Like footsteps of weak melody : thy name

Among the many sounds alone I heard

Of what might be articulate ; though still

I listened through the night when sound was none.

lone wakened then, and said to me :

" Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night ?

" I always knew what I desired before,

" Nor ever found delight to wish in vain.

" But now I cannot tell thee what I seek ;

" I know not ; something sweet, since it is sweet

" Even to desire ; it is thy sport, false sister ;

" Thou hast discovered some enchantment old,

" Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept

" And mingled it with thine : for when just now

" We kissed, I felt within thy parted lips

" The sweet air that sustained me, and the warmth

" Of the life-blood, for loss of which I faint,

" Quivered between our intertwining arms."

I answered not, for the Eastern star grew pale,

But fled to thee.

Asm. Thou speakest, but thy words

Are as the air : I feel them not : Oh, lift Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul !

Panthea. I lift them though they droop beneath the load Of that they would express : what canst thou see But thine own fairest shadow imaged there ?

Asia. Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven Contracted to two circles underneath Their long, fine lashes ; dark, far, measureless, Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 269

Panthea. Why lookest thou as if a spirit passed ?

Asia. There is a change : beyond their inmost depth I see a shade, a shape : 'tis He, arrayed In the soft light of his own smiles, which spread Like radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon. Prometheus, it is thine ! depart not yet ! Say not those smiles that we shall meet again Within that bright pavilion which their beams Shall build on the waste world ? The dream is told. What shape is that between us ? Its rude hair Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard Is wild and quick, yet 'tis a thing of air For through its grey robe gleams the golden dew Whose stars the noon has quenched not.

Dream. Follow ! Follow !

Panthea. It is mine other dream.

Asia. It disappears.

Panthea. It passes now into my mind. Methought As we sate here, the flower-infolding buds Burst on yon lightning-blasted almond-tree, When swift from the white Scythian wilderness A wind swept forth wrinkling the Earth with frost : I looked, and all the blossoms were blown down ; But on each leaf was stamped, as the blue bells Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief, O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW !

Asia. As you speak, your words

Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep With shapes. Methought among the lawns together We wandered, underneath the young grey dawn, And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind ; And the white dew on the new bladed grass, Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently : And there was more which I remember not : But on the shadows of the morning clouds,

270 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written

FOLLOW, O, FOLLOW ! as they vanished by,

And on each herb, from which Heaven's dew had fallen,

The like was stamped, as with a withering fire,

A wind arose among the pines ; it shook

The clinging music from their boughs, and then

Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts,

Were heard : Oh, FOLLOW, FOLLOW, FOLLOW ME !

And then I said : " Panthea, look on me."

But in the depth of those beloved eyes

Still I saw, FOLLOW, FOLLOW !

Echo. Follow, follow !

Pantliea. The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voices As they were spirit-tongued.

Asia. It is some being

Around the crags. What fine clear sounds ! O, list !

Echoes {imseeri). Echoes we : listen !

We cannot stay : As dew-stars glisten

Then fade away — Child of Ocean !

Asia. Hark ! Spirits speak. The liquid responses Of their aerial tongues yet sound.

Panthea. I hear.

Echoes. O, follow, follow,

As our voice recedeth Through the caverns hollow,

Where the forest spreadeth ;

(More distant?) O, follow, follow ! Through the caverns hollow,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 271

As the song floats thou pursue, Where the wild bee never flew, Through the noon-tide darkness deep, By the odour-breathing sleep Of faint night flowers, and the waves At the fountain-lighted caves, While our music, wild and sweet, Mocks thy gently falling feet, Child of Ocean !

Asia. Shall we pursue the sound ? It grows more faint And distant.

PantJiea. List ! the strain floats nearer now.

Echoes. In the world unknown

Sleeps a voice unspoken ; By thy step alone

Can its rest be broken ; Child of Ocean !

Asia. How the notes sink upon the ebbing wind !

Echoes.

O, follow, follow !

Through the caverns hollow, As the song floats thou pursue, By the woodland noon-tide dew ; By the forests, lakes, and fountains Through the many-folded mountains ; To the rents, and gulphs, and chasms, Where the Earth reposed from spasms, On the day when He and thou Parted, to commingle now ; Child of Ocean !

Asia. Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine, And follow, ere the voices fade away.

SCENE II. A Forest, intermingled with Rocks and Caverns. ASIA and PAN THE A pass into it. Two young Fauns are sitting on a Rock, listening.

Semichorus I. of Spirits.

The path through which that lovely twain Have passed, by cedar, pine, and yew, And each dark tree that ever grew, Is curtained out from Heaven's wide blue ;

Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain, Can pierce its interwoven bowers, Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew,

Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze,

Between the trunks of the hoar trees,

Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers Of the green laurel, blown anew ;

And bends, and then fades silently,

One frail and fair anemone :

Or when some star of many a one

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 273

That climbs and wanders through steep night,

Has found the cleft through which alone

Beams fall from high those depths upon

Ere it is borne away, away,

By the swift Heavens that cannot stay,

It scatters drops of golden light,

Like lines of rain that ne'er unite :

And the gloom divine is all around.

And underneath is the mossy ground ;

Semichorus II. There the voluptuous nightingales,

Are awake through all the broad noon-day. When one with bliss or sadness fails,

And through the windless ivy-boughs,

Sick with sweet love, droops dying away On its mate's music-panting bosom ; Another from the swinging blossom,

Watching to catch the languid close

Of the last strain, then lifts on high

The wings of the weak melody, 'Till some new strain of feeling bear

The song, and all the woods are mute ; When there is heard through the dim air The rush of wings, and rising there

Like many a lake-surrounded flute, Sounds overflow the listener's brain So sweet, that joy is almost pain.

Semichorus I. There those enchanted eddies play

Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw, By Demogorgon's mighty law, With melting rapture, or sweet awe, All spirits on that secret way ; As inland boats are driven to Ocean T

274 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw : And first there comes a gentle sound To those in talk or slumber bound,

And wakes the destined. Soft emotion Attracts, impels them : those who saw

Say from the breathing earth behind

There steams a plume-uplifting wind Which drives them on their path, while they

Believe their own swift wings and feet The sweet desires within obey : And so they float upon their way, Until, still sweet, but loud and strong, The storm of sound is driven along,

Sucked up and hurrying : as they fleet

Behind, its gathering billows meet And to the fatal mountain bear Like clouds amid the yielding air.

First Faun. Canst thou imagine where those spirits live Which make such delicate music in the woods ? We haunt within the least frequented caves And closest coverts, and we know these wilds, Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft : Where may they hide themselves ?

Second Faun. 'Tis hard to tell :

I have heard those more skilled in spirits say, The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools, Are the pavilions where such dwell and float Under the green and golden atmosphere Which noon-tide kindles through the woven leaves ; And when these burst, and the thin fiery air, „ The which they breathed within those lucent domes, Ascends to flow like meteors through the night, They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

275

And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire Under the waters of the earth again.

First Faun. If such live thus, have others other lives, Under pink blossoms or within the bells Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep, Or on their dying odours, when they die, Or in the sunlight of the sphered dew ?

