University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

I. THE POETIC FUNCTION.—1.

The College of the Priests is with us still:
Still on our low, and sin-defilèd ground
The borders of their sacred vestments sound:
But where by caverned wood, or crested hill,
Or cedar-girded mountain citadel,
Where are the high-commissioned Prophets found?
The Unanointed Order, not uncrowned,
For whom the curtain unremovable
Of Time, transparent grows;—to whom is given,
When mighty Nations rage in anarchy,
Bending with arm outstretched and potent rod
To part the waves of that rebellious sea;
To warn ill Rulers of the ways of Heaven,
And sternly monish Kings that know not God?

II. THE POETIC FUNCTION.—2.

I asked; and it was answered me—‘The Praise
And Burthen, which to these did once belong,
Is now committed to the Lords of Song;—
For, throned above earth-mist, and Time's poor haze,
Their spiritual spheres they build and raise:
And those eternal Truths on which are hung
The fates of mortals, lurk their leaves among;
And what exalts a nation; what betrays.
Therefore the People cleave to them: and all
To whom the World, not Truth and Man, are dear
Abhor them, and suspect; despise, yet fear;
And will not bid them to their festival,
Unless, like Balak's wise and wicked Seer,
They merge the Prophet in the Sorcerer.’

III.

A wayward child, scarce knowing what he wanted,
Ran to one side while all his comrades played,
And in the sunny ground a berry planted:
An olive-tree uprose; and in its shade,
While summer after summer glowed and panted,
That child's descendants sat. The tree decayed:
Then of one polished branch this flute was made,
The sire of all sweet sounds and strains enchanted,
Immortal nurslings of the transient breeze.
That child is dead and gone; that olive now
Is swept away with all its centuries;
Yet this selected fragment of a bough
Survives, and may survive till earth expires
And mortal strains are lost in songs of heavenly choirs.

IV.

The spring of my sweet life thou madest thine;
And on my summer glories thou hast fed:
And now the vernal melodies are dead
On lips that mourn for joys no longer mine.
The summer brilliance now hath ceased to shine
Upon a brow so oft disquieted
By agonising doubts: thy love is fled;
And thou art flying—how dare I repine?
How could I hope so great a love would cleave
To one whose fault too well was known to thee?
Lament not, O my love; or, if thou grieve,
For me lament not, though my grief thou share;
For I have known in dreams my destiny,
And what I ought to welcome I can bear.

V.

I was ashamed when some one said to me,
‘How blue those mountains are, that cloud how fair’—
I could have praised them first: but could not dare
To mix false words with joy so pure and free.
And when they said, ‘Behold that shining sea!’
I wept beneath my long and veiling hair;
Stung by the rapture which I could not share,
Long, long I wept, and unrestrainedly.
Stranger! if thou canst help me, help me now.
Beauty I saw of old where'er I gazed:
But now, like one by light too brilliant dazed,
To me the loveliest things look blank and grey.
A cloud is on my breast, and on my brow—
Abashed I turn from fairest shapes away.

VI.

The light that played above thine infancy,
I see it still in all that shining hair:
And on that countenance pale and brow of care,
Depressed by melancholy though they be,
Departing Youth looks back remorsefully—
Then why such sorrow in a world so fair,
As if there were no Heaven to minister
Immortal nourishment to one like thee?
Ah! fret not thou at Fortune's petty stings,
Sorrow unlovely and unsanctified,
But strictly fortify the loftier heart,
Communing hourly with undying things;
And, without promptings of injurious pride,
Remember what thou wert and what thou art.

VII. HUMILITY.

Those hills, so graceful, though to us not grand,
Are grand to children: shade-swept hill and dale
The same in beauty, on an ampler scale
With broader trees and shades, for them expand:
To them, the pebbles on the wet sea-sand
Are gems: to them each river brim and vale
Sends forth a thousand odours sweet and bland,
Too low for us to catch, too faint, too frail.
They see as far as we do: but their eye
Comparing all things with a humbler measure,
Exalts not less than multiplies their pleasure—
Ah that the moral world thus constantly
Might yield her gifts to our humility!
The smallest key unlocks the largest treasure.

VIII. THE ISLAND OF INISFALLEN.

The holy sunshine like a garment lay,
A sacerdotal vesture dense with gold,
On every shelving mound, and slumbrous wold,
As round and round we paced at noon our way.
Onward we paced by many a winding bay,
And hollow lawn that seemed to have ta'en its mould
From wave-like anthems rolling here of old,
While yet old rites maintained harmonious sway.
Green slopes we trod, majestic as the plains
Of sand disclosed by Ocean's ebbing tide:
Hard by were groves of ash through which we spied
The ruined convent with its weather-stains,
From whose calm bosom passed of old the strains
This Eden of blue lakes that sanctified.

