University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

I.
AN UNSKILLED HAND UPON THE STRINGS.

It is a shame that I should lift my voice
In these great days of toil, and thought, and song,
And speak unfitting music, doing wrong
To the pure silence that should be my choice
If song could be so curb'd. But as I stood
By the wild steeps that guard the laurel'd hill
A whisper came, and with a sudden thrill
Shook summer warmth through all my fleeter blood;
Then taking voice, as evening winds will do,
When wander'd in the grass, said, as I bent,
“If thou hast aught of what the gods have lent,
Sing, and in singing keep thy music true.”
So, with this whisper growing up, I flung
An unskilled hand upon the strings and sung.

II.
BRIGHTER THE FLOWERS.

Brighter the flowers still grow on him who said,
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,”
From out the past he speaks, the gentle giver
Of a mute prophecy, which on his head
Lights with an immortality that clips
Away the earthly pathway that he trod,
And shrines him a divinity, a god,
A spirit breathing from ethereal lips
The eloquence that we may never hear
If we can enter not into the feeling
That gave it birth, and hear the music stealing
Like incense upward to that timeless sphere,
Where something surer than an echo cries—
“Death is befool'd, the poet never dies.”

III.
A YOUTH UPRISING.

A youth uprising with a pale, sweet face,
Fraught with intensest wonder, with the Muse
For his most passionate mistress, whose rich dues
He paid with all the eloquence and grace
Of a most boyish genius, wanting only
A few short years to ripen, and to be
A name round which an immortality
Might wreathe its light. But Death can make all lonely
The temple of the higher gifts, and sow
Around this life a silence. But the thought,
The eloquence, the work can own him not.
And so he stands to us in all the glow
Of his own Endymion, a sweet breath
That speaks for ever, though all else be death.

IV.
THREE SPIRITS LINKING.

Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Diderôt.

Three spirits linking made a triple mind,
Then scorning customs shook the stars apart,
And but with thought, and a most cunning art,
Shook heaven's footstool like a sudden wind.
Apostates from the faith of Reason, they
Held but as food for scorn all sacred laws;
Yet they fought nobly in an awful cause
(For they fight well who fight in open day).
But all in vain. For baffled Reason fell,
As falls a wounded bird within the night
Unseen, and men shook as with sudden fright,
And look'd up to the sky, but all was well,
And the mad warfare of the three but served
To show to unborn years where wisdom swerved.

V.
LOCHLEVEN.

Mide lake that laps with a most liquid tongue
The base of these worn ruins. Have ye naught
Within thy caverns that can aid the thought
To grasp the vanish'd years whose breath has flung
A mist o'er all I see, so that I stand
A prey to keenest torture? Speak, and tell
The wonders that thy waves repictured well
When these worn ruins had strength o'er all the land.
What visions of high dames, what pages meek,
What warriors of firm mould, what glorious deeds,
What trappings of high pomp, what foaming steeds,
What chivalry of action? Speak, O, speak,
That I may grasp the past, and open up
Its hidden feasts, and bid my being sup.

VI.
WHEREVER GENIUS WHISPERS.

Wherever genius whispers, “Here shall be
An immortality for men and time
To worship,” there the ages grow sublime
And break in haloes. Therefore unto me
(Who make such pilgrimages in my dreams)
Lake Leman is a mighty wish, and Rome
A vast desire, to which all others come,
Like bubbles unto each in summer streams.
For glory is of theirs through whose wide light
Walk those great spirits who have made this earth
Too narrow for the effluence of that birth
Which made them all but gods. Yet in their might
Are they not gods, for whom we set apart
A Grecian worship in the templed heart?

VII.
DARK EYES WITHIN WHOSE LIGHT.

Bark eyes within whose light as by some spell
Girlhood and maidenhood rise up to claim,
By turns, a spot within their depths to dwell.
They strive, and girlhood half retires in shame;
Then maidenhood comes forth with modest pace,
Laden with Iris dreams, whose tender might
Tones all their glances into softer light,
And flings a sweeter shadow on the face
But for a moment—girlhood comes again
With short, sweet laugh; and brow, and lips, and eyes
Beam through a softly-winning smile, and then
You start at such transition in surprise.
Thus, by sweet turns, the two still strive away,
Till rounded maidenhood shall win the day.