Second Faun. Aye, many more which we may well divine. But, should we stay to speak, noontide would come, And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn, And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs Of fate, and chance, and God, and Chaos old, And Love, and the chained Titan's woful doom, And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth One brotherhood : delightful strains which cheer Our solitary twilights, and which charm To silence the unenvying nightingales.

SCENE III. A Pinnacle of Rock among Mountains. Asia and Panthea.

Panthea. Hither the sound has borne us — to the realm Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal, Like a volcano's meteor-breathing chasm, Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth, And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy, That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain To deep intoxication ; and uplift, Like Maenads who cry aloud, Evoe ! Evoe ! The voice which is contagion to the world.

Asia. Fit throne for such a Power ! Magnificent ! How glorious art thou, Earth ! And if thou be The shadow of some spirit lovelier still, Though evil stain its work, and it should be Like its creation, weak yet beautiful, I could fall down and worship that and thee. Even now my heart adoreth : Wonderful ! Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain : Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 277

As a lake, paving in the morning sky, With azure waves which burst in silver light, Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on Under the curdling winds, and islanding The peak whereon we stand, midway, around, Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves, And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist ; And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains From icy spires of sun-like radiance fling The dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray, From some Atlantic islet scattered up, Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops. The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines, Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, Awful as silence. Hark ! the rushing snow ! The sun-awakened avalanche ! whose mass, Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth Is loosened, and the nations echo round, Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.

Panthea. Look how the gusty sea of mist is break- ing In crimson foam, even at our feet ! it rises As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle.

Asia. The fragments of the cloud are scattered up; The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair ; Its billows now sweep o'er mine eyes ; my brain Grows dizzy ; I see thin shapes within the mist.

Panthea. A countenance with beckoning smiles : there burns An azure fire within its golden locks ! Another and another : hark ! they speak !

278 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Song of Spirits. To the deep, to the deep,

Down, down ! Through the shade of sleep, Through the cloudy strife Of Death and of Life ; Through the veil and the bar Of things which seem and are Even to the steps of the remotest throne, Down, down !

While the sound whirls around,

Down, down ! As the fawn draws the hound, As the lightning the vapour, As a weak moth the taper ; Death, despair ; love, sorrow ; Time both ; to-day, to-morrow ; As steel obeys the spirit of the stone, Down, down !

Through the grey, void abysm,

Down, down ! Where the air is no prism, And the moon and stars are not, And the cavern-crags wear not The radiance of Heaven, Nor the gloom to Earth given, Where there is one pervading, one alone,

Down, down !

In the depth of the deep

Down, down ! Like veiled lightning asleep, Like the spark nursed in embers, The last look Love remembers, Like a diamond, which shines On the dark wealth of mines,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

A spell is treasured but for thee alone. Down, down !

279

We have bound thee, we guide thee ;

Down, down ! With the bright form beside thee ; Resist not the weakness, Such strength is in meekness That the Eternal, the Immortal, Must unloose through life's portal The snake-like Doom coiled underneath throne

By that alone.

his

Scene IV. The Cave of Demogorgon. Asia and Panthea.

Panthea. What veiled form sits on that ebon throne ?

Asia. The veil has fallen.

Panthea. I see a mighty darkness

Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom Dart round, as light from the meridian sun, Ungazed upon and shapeless ; neither limb, Nor form, nor outline ; yet we feel it is A living Spirit.

Demogorgon. Ask what thou wouldst know.

Asia. What canst thou tell ?

Demogorgon. All things thou dar'st demand.

Asia. Who made the living world ?

Demogorgon. God.

Asia. Who made all

That it contains ? thought, passion, reason, will, Imagination ?

Demogorgon. God : Almighty God.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 281

Asia. Who made that sense which, when the winds of spring In rarest visitation, or the voice Of one beloved heard in youth alone, Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers, And leaves this peopled earth a solitude When it returns no more ?

Demogorgon. Merciful God.

Asia. And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse, Which from the links of the great chain of things, To every thought within the mind of man Sway and drag heavily, and each one reels Under the load towards the pit of death ; Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate ; And self-contempt, bitterer to drink than blood ; Pain, whose unheeded and familiar speech Is howling, and keen shrieks, day after day ; And Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell ?

Demogorgon. He reigns.

Asia. Utter his name : a world pining in pain Asks but his name : curses shall drag him down.

Demogorgon. He reigns.

Asia. I feel, I know it : who ?

Demogorgon. He reigns.

Asia. Who reigns ? There was the Heaven and Earth at first, And Light and Love ; then Saturn, from whose throne Time fell, an envious shadow : such the state Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway, As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves Before the wind or sun has withered them, And semivital worms ; but he refused The birthright of their being, knowledge, power, The skill which wields the elements, the thought Which pierces this dim universe like light, Self-empire, and the majesty of love ;

282 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus

Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter,

And with this law alone, " Let man be free,"

Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven.

To know nor faith, nor love, nor law ; to be

Omnipotent but friendless is to reign ;

And Jove now reigned ; for on the race of man

First famine, and then toil, and then disease,

Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before,

Fell ; and the unseasonable seasons drove

With alternating shafts of frost and fire,

Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves :

And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent,

And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle

Of unreal good, which levied mutual war,

So ruining the lair wherein they raged.

Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes

Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers,

Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms,

That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings

The shape of Death ; and Love he sent to bind

The disunited tendrils of that vine

Which bears the wine of life, the human heart ;

And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey,

Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath

The frown of man ; and tortured to his will

Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,

And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms

Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves.

He gave man speech, and speech created thought,

Which is the measure of the universe ;

And Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven,

Which shook, but fell not ; and the harmonious mind

Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song ;

And music lifted up the listening spirit

Until it walked, exempt from mortal care,

Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound ;

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 283

And human hands first mimicked and then mocked,

With moulded limbs more lovely than its own,

The human form, till marble grew divine ;

And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see

Reflected in their race, behold, and perish.

He told the hidden power of herbs and springs,

And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep.

He taught the implicated orbits woven

Of the wide-wandering stars ; and how the sun

Changes his lair, and by what secret spell

The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye

Gazes not on the interlunar sea :

He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs,

The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean,

And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then

Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed

The warm winds, and the azure aether shone,

And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen.

Such, the alleviations of his state,

Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs

Withering in destined pain : but who reigns down

Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while

Man looks on his creation like a God

And sees that it is glorious, drives him on

The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth,

The outcast, the abandoned, the alone ?

Not Jove : while yet his frown shook heaven, aye, when

His adversary from adamantine chains

Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare

Who is his master ? Is he too a slave ?

Demogorgon. All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil : Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no. , Asia. Whom calledst thou God ?

Demogorgon. I spoke but as ye speak,

For Jove is the supreme of living things.

Asia. Who is the master of the slave?

284 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Demogorgon. If the abysm

Could vomit forth its secrets. But a voice Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless ; For what would it avail to bid thee gaze On the revolving world ? What to bid speak Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change ? To these All things are subject but eternal Love.

Asia. So much I asked before, and my heart gave The response thou hast given ; and of such truths Each to itself must be the oracle. One more demand ; and do thou answer me As mine own soul would answer, did it know That which I ask. Prometheus shall arise Henceforth the sun of this rejoicing world : When shall the destined hour arrive ?