IX.

To raise the triumph of victorious Art;
To poise a temple in the middle air;
To deck its walls with sculptures gravely fair
Or hues which trace the windings of the heart:
To pierce the maze of Science, and to part
Error from Truth, until thy sedulous care
Had made the moral map of Man as bare
Of doubt or hindrance as the Ocean's chart—
Was this thine aim, high Spirit? knew'st thou not
That, but one soul to lift and purify,
And keep a single day from sinful blot,
Exceeds the strength of frail mortality?
Take back awhile thy corals: and, untaught
To totter, be not emulous to fly.

X. LOW COMPANY.

Sad Host of an ignoble company
Of hungry Cares that to thy sumptuous board
Troop, not unbidden, preying on their lord—
Mingling their shrill harsh voices with the glee
Of Pride and Sense, their friends of high degree;
If these, unmasked, are duteously abhorred,
If thou wouldst be once more from those restored
To peace, to honour, and to liberty;
Stamp on thy floor, and bid thy guests depart,
And fill thy gorgeous chambers with the poor:
Yea, press those outcasts to thine aching heart
Whom thou so long hast banished from thy door,
As if contagion issued from the eye
Of Want, or pleading Woe's melodious sigh.

XI.

Praise from the noble, from the gentle, Love,
Too oft unfairly won, or dearly bought,
By man may be accepted, though not sought,
And when accepted, honoured: for they rove,
Outcasts from Heaven, a world that loves them not—
If then they seek thy tent or sheltering grove,
Count them lost Angels to thy threshold brought
For rest, ere yet they wing their flight above.
Welcome those Strangers meekly when they come,
And gain their blessing when they seek the sky:
Strive not to keep them: Earth is not their home;
And Man must humbly live, and gladly die.
Death—Death, a dark-eyed Page, shall be his guide
To seats where Praise and Love with Life and Peace abide.

XII.

A glorious Crown, if God maintain it, thou,
O Queen, hast rightfully inherited:
If not, even now it totters on thy head:
Therefore to Him present in time thy vow.
For thousands are there that have knit their brow
Against thy throne and thee: thousands have spread
Their hands against thee: yea, the shaft was sped
Long since, the venomed shaft on-flying now.
And yet despond not; for thy People's prayers,
And wise men wakeful all the livelong night,
Are striving for thee; and the brave will fight;
And all the good are fighting unawares
For thee. Away with comfortless despairs!
Power is of God; and He will guard the Right.

XIII.

The golden splendour of the regal Crown
Shoots from the meekest brow a dazzling sheen
Painful to eyes malignant. King or Queen!
Think not of men, whether they smile or frown.
The Princely sceptre and the Priestly gown
Are symbols of eternal Power serene;
Visibly preaching Him who reigns unseen—
An impious deed it were to lay them down,
And to usurp that peace by Heaven bestowed
Upon the Holy Order of the Poor;
That genuine peace which can alone endure
While men are trained to mark the hand of God
Alike in all things; doing, each his part,
In low estate or high, with an untroubled heart.

XIV.

Far rather let us loathe and scorn the power
Of Song, than seek her fane with hearts impure,
Panting for praise or pay, the vulgar lure
Of those on whom the Muse doth scantly shower,
Or not at all, her amaranthine dower:
Ye that would serve her, first of this be sure,
Her glorious Pæans will for aye endure
Whether or not she smile upon your bower.
Go forth, eternal Melodies, go forth
O'er all the world, and in your broad arms wind it!
Go forth, as ye are wont, from south to north;
No spot so barren but your spells can find it:
So long as Heaven is vaulted o'er the earth,
So long your power survives, and who can bind it?

XV. FORM OF CONSECRATION FOR A NEW HOUSE.

I bless thy new-raised threshold: let us pray
That never faithless friend, insulting foe,
O'er this pure stone their hateful shadows throw:
May the poor gather round it day by day.
I bless this hearth: thy children here shall play:
Here may their graces and their virtues blow:
May sin defile it not; and want and woe
And sickness seldom come, nor come to stay.
I bless thy House. I consecrate the whole
To God. It is His Temple. Let it be
Worthy of Him, confided thus to thee.
Man's dwelling, like its lord, enshrines a soul:
It hath great destinies, wherein do lie,
Self-sown, the seeds of Immortality.