VIII.
A BLESSING ON THE TINKERS.

A blessing on the tinkers, and on him
Who was their monarch—he who laid him down
Within a prison house all damp and dim,
And made himself immortal with his dream,
That sprung from out his heart as from the crown
Of the sweet sky the day will come in streams
When morning breaks, and in my bosom leaps
And frets the wish to see the quiet spot,
Where, in the calm that evil men know not,
The sacred dust of the grand dreamer sleeps,
Waiting the hour when God shall stir the dust;
Then in all truth and humbleness will he
Rise with his labour manifold, and be
The interpreter of his own dream and trust.

IX.
DARE I PROFANE THE WREATH?

Dare I profane the wreath, and with blind aim
Snatch from the cunning gods who hold above
The heads of men the laurel few may love,
Since it requires a heart, and without shame
Feel its rich coolness temper all my brows?
Then sing, unwitting that I held a lyre
That echo'd only to the baser fire
Which some stray chance to meaner strings allows;
And glowing with false hope, I strove to reach
A point of higher strength, but fell, and found
That in my own deep weakness I was bound,
Like one whom utter fear deprives of speech.
And in my shame I flung the wreath away,
To sing at night but never in the day.

X.
I TURN'D THE PAGES.

I turn'd the pages writ by mighty men—
Giants who in the past had toil'd and fought,
And won great trophies in the war of Thought,
And with them immortality. And when
Word burst on word with all the heaven-fed glow
Which is of genius, I stood like one
Who hears a melody he cannot shun—
So sweet its music that perforce must grow
Upon him with its rapture. And I felt
Another soul possess me as I caught
The inspiration of their words; and, fraught
With wonder at their mighty toil, I knelt,
And whisper'd with a sense of holy fear—
“They move still with us; lo! the Great are here.”

XI.
TO BE AT YARROW.

To be at Yarrow—this is no high wish,
And yet what magic wraps the name. To stand
Alone in the Parnassus of our land
With every pulse within the breast aflush
With all that song will sanctify, and slip
Into those feelings which for ever make
A Paradise where'er they breathe, and take
The purer utterance of the poet's lip,
And join it to the stream's whose waves still con,
With an unalter'd eloquence, the tale
Which is immortal, and hath lit the vale
With a most hallow'd lustre, and a tone
That speaks to all that can its spell prolong
By dreams of love and lovers and of song.

XII.
TO GO DOWN TO THE GRAVE.

To go down to the grave with many a dream
Hid in the breast, but never clothed in words,
With not one hope again to touch the chords
That brought such music—were but the extreme
Of a brute creed. Far other faith than this
Must have my worship; for the unlaurel'd ones,
Whose hearts were of that delicate tint which shuns
The gaze and rush of life, save that which is
Born of their fancy, after death may be
The poets of a mightier world than ours,
And twine each fresh burst of their spirit pow'rs
To stars and systems as they glide and flee;
And, safe from scorn of men and earthly things,
Shoot their ripe souls into eternal strings.

XIII.
SUCH MUSIC HAD THE GODS.

Such music had the gods as I have now,
When all Olympus shook, and the quick stars
Glimmer'd behind the golden-fretted bars
Of their dominions. At its touch the soul
Springs from its slumber, full awakenèd,
And moves throughout the bosom with the tread
Of some great giant. Where would be my goal,
If I should slip existence, and ascend
With this mad music? Should I fix my home
With the clear echoes of the sky, and roam
With all the clouds and with their colours blend?
And widen with eternity, and steal
Into infinity with all I feel?