Demogorgon. Behold !

Asia. The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds Which trample the dim winds : in each there stands A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight. Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there, And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars : Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink With eager lips the wind of their own speed, As if the thing they loved fled on before, And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks Stream like a comet's flashing hair : they all Sweep onward.

Demogorgon. These are the immortal Hours, Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.

Asia. A spirit with a dreadful countenance Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulph. Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer, Who art thou ? Whither wouldst thou bear me ? Speak !

Spirit. I am the shadow of a destiny

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 285

More dread than is my aspect : ere yon planet Has set, the darkness which ascends with me Shall wrap in lasting night heaven's kingless throne.

Asia. What meanest thou ?

Panthea. That terrible shadow floats

Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke Of earthquake-ruined cities o'er the sea. Lo ! it ascends the car ; the coursers fly Terrified : watch its path among the stars Blackening the night !

Asia. Thus I am answered : strange !

Panthea. See, near the verge, another chariot stays ; An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire, Which comes and goes within its sculptured rim Of delicate strange tracery ; the young spirit That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope ; How its soft smiles attract the soul ! as light Lures winged insects through the lampless air.

Spirit. My coursers are fed with the lightning,

They drink of the whirlwind's stream, And when the red morning is brightning

They bathe in the fresh sunbeam ;

They have strength for their swiftness I deem, Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.

I desire : and their speed makes night kindle ; I fear : they outstrip the Typhoon ;

Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle We encircle the earth and the moon : We shall rest from long labours at noon :

Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.

SCENE V. The Car pauses within a Cloud on the Top of a snowy Mountain. ASIA, PANTHEA, and the SPIRIT of the Hour.

Spirit.

On the brink of the night and the morning My coursers are wont to respire ;

But the Earth has just whispered a warning That their flight must be swifter than fire : They shall drink the hot speed of desire !

Asia. Thou breathest on their nostrils, but my breath Would give them swifter speed.

Spirit. Alas ! it could not.

Panthea. Oh Spirit ! pause, and tell whence is the light Which fills the cloud ? the sun is yet unrisen.

Spirit. The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo Is held in heaven by wonder ; and the light Which fills this vapour, as the aerial hue Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water, Flows frem thy mighty sister.

Panthea. Yes, I feel —

Asia. What is it with thee, sister ? Thou art pale.

Panthea. How thou art changed ! I dare not look on thee ; I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 287

Is working in the elements, which suffer

Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell

That on the day when the clear hyaline

Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand

Within a veined shell, which floated on

Over the calm floor of the crystal sea,

Among the Aegean isles, and by the shores

Which bear thy name ; love, like the atmosphere

Of the sun's fire filling the living world,

Burst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven

And the deep ocean and the sunless caves

And all that dwells within them ; till grief cast

Eclipse upon the soul from which it came :

Such art thou now ; nor is it I alone,

Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one,

But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy.

Hear'st thou not sounds i' the air which speak the love

Of all articulate beings ? Feel'st thou not

The inanimate winds enamoured of thee? List! {Music?)

Asia. Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his Whose echoes they are : yet all love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familar voice wearies not ever. Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air, It makes the reptile equal to the God : They who inspire it most are fortunate, As I am now ; but those who feel it most Are happier still, after long sufferings, As I shall soon become.

Panthea, List ! Spirits speak.

VOICE in the Air, singing. Life of Life ! thy lips enkindle

With their love the breath between them ; And thy smiles before they dwindle

Make the cold air fire ; then screen them

288 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

In those looks, where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light ! thy limbs are burning

Through the vest which seems to hide them

As the radiant lines of morning

Through the clouds ere they divide them ;

And this atmosphere divinest

Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.

Fair are others ; none beholds thee, But thy voice sounds low and tender

Like the fairest, for it folds thee

From the sight, that liquid splendour,

And all feel, yet see thee never,

As I feel now, lost for ever !

Lamp of Earth ! where'er thou movest Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,

And the souls of whom thou lovest Walk upon the winds with lightness,

Till they fail, as I am failing,

Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing !

Asia.

My soul is an enchanted boat,

Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ;

And thine doth like an angel sit

Beside a helm conducting it, Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.

It seems to float ever, for ever,

Upon that many-winding river,

Between mountains, woods, abysses,

A paradise of wildernesses ! Till, like one in slumber bound, Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound :

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 289

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions

In music's most serene dominions ; Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.

And we sail on, away, afar,

Without a course, without a star, But by the instinct of sweet music driven ;

Till through Elysian garden islets

By thee, most beautiful of pilots,

Where never mortal pinnace glided,

The boat of thy desire is guided : Realms where the air we breathe is love, Which in the winds and on the waves doth move, Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.

We have passed Age's icy caves,

And manhood's dark and tossing waves, And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray :

Beyond the glassy gulphs we flee

Of shadow-peopled Infancy, Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day ;

A paradise of vaulted bowers,

Lit by downward-gazing flowers,

And watery paths that wind between

Wildernesses calm and green, Peopled by shapes too bright to see, And rest, having beheld ; somewhat like thee ; Which walk upon the sea, and chaunt melodiously !

END OF THE SECOND ACT.

APOLLO TELLS OCEAN OF THE FALL OF JOVE '

SCENE I. Heaven. JUPITER on his Throne ; THETIS and the other Deities assembled.

Jupiter. Ye congregated powers of heaven, who share The glory and the strength of him ye serve, Rejoice ! henceforth I am omnipotent. All else had been subdued to me ; alone The soul of man, like unextinguished fire, Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach, and doubt, And lamentation, and reluctant prayer, Hurling up insurrection, which might make Our antique empire insecure, though built On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear ; And though my curses through the pendulous air, Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake, And cling to it ; though under my wrath's might It climb the crags of life, step after step, Which wound it, as ice wounds unsandalled feet, It yet remains supreme o'er misery, Aspiring, unrepressed, yet soon to fall : Even now have I begotten a strange wonder,

294 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

That fatal child, the terror of the earth, Who waits but till the destined hour arrive, Bearing from Demogorgon's vacant throne The dreadful might of ever-living limbs Which clothed that awful spirit unbeheld, To redescend, and trample out the spark.

Pour forth heaven's wine, Idaean Ganymede,

And let it fill the Daedal cups like fire,

And from the flower-inwoven soil divine

Ye all-triumphant harmonies arise,

As dew from earth under the twilight stars :

Drink ! be the nectar circling through your veins

The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods,

Till exultation burst in one wide voice

Like music from Elysian winds.

And thou Ascend beside me, veiled in the light Of the desire which makes thee one with me, Thetis, bright image of eternity ! When thou didst cry, " Insufferable might ! " God ! Spare me ! I sustain not the quick flames, " The penetrating presence ; all my being, " Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw " Into a dew with poison, is dissolved, " Sinking through its foundations : " even then Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a third Mightier than either, which, unbodied now, Between us floats, felt, although unbeheld, Waiting the incarnation, which ascends, (Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels Griding the winds ?) from Demogorgon's throne. Victory ! victory ! Feel'st thou not, O world, The earthquake of his chariot thundering up Olympus ?

\T1u Car of the HOUR arrives. DEMOGORGON descends ; and moves towards the Throne of J U PITER.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 295

Awful shape, what art thou ? Speak !

Demogorgon. Eternity. Demand no direr name. Descend, and follow me down the abyss. I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn's child ; Mightier than thee : and we must dwell together Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not. The tyranny of heaven none may retain, Or reassume, or hold, succeeding thee : Yet if thou wilt, as 'tis the destiny Of trodden worms to writhe till they are dead, Put forth thy might.

Jupiter. Detested prodigy!

Even thus beneath the deep Titanian prisons I trample thee ! thou lingerest ?

Mercy ! mercy ! No pity, no release, no respite ! Oh, That thou wouldst make mine enemy my judge, Even where he hangs, seared by my long revenge, On Caucasus ! he would not doom me thus. Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not The monarch of the world ? What then art thou ? No refuge ! no appeal !

Sink with me then, We two will sink on the wide waves of ruin, Even as a vulture and a snake outspent Drop, twisted in inextricable fight, Into a shoreless sea. Let hell unlock Its mounded oceans of tempestuous fire, And whelm on them into the bottomless void This desolated world, and thee, and me, The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck Of that for which they combated.

Ai! Ai! The elements obey me not. I sink Dizzily down, ever, for ever, down. And, like a cloud, mine enemy above Darkens my fall with victory ! Ai, Ai !

SCENE II. The Mouth of a great River in the Island A tlantis. OCE AN is discovered reclining near the Shore; APOLLO stands beside him.

Ocean. He fell, thou sayest, beneath his conqueror's frown ?

Apollo. Aye, when the strife was ended which made dim The orb I rule, and shook the solid stars, The terrors of his eye illumined heaven With sanguine light, through the thick ragged skirts Of the victorious darkness, as he fell : Like the last glare of day's red agony, Which from a rent among the fiery clouds, Burns far along the tempest-wrinkled deep.

Ocean. He sunk to the abyss ? To the dark void ?

Apollo. An eagle so caught in some bursting cloud On Caucascus, his thunder-baffled wings Entangled in the whirlwind, and his eyes Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail Beats on his struggling form, which sinks at length Prone, and the aerial ice clings over it.

Ocean. Henceforth the fields of Heaven-reflecting sea Which are my realm will heave, unstained with blood,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 297

Beneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn Swayed by the summer air ; my streams will flow Round many-peopled continents, and round Fortunate isles ; and from their glassy thrones Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see The floating bark of the light-laden moon With that white star, its sightless pilot's crest, Borne down the rapid sunset's ebbing sea ; Tracking their path no more by blood and groans, And desolation, and the mingled voice Of slavery and command ; but by the light Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours, And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices, And sweetest music, such as spirits love.

Apollo. And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make My mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse Darkens the sphere I guide ; but list, I hear The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit That sits i' the morning star.

Ocean. Thou must away ;

Thy steeds will pause at even, till when farewell : The loud deep calls me home even now to feed it With azure calm out of the emerald urns Which stand for ever full beside my throne. Behold the Nereids under the green sea, Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream, Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns, Hastening to grace their mighty sister's joy.

[A sound of waves is heard. It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm. Peace, monster ; I come now. Farewell.

Apollo. Farewell.

K — ^Cf		V — p I
rtik r	SCENE ID

SCENE III. Caucasus. PROMETHEUS, HERCULES, Ione, the Earth, Spirits, Asia, and Panthea, borne in the Car with the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.

Hercules unbinds Prometheus, who descends.

Hercules. Most glorious among spirits, thus doth strength To wisdom, courage, and long-suffering love, And thee, who art the form they animate, Minister like a slave.

Prometheus. Thy gentle words

Are sweeter even than freedom long desired And long delayed.

Asia, thou light of life, Shadow of beauty unbeheld : and ye, Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain Sweet to remember, through your love and care : Henceforth we will not part. There is a cave, All overgrown with trailing odorous plants, Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers, And paved with veined emerald, and a fountain Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound. From its curved roof the mountain's frozen tears

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 299

Like snow, or silver, or long diamond spires,

Hang downward, raining forth a doubtful light :

And there is heard the ever-moving air,

Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds,

And bees ; and all around are mossy seats,

And the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass ;

A simple dwelling, which shall be our own ;

Where we will sit and talk of time and change,

As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged.

What can hide man from mutability?

And if ye sigh, then I will smile ; and thou,

lone, shalt chaunt fragments of sea-music,

Until I weep, when ye shall smile away

The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed.

We will entangle buds and flowers and beams

Which twinkle on the fountain's brim, and make

Strange combinations out of common things,

Like human babes in their brief innocence ;

And we will search, with looks and words of love,

For hidden thoughts, each lovelier than the last,

Our unexhausted spirits ; and like lutes

Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind,

Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new,

From difference sweet where discord cannot be ;

And hither come, sped on the charmed winds,

Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees

From every flower aerial Enna feeds,

At their known island-homes in Himera,

The echoes of the human world, which tell

Of the low voice of love, almost unheard,

And dove-eyed pity's murmured pain, and music,

Itself the echo of the heart, and all

That tempers or improves man's life, now free ;

And lovely apparitions, dim at first,

Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright

From the embrace of beauty, whence the forms

Of which these are the phantoms, casts on them

300 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

The gathered rays which are reality,

Shall visit us, the progeny immortal

Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy,

And arts, though unimagined, yet to be.

The wandering voices and the shadows these

Of all that man becomes, the mediators

Of that best worship love, by him and us

Given and returned ; swift shapes and sounds, which grow

More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind,

And veil by veil, evil and error fall :

Such virtue has the cave and place around.

{Turning to the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.) For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. lone, Give her that curved shell, which Proteus old Made Asia's nuptial boon, breathing within it A voice to be accomplished, and which thou Didst hide in grass under the hollow rock.

lone. Thou most desired Hour, more loved and lovely Than all thy sisters, this is the mystic shell ; See the pale azure fading into silver Lining it with a soft yet glowing light : Looks it not like lulled music sleeping there ?

Spirit. It seems in truth the fairest shell of Ocean : Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange.

Prometheus. Go, borne over the cities of mankind On whirlwind-footed coursers : once again Outspeed the sun around the orbed world ; And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air, Thou breathe into the many-folded shell, Loosening its mighty music ; it shall be As thunder mingled with clear echoes : then Return ; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave. And thou, O, Mother Earth !—

The Earth. I hear, I feel ;

Thy lips are on me, and thy touch runs down Even to the adamantine central gloom Along these marble nerves ; 'tis life, 'tis joy,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 301

And through my withered, old, and icy frame The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down Circling. Henceforth the many children fair Folded in my sustaining arms ; all plants, And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged, And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes, Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom, Draining the poison of despair, shall take And interchange sweet nutriment ; to me Shall they become like sister-antelopes By one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind, Nursed among lilies near a brimming stream. The dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float Under the stars like balm : night-folded flowers Shall suck unwithering hues in their repose : And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather Strength for the coming day, and all its joy : And death shall be the last embrace of her Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother Folding her child, says, " Leave me not again."