XIV.
O, FOND ROMANCE!

What dreams were mine to-night, O fond romance,
That came upon me like a summer sleep,
And bound me so my spirit could not keep
Account with earth, but lay as in a trance
And heard Scherezadé tell again
Her stories to the king, and saw the seas
Brim up with pearls, golden palaces,
Slave-guarded maidens, genii on the plain,
And swarthy fishermen, and gardens rife
With sunny fruitage—heard sweet music play
Accompaniment to the voluptuous day—
And saw a city full of turban'd strife;
While, as if wishing to make all complete,
The Caliph turn'd the corner of a street.

XV.
A POET IN WHOSE HEART.

A poet in whose heart upsprung the life
And soul of passion, nursing with its fires
All influences of all high desires
And mighty thoughts, that found within the strife
Of mightier things their fitting sphere. And thus
He grew a Titan, shaping in his strength
A god-like image, which became at length
All worn and hollow, but still luminous
With the first touch of heaven's ordaining fingers,
And giving forth those tones that hallow still
What good we claim as ours and even ill
(For genius consecrates where'er it lingers),
But Death threw down the Memnon, and its fall
Shook worlds, and then threw echoes over all.

XVI.
I KNOW NOT HOW IT IS.

I know not how it is, but when I hear
The name of Wordsworth it is as a spell
That wakes—as if the poet's self were near-
A flood of kindred feeling. And I dwell
With a rapt earnestness, and love, and awe
Upon the life and spirit of him whose name
Is knit to all a placid heart can draw
From out of Nature, and the sweet acclaim
Of all her many tones that breathe and live
For the rapt poet only. I would give
A lifetime's earnings if I could make mine,
In all its pure and simple healthiness,
The lore of him of Rydal, and possess
“The vision and the faculty divine.”

XVII.
SPIRIT THAT WALKEST.

Spirit that walkest on these waters, now
Unseen but ever heard, take thou the form
Most suited to thy wish, and fair and warm
Rise with a dazzling light upon thy brow,
And round thee let the dreams of those who made
Their home by thee start up, that I may feel
My inner being from its dwelling steal,
As when a beam of light strikes through the shade,
And, sinking into all thy glorious clasp,
Like some wood echo when a rest it finds,
I move with thee, like the invisible winds,
Fill'd with thy presence, and with mighty grasp
Bind all the dreams of genius into one,
And lie within them as within a sun.

XVIII.
A SIGH FOR THE PAST.

I lay amid the wreck of a rude time,
When men were rough as the huge beams they laid
For dwellings, and within the distant shade
I saw the city sleep, and heard the chime
Of bells; and linking, with a quiet thought,
The mighty present to the less mighty past,
I stood between the two, and, bowing, cast
My worship at the feet of all that sought
To place the seven-leagued boots upon advance.
Yet could I not without regret betray
A secret yearning for the earlier day,
When this great earth had not such wide expanse,
And men were rough, but with that roughness true
To all that pale refinement never knew.

XIX.
I WALK WITH THE STERN DANTE.

I walk with the stern Dante through his hell:
On either side a wall of spirits stands,
Who wave from out the gloom their wailing hands,
And answer each with sudden shriek and yell.
I bow, not daring to look up, while fear
Laps at my inmost soul, as in a lake
The waves against a single stone will break,
And the heart, drying up, has not one tear.
I sink, half-grasping at the bard, and he,
A kindred gloom upon his brow, turns round;
When, lo, a spirit from the gloomy bound
Glides in between the Florentine and me,
Who, as he feels his skirt, cries in dismay,
Qual maraviglia, and I swoon away.

XX.
IT WAS A SPOT SO QUIET.

It was a spot so quiet that the stream
Was in itself a silence, and the wood
Slept as if Somnus in a dreary mood
Had wept down tears upon it from the beam
Of his sleep-wearied eyes; and far away,
Through a long vista of deep shade, was seen
A little spot of soft and brightest green,
Whereon the moonlight, sister to the day,
Was feasting. In such spot as this the wise
Might come and break the twining snake-like thralls
Of hydra'd error, or great Pan himself
Come forth and hear the shepherds sacrifice,
Or Oberon, sweet king of fairy elf,
Lead forth his queen in midnight festivals.