Asia. Oh, mother ! wherefore speak the name of death? Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak, Who die?

The Earth. It would avail not to reply : Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known But to the uncommunicating dead. Death is the veil which those who live call life : They sleep, and it is lifted : and meanwhile In mild variety the seasons mild With rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds, And long blue meteors cleansing the dull night, And the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun's All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild, Shall clothe the forests and the fields, aye, even The crag-built deserts of the barren deep, With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers.

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And thou ! There is a cavern where my spirit Was panted forth in anguish whilst thy pain Made my heart mad, and those who did inhale it Became mad too, and built a temple there, And spoke, and were oracular, and lured The erring nations round to mutual war, And faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee ; Which breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds A violet's exhalation, and it fills With a serener light and crimson air Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around ; It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine, And the dark linked ivy tangling wild, And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms Which star the winds with points of coloured light, As they rain through them, and bright golden globes Of fruit, suspended in their own green heaven, And through their veined leaves and ember stems The flowers whose purple and translucid bowls Stand ever mantling with aerial dew, The drink of spirits : and it circles round, Like the soft waving wings of noonday dreams, Inspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine, Now thou art thus restored. This cave is thine. Arise ! Appear !

(A Spirit rises in the likeness of a winged child.) This is my torch-bearer ; Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing On eyes from which he kindled it anew With love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine, For such is that within thine own. Run, wayward, And guide this company beyond the peak Of Bacchic Nysa, Maenad-haunted mountain, And beyond Indus and its tribute rivers, Trampling the torrent streams and grassy lakes With feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying, And up the green ravine, across the vale,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Beside the windless and crystalline pool,

Where ever lies, on unerasing waves,

The image of a temple, built above,

Distinct with column, arch, and architrave,

And palm-like capital, and over-wrought,

And populous most with living imagery,

Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles

Fill the hushed air with everlasting love.

It is deserted now, but once it bore

Thy name, Prometheus ; there the emulous youths

Bore to thy honour through the divine gloom

The lamp which was thine emblem ; even as those

Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope

Into the grave, across the night of life,

As thou hast borne it most triumphantly

To this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell.

Beside that temple is the destined cave.

303

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SCENE IV. ^4 Forest. In the Background a Cave. Prometheus, Asia, Panthea, Ione, and the Spirit of the Earth.

lone. Sister, it is not earthly : how it glides Under the leaves ! how on its head there burns A light, like a green star, whose emerald beams Are twined with its fair hair ! how, as it moves, The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass ! Knowest thou it ?

Panthea. It is the delicate spirit

That guides the earth through heaven. From afar The populous constellations call that light The loveliest of the planets ; and sometimes It floats along the spray of the salt sea, Or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud, Or walks through fields or cities while men sleep, Or o'er the mountain tops, or down the rivers, Or through the green waste wilderness, as now, Wondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned It loved our sister Asia, and it came

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 305

Each leisure hour to drink the liquid light Out of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted As one bit by a dipsas, and with her It made its childish confidence, and told her All it had known or seen, for it saw much, Yet idly reasoned what it saw ; and called her, — For whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I, — " Mother, dear mother."

The Spirit of the Earth {running to Asia). Mother,

dearest mother ; May I then talk with thee as I was wont ? May I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms, After thy looks have made them tired of joy? May I then play beside thee the long noons, When work is none in the bright silent air ?

Asia. I love thee, gentlest being, and henceforth Can cherish thee unenvied : speak, I pray : Thy simple talk once solaced, now delights.

Spirit of the Earth. Mother, I am grown wiser, though

a child Cannot be wise like thee, within this day ; And happier too ; happier and wiser both. Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly worms, And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs That bore ill berries in the woods, were ever An hindrance to my walks o'er the green world : And that, among the haunts of humankind, Hard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks, Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles, Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance, Or other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man ; And women too, ugliest of all things evil, (Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair, When good and kind, free and sincere like thee,) When false or frowning made me sick at heart To pass them, though they slept, and I unseen.

x

306 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Well, my path lately lay through a great city

Into the woody hills surrounding it :

A sentinel was sleeping at the gate :

When there was heard a sound, so loud, it shook

The towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet

Than any voice but thine, sweetest of all ;

A long, long sound, as it would never end :

And all the inhabitants leapt suddenly

Out of their rest, and gathered in the streets,

Looking in wonder up to Heaven, while yet

The music pealed along. I hid myself

Within a fountain in the public square,

Where I lay like the reflex of the moon

Seen in a wave under green leaves ; and soon

Those ugly human shapes and visages

Of which I spoke as having wrought me pain,

Passed floating through the air, and fading still

Into the winds that scattered them ; and those

From whom they passed seemed mild and lovely forms

After some foul disguise had fallen, and all

Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise

And greetings of delightful wonder, all

Went to their sleep again : and when the dawn

Came, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and

efts, Could e'er be beautiful ? yet so they were, And that with little change of shape or hue : All things had put their evil nature off: I cannot tell my joy, when o'er a lake Upon a drooping bough with night-shade twined, I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries, With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay Those lovely forms imaged as in a sky ; So with my thoughts full of these happy changes, We meet again, the happiest change of all.

Asia. And never will we part, till thy chaste sister

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 307

Who guides the frozen and inconstant moon

Will look on thy more warm and equal light

Till her heart thaw like flakes of April snow

And love thee.

, Spirit of the Earth. What ; as Asia loves Prometheus ?

Asia. Peace, wanton, thou art yet not old enough. Think ye by gazing on each other's eyes To multiply your lovely selves, and fill With sphered fires the interlunar air ?

Spirit of the Earth. Nay, mother, while my sister trims her lamp 'Tis hard I should go darkling.

Asia. Listen ; look !

The Spirit of the Hour enters.

Prometheus. We feel what thou hast heard and seen : yet speak.

Spirit of the Hour. Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled The abysses of the sky and the wide earth, There was a change : the impalpable thin air And the all-circling sunlight were transformed, As if the sense of love dissolved in them Had folded itself round the sphered world. My vision then grew clear, and I could see Into the mysteries of the universe : Dizzy as with delight I floated down, Winnowing the lightsome air with languid plumes, My coursers sought their birth-place in the sun, Where they henceforth will live exempt from toil Pasturing flowers of vegetable fire. And where my moonlike car will stand within A temple, gazed upon by Phidian forms Of thee, and Asia, and the Earth, and me, And you fair nymphs looking the love we feel ; In memory of the tidings it has borne ;

308 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Beneath a dome fretted with graven flowers,

Poised on twelve columns of resplendent stone,

And open to the bright and liquid sky.

Yoked to it by an amphisbenic snake

The likeness of those winged steeds will mock

The flight from which they find repose. Alas,

Whither has wandered now my partial tongue

When all remains untold which ye would hear ?

As I have said I floated to the earth :

It was, as it is still, the pain of bliss

To move, to breathe, to be ; I wandering went

Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind,

And first was disappointed not to see

Such mighty change as I had felt within

Expressed in outward things ; but soon I looked,

And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked

One with the other even as spirits do,

None fawned, none trampled ; hate, disdain, or fear,

Self-love or self-content, on human brows,

No more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell,

" All hope abandon ye who enter here ; "

None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear

Gazed on another's eye of cold command,

Until the subject of the tyrant's will

Became, worse fate, the abject of his own,

Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death.

None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines

Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak ;

None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart

The sparks of love and hope till there remained

Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed,

And the wretch crept a vampire among men,

Infecting all with his own hideous ill ;

None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk

Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes,

Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy

With such a self-mistrust as has no name.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 309

And women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind

As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew

On the wide earth, passed ; gentle radiant forms,

From custom's evil taint exempt and pure ;

Speaking the wisdom once they could not think,

Looking emotions once they feared to feel,

And changed to all which once they dared not be,

Yet being now, made earth like heaven ; nor pride,

Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame,

The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall,

Spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love.

Thrones, altars, judgment-seats, and prisons ; wherein,

And beside which, by wretched men were borne

Sceptres, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes

Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance,

Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes,

The ghosts of a no more remembered fame,

Which, from their unworn obelisks, look forth

In triumph o'er the palaces and tombs

Of those who were their conquerors : mouldering round

Those imaged to the pride of kings and priests,

A dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide

As is the world it wasted, and are now

But an astonishment ; even so the tools

And emblems of its last captivity,

Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth,

Stand, not o'erthrown, but unregarded now.

And those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man,

Which, under many a name and many a form

Strange, savage, ghastly, dark and execrable,

Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world ;

And which the nations, panic-stricken, served

With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love

Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless,

And slain among men's unreclaiming tears,

Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate,

310 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Frown, mouldering fast, o'er their abandoned shrines The painted veil, by those who were, called life, Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread, All men believed and hoped, is torn aside ; The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king Over himself; just, gentle, wise : but man Passionless ; no, yet free from guilt or pain, Which were, for his will made or suffered them, Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, From chance, and death, and mutability, The clogs of that which else might oversoar The loftiest star of unascended heaven, Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.

END OF THE THIRD ACT.

■"" PANTHEA AND IONE ASLEEP

ACT IV

SCENE, a Part of the Forest near the Cave of PROME- THEUS. PANTHEA and IONE are sleeping: they awaken gradually during the first Song.

Voice of unseen Spirits. The pale stars are gone ! For the sun, their swift shepherd, To their folds then compelling, In the depths of the dawn, Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee Beyond his blue dwelling, As fawns flee the leopard. But where are ye ?

A Train of dark Forms and Shadows passes by confusedly ', singing. Here, oh, here : We bear the bier Of the Father of many a cancelled year !

314 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Spectres we Of the dead Hours be, We bear Time to his tomb in eternity.

Strew, oh, strew

Hair, not yew ! Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew !

Be the faded flowers

Of Death's bare bowers Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours !

Haste, oh, haste !

As shades are chased, Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste.

We melt away,

Like dissolving spray, From the children of a diviner day,

With the lullaby

Of winds that die On the bosom of their own harmony !

lone. What dark forms were they ?

Panthea. The past Hours weak and grey, With the spoil which their toil Raked together From the conquest but One could foil.

lone. Have they passed ?

Panthea.

They have passed ; They outspeeded the blast, — While 'tis said, they are fled :

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 315

lone. Whither, oh, whither ?

Panthea. To the dark, to the past, to the dead.

Voice of unseen Spirits. Bright clouds float in heaven, Dew-stars gleam on earth, Waves assemble on ocean, They are gathered and driven By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee ! They shake with emotion, They dance in their mirth. But where are ye ?

The pine boughs are singing Old songs with new gladness, The billows and fountains Fresh music are flinging, Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea ; The storms mock the mountains With the thunder of gladness. But where are ye ?

lone. What charioteers are these ?

Panthea. Where are their chariots ?

Semichorus of Hours. The voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth

Have drawn back the figured curtain of sleep Which covered our being and darkened our birth

In the deep.

A Voice. In the deep ?

Semichorus II.

Oh, below the deep.

316 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Semichorus I. An hundred ages we had been kept

Cradled in visions of hate and care, And each one who waked as his brother slept,

Found the truth —

Semichorus II.

Worse than his visions were !

Semichorus I. We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep ;

We have known the voice of Love in dreams, We have felt the wand of Power, and leap —

Semichorus II. As the billows leap in the morning beams !

Chorus. Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze,

Pierce with song heaven's silent light, Enchant the day that too swiftly flees,

To check its flight ere the cave of night.

Once the hungry Hours were hounds

Which chased the day like a bleeding deer,

And it limped and stumbled with many wounds Through the nightly dells of the desert year.

But now, oh weave the mystic measure Of music, and dance, and shapes of light,

Let the Hours, and the spirits of might and pleasure, Like the clouds and sunbeams, unite.

A Voice.

Unite !

Panthea. See, where the Spirits of the human mind Wrapped in sweet sounds, as in bright veils, approach.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 317

Chorus of Spirits.

We join the throng

Of the dance and the song, By the whirlwind of gladness borne along ;

As the flying-fish leap

From the Indian deep, And mix with the sea-birds, half asleep.

Chorus of Hours. Whence come ye, so wild and so fleet, For sandals of lightning are on your feet, And your wings are soft and swift as thought, And your eyes are as love which is veiled not ?

Chorus of Spirits.

We come from the mind

Of human kind Which was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind ;

Now 'tis an ocean

Of clear emotion, A heaven of serene and mighty motion.

From that deep abyss

Of wonder and bliss, Whose caverns are crystal palaces ;

From those skiey towers

Where Thought's crowned powers Sit watching your dance, ye happy Hours !

From the dim recesses

Of woven caresses, Where lovers catch ye by your loose tresses ;

From the azure isles,

Where sweet Wisdom smiles, Delaying your ships with her syren wiles.

From the temples high Of Man's ear and eye, Roofed over Sculpture and Poesy ;

318 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

From the murmurings Of the unsealed springs Where Science bedews his Daedal wings.

Years after years,

Through blood, and tears, And a thick hell of hatreds, and hopes, and fears,

We waded and flew,

And the islets were few Where the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew.

Our feet now, every palm,

Are sandalled with calm, And the dew of our wings is a rain of balm ;

And, beyond our eyes,

The human love lies Which makes all it gazes on Paradise.

Chorus of Spirits and Hours.

Then weave the web of the mystic measure ; From the depths of the sky and the ends of the earth,

Come, swift Spirits of might and of pleasure, Fill the dance and the music of mirth,

As the waves of a thousand streams rush by

To an ocean of splendour and harmony !

Chorus of Spirits.

Our spoil is won,

Our task is done, We are free to dive, or soar, or run ;

Beyond and around,

Or within the bound Which clips the world with darkness round.

We'll pass the eyes Of the starry skies Into the hoar deep to colonize :

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 319

Death, Chaos, and Night, From the sound of our flight, Shall flee, like mists from a tempest's might.

And Earth, Air, and Light,

And the Spirit of Might, Which drives round the stars in their fiery flight ;

And Love, Thought, and Breath,

The powers that quell Death, Wherever we soar shall assemble beneath.

And our singing shall build

In the void's loose field A world for the Spirit of Wisdom to wield ;

We will take our plan

From the new world of man, And our work shall be called the Promethean.

Chorus of Hours. Break the dance, and scatter the song ; Let some depart, and some remain.

Semichorus I. We, beyond heaven, are driven along :

Semichorus II. Us the enchantments of earth retain :

Semichorus I. Ceaseless, and rapid, and fierce, and free, With the Spirits which build a new earth and sea, And a heaven where yet heaven could never be.

Semichorus II. Solemn, and slow, and serene, and bright, Leading the Day and outspeeding the Night, With the powers of a world of perfect light.

320 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Semichorus I. We whirl, singing loud, round the gathering sphere, Till the trees and the beasts, and the clouds appear From its chaos made calm by love, not fear.

Semichorus II We encircle the ocean and mountains of earth, And the happy forms of its death and birth Change to the music of our sweet mirth.

Chorus of Hours and Spirits. Break the dance, and scatter the song,

Let some depart, and some remain, Wherever we fly we lead along In leashes, like starbeams, soft yet strong,

The clouds that are heavy with love's sweet rain.

Panthea. Ha ! they are gone !

lone. Yet feel you no delight

From the past sweetness ?

Panthea. As the bare green hill

When some soft cloud vanishes into rain, Laughs with a thousand drops of sunny water To the unpavilioned sky !

lone. Even whilst we speak

New notes arise. What is that awful sound ?

Panthea. 'Tis the deep music of the rolling world Kindling within the strings of the waved air, Aeolian modulations.

lone. Listen too,

How every pause is filled with under-notes, Clear, silver, icy, keen awakening tones, Which pierce the sense, and live within the soul, As the sharp stars pierce winter's crystal air And gaze upon themselves within the sea.

Panthea. But see where through two openings in the forest

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 321

Which hanging branches overcanopy,

And where two runnels of a rivulet,

Between the close moss violet-inwoven,

Have made their path of melody, like sisters

Who part with sighs that they may meet in smiles,

Turning their dear disunion to an isle

Of lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts ;

Two visions of strange radiance float upon

The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound,

Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet

Under the ground and through the windless air.

lone. I see a chariot like that thinnest boat, In which the mother of the months is borne By ebbing night into her western cave, When she upsprings from interlunar dreams, O'er which is curved an orblike canopy Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods Distinctly seen through that dusk airy veil, Regard like shapes in an enchanter's glass ; Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold, Such as the genii of the thunder-storm Pile on the floor of the illumined sea When the sun rushes under it ; they roll And move and grow as with an inward wind ; Within it sits a winged infant, white Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow, Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost, Its limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds Of its white robe, woof of aetherial pearl. Its hair is white, the brightness of white light Scattered in strings ; yet its two eyes are heavens Of liquid darkness, which the Deity Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured From jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes, Tempering the cold and radiant air around, With fire that is not brightness ; in its hand It sways a quivering moon-beam, from whose point

Y

322 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

A guiding power directs the chariot's prow

Over its wheeled clouds, which as they roll

Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds,

Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew.

Panthea. And from the other opening in the wood Rushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony, A sphere, which is as many thousand spheres, Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass Flow, as through empty space, music and light : Ten thousand orbs involving and involved, Purple and azure, white, and green, and golden, Sphere within sphere ; and every space between Peopled with unimaginable shapes, Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep, Yet each inter-transpicuous, and they whirl Over each other with a thousand motions, Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning, And with the force of self-destroying swiftness, Intensely, slowly, solemnly roll on, Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones, Intelligible words and music wild. With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb Grinds the bright brook into an azure mist Of elemental subtlety, like light ; And the wild odour of the forest flowers, The music of the living grass and air, The emerald light of leaf-entangled beams Round its intense yet self-conflicting speed, Seem kneaded into one aerial mass Which drowns the sense. Within the orb itself, Pillowed upon its alabaster arms, Like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil, On its own folded wings, and wavy hair, The Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep, And you can see its little lips are moving, Amid the changing light of their own smiles, Like one who talks of what he loves in dream.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 323

lone. Tis only mocking the orb's harmony.

Panthea. And from a star upon its forehead, shoot, Like swords of azure fire, or golden spears With tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined, Embleming heaven and earth united now, Vast beams like spokes of some invisible wheel Which whirl as the orb whirls, swifter than thought, Filling the abyss with sun-like lightnings, And perpendicular now, and now transverse, Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass, Make bare the secrets of the earth's deep heart ; Infinite mine of adamant and gold, Valueless stones, and unimagined gems, And caverns on crystalline columns poised With vegetable silver overspread ; Wells of unfathomed fire, and water springs Whence the great sea, even as a child is fed, Whose vapours clothe earth's monarch mountain-tops With kingly, ermine snow. The beams flash on And make appear the melancholy ruins Of cancelled cycles ; anchors, beaks of ships ; Planks turned to marble ; quivers, helms, and spears, And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts, Round which death laughed, sepulchred emblems Of dead destruction, ruin within ruin ! The wrecks beside of many a city vast, Whose population which the earth grew over Was mortal, but not human ; see, they lie, Their monstrous works, and uncouth skeletons, Their statues, homes and fanes ; prodigious shapes Huddled in grey annihilation, split, Jammed in the hard, black deep ; and over these, The anatomies of unknown winged things, And fishes which were isles of living scale, And serpents, bony chains, twisted around

324 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

The iron crags, or within heaps of dust To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs Had crushed the iron crags ; and over these The jagged alligator, and the might Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, And weed-overgrown continents of earth, Increased and multiplied like summer worms On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe Wrapped deluge round it like a cloke, and they Yelled, gasped, and were abolished ; or some God Whose throne was in a comet, passed, and cried, Be not ! And like my words they were no more.

The Earth.

The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness !

The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness, The vaporous exultation not to be confined !

Ha ! ha ! the animation of delight

Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light, And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.

The Moon.

Brother mine, calm wanderer,

Happy globe of land and air, Some Spirit is darted like a beam from thee,

Which penetrates my frozen frame,

And passes with the warmth of flame, WTith love, and odour, and deep melody

Through me, through me !

The Earth. Ha ! ha ! the caverns of my hollow mountains, My cloven fire-crags, sound-exulting fountains

Laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter. The oceans, and the deserts, and the abysses, And the deep air's unmeasured wildernesses,

Answer from all their clouds and billows, echoing after.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 325

They cry aloud as I do. Sceptred curse, Who all our green and azure universe Threatenedst to muffle round with black destruction, sending A solid cloud to rain hot thunder-stones, And splinter and knead down my children's bones, All I bring forth, to one void mass battering and blend- ing:

Until each crag-like tower, and storied column, Palace, and obelisk, and temple solemn,

My imperial mountains crowned with cloud, and snow, and fire ; My sea-like forests, every blade and blossom Which finds a grave or cradle in my bosom,

Were stamped by thy strong hate into a lifeless mire.

How art thou sunk, withdrawn, covered, drunk up

By thirsty nothing, as the brackish cup Drained by a desert-troop, a little drop for all ;

And from beneath, around, within, above,

Filling thy void annihilation, love Burst in like light on caves cloven by the thunder-ball.

The Moon. The snow upon my lifeless mountains Is loosened into living fountains, My solid oceans flow, and sing, and shine : A spirit from my heart bursts forth, It clothes with unexpected birth My cold bare bosom : Oh ! it must be thine On mine, on mine !

Gazing on thee I feel, I know

Green stalks burst forth, and bright flowers grow,

326 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

And living shapes upon my bosom move :

Music is in the sea and air,

Winged clouds soar here and there, Dark with the rain new buds are dreaming of: 'Tis love, all love !

The Earth.

It interpenetrates my granite mass,

Through tangled roots and trodden clay doth pass, Into the utmost leaves and delicatest flowers ;

Upon the winds, among the clouds 'tis spread,

It wakes a life in the forgotten dead, They breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers.

And like a storm bursting its cloudy prison With thunder, and with whirlwind, has arisen

Out of the lampless caves of unimagined being :

With earthquake shock and swiftness making shiver Thought's stagnant chaos, unremoved for ever,

Till hate, and fear, and pain, light-vanquished shadows, fleeing,

Leave Man, who was a many-sided mirror, Which could distort to many a shape of error,

This true fair world of things, a sea reflecting love ; Which over all his kind as the sun's heaven Gliding o'er ocean, smooth, serene, and even

Darting from starry depths radiance and life, doth move,

Leave Man, even as a leprous child is left, Who follows a sick beast to some warm cleft

Of rocks, through which the might of healing springs is poured ; Then when it wanders home with rosy smile, Unconscious, and its mother fears awhile

It is a spirit, then, weeps on her child restored.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 327

Man, oh, not men ! a chain of linked thought,

Of love and might to be divided not, Compelling the elements with adamantine stress ;

As the sun rules, even with a tyrant's gaze,

The unquiet republic of the maze Of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free wilder- ness.

Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul,

Whose nature is its own divine control, Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea ;

Familiar acts are beautiful through love ;

Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove Sport like tame beasts, — none knew how gentle they could be !

His will, with all mean passions, bad delights, And selfish cares, its trembling satellites,

A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey,

Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm Love rules, through waves which dare not over- whelm,

Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway.

All things confess his strength. Through the cold

mass Of marble and of colour his dreams pass ; Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear ; Language is a perpetual Orphic song, Which rules with Daedal harmony a throng Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless were.

The lightning is his slave ; heaven's utmost deep Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep

328 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on !

The tempest is his steed, he strides the air ;

And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare, Heaven, hast thou secrets ? Man unveils me ; I have none.

The Moon. The shadow of white death has passed From my path in heaven at last, A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep ; And through my newly-woven bowers, Wander happy paramours, Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep Thy vales more deep.

The Earth. As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold, And crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist,

And wanders up the vault of the blue day, Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst.

The Moon. Thou are folded, thou art lying In the light which is undying Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine ; All suns and constellations shower On thee a light, a life, a power Which doth array thy sphere ; thou pourest thine On mine, on mine !

The Earth. I spin beneath my pyramid of night, Which points into the heavens dreaming delight,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 329

Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep ; As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing, Under the shadow of his beauty lying,

Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth keep.

The Moon. As in the soft and sweet eclipse, When soul meets soul on lovers' lips, High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull ; So when thy shadow falls on me, Then am I mute and still, by thee Covered ; of thy love, Orb most beautiful, Full, oh, too full !

Thou art speeding round the sun Brightest world of many a one ; Green and azure sphere which shinest With a light which is divinest Among all the lamps of Heaven To whom life and light is given ; I, thy crystal paramour Borne beside thee by a power Like the polar Paradise, Magnet-like of lovers' eyes ; I, a most enamoured maiden Whose weak brain is overladen With the pleasure of her love, Maniac-like around thee move Gazing, an insatiate bride, On thy form from every side Like a Maenad, round the cup Which Agave lifted up In the weird Cadmaean forest. Brother, whereso'er thou soarest I must hurry, whirl and follow Through the heavens wide and hollow,

330 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Sheltered by the warm embrace

Of thy soul from hungry space,

Drinking from thy sense and sight

Beauty, majesty, and might,

As a lover or a chameleon

Grows like what it looks upon,

As a violet's gentle eye

Gazes on the azure sky Until its hue grows like what it beholds,

As a grey and watery mist

Grows like solid amethyst Athwart the western mountain it enfolds,

When the sunset sleeps Upon its snow.

The Earth. And the weak day weeps That it should be so. Oh, gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight Falls on me like thy clear and tender light Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night,

Through isles for ever calm ; Oh, gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce The caverns of my pride's deep universe, Charming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce Made wounds which need thy balm.

Panthea. I rise as from a bath of sparkling water, A bath of azure light, among dark rocks, Out of the stream of sound.

lone. Ah me ! sweet sister,

The stream of sound has ebbed away from us, And you pretend to rise out of its wave, Because your words fall like the clear, soft dew Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair.

Panthea. Peace ! peace ! A mighty Power, which is as darkness,

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 331

Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky- Is showered like night, and from within the air Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up Into the pores of sunlight : the bright visions, Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone, Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night.

lone. There is a sense of words upon mine ear.

Panthea. An universal sound like words : Oh, list !

Demogorgon. Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul.

Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies, Beautiful orb ! gathering as thou dost roll

The love which paves thy path along the skies :

The Earth. I hear : I am as a drop of dew that dies.

Demogorgon. Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth

With wonder, as it gazes upon thee ; Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth

Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony :

The Moon. I hear : I am a leaf shaken by thee !

Demogorgon. Ye kings of suns and stars, Daemons and Gods,

Aetherial Dominations, who possess Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes

Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness :

A Voice from above. Our great Republic hears, we are bless'd, and bless.

332 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Demogorgon. Ye happy dead, whom beams of brightest verse

Are clouds to hide, not colours to portray, Whether your nature is that universe

Which once ye saw and suffered —

A Voice from beneath.

Or as they Whom we have left, we change and pass away.

Demogorgon. Ye elemental Genii, who have homes

From man's high mind even to the central stone Of sullen lead ; from Heaven's star- fretted domes

To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on :

A confused Voice. We hear : thy words waken Oblivion.

Demogorgon. Spirits, whose homes are flesh : ye beasts and birds,

Ye worms, and fish ; ye living leaves and buds ; Lightning and wind ; and ye untameable herds,

Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes :

A Voice. Thy voice to us is wind among still woods.

Demogorgon. Man, who wert once a despot and a slave ;

A dupe and a deceiver ; a decay ; A traveller from the cradle to the grave

Through the dim night of this immortal day :

AIL Speak : thy strong words may never pass away.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 333

Demogorgon. This is the day, which down the void abysm At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,

And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep : Love, from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour

Of dead endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, These are the seals of that most firm assurance

Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength ; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, Mother of many acts and hours, should free

The serpent that would clasp her with his length ; These are the spells by which to re-assume An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ;

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent ; To love, and bear ; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ;

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent ; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free ; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

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