XVI. TO AN INFANT.

Familiar Spirit! that so graciously
Dost take whatever fortune may befall,
Trusting thy fragile form to the arms of all,
And never counting it indignity
To sit caressed upon the humblest knee;
Thou, having yet no words, aloud dost call
Upon our hearts: the fever and the gall
Of our dark bosoms are reproved in thee.
From selfish fears and lawless wishes free,
Thou hast no painful feeling of thy weakness;
From shafts malign and pride's base agony
Protected by the pillows of thy meekness:
Thou hast thy little loves which do not grieve thee,
Unquiet make thee, or unhappy leave thee.

XVII. EARTHLY HOPE.

Painter of Hope! too bright that brow, too fair;
Those eyes too eager; all too deep the flush
Upon that cheek! O bid those streams that gush
So warmly, backward to her heart repair,
And warm, if warm they can, the chillness there:
Make her unconscious hands deflower and crush
Those unblown buds: command the tears to rush
Into worn eyes that, sadly constant, stare
As if they strove the narrowing light to hold
Of some far object, gliding fast away.
Let this be Hope: then make her stand forlorn
Upon the shore disconsolate and cold
Of seas fast-ebbing, over which the morn
Begins to tremble with its ashy grey.

XVIII.

Ample, and vast, and infinitely still,
Slants down from the blue crystal of the sky,
Throne of the Muse, the Heliconian hill:
Citheron's frowning crest ascends hard by
With clouds and tempest plagued perpetually:
There walk those feet that fates unblest fulfil:
There tread the avenging Furies: wild and shrill
There rings the victim's shriek, the Mænad's cry.
Poets! let none deceive you; nor confound
Tumult with strength. Then most the Muse is calm,
Singing the strifes of sublunary things:
Steady her hand among the quivering strings:
No sorrow she approves that slights her balm:
Her toils are rest-ennobled, virtue-crowned!

XIX.

Nations, their mission o'er, their office done,
Are forcibly drawn downwards; and that tide
Which raised them, homeward summoned doth subside.
What man by art can stay the sinking sun,
Or Spring departing when her goal is won?
States too are transient! longer none may bide
When once, its lesson taught or place supplied,
That steadying weight by it sustained is gone.
Nations, be wise! Whate'er the course ye hold,
Strive that your furthest aim subservient be
To the virtuous progress of Humanity.
Woe to that greatness which commercial gold
Alone creates, or seals. Such leaves no trace,
Sinking; and lighter things float up into its place.

XX. TO THE THAMES.

River, whose charge is from the winds and sky
The Imperial City's agitated ear
To soothe with murmur low and ceaseless cheer,
Do thy great, pious task perpetually:
But add a warning voice more deep and high:
Borne down from bridge to bridge in smooth career
Tell her to whom the pomp of gold is dear,
Of Tyre that fell; of Fortune's perfidy!
Tell her, whilst on thy broad and glimmering mirror
The shadows of her turrets tremble and slide,
How brief the impress of victorious Pride,
How nearly Triumph is allied to Terror.
Demons their nests in ship-mast forests hide—
By nobleness, not gold, are Nations deified.

XXI. ‘IN ALL THINGS LOYALTY.’

One Virtue reigned supreme in days gone by,
Familiarly beloved, with awe obeyed:
The name survives amongst us—Loyalty:
By her all natural ties were Virtues made:
All Virtues, humble while their Queen stood nigh,
Unsunned remained, and pure, beneath the shade:
Without her now, they strut in masquerade,
Vainglorious pageants for the public eye!
Sans-foy! Sans-loy! Sans-joy!—the Patron Saints
Which every modern warrior, on his casque
Blazons—each scribe on his phylactery!
How will ye better help a land that faints
With hunger, long and vainly do I ask,
Than ancient Faith, or Hope, or Charity?

XXII. MILTON VISITING GALILEO IN HIS BLINDNESS.

Behold how long, and with what earnest eye
He gazes on that venerable face,
And forehead heavenward lifted! Doth he trace
In that calm symbol of serenity
And sorrow mastered with a loftier grace,
The shadow of his own high destiny;
Virtue contending with the pride of place,
Blindness, unhonoured age, and penury?
Yes—ye are like, though Time not yet hath marred
The lightest of those locks; nor anguish pressed
The signet of her silence cold and hard
Upon those lips so lovely in their rest:
Yes—ye are like, as morn is like to even,
Or trance of Summer-noon to Winter's frozen heaven.

XXIII. THE OLD AGE OF MILTON.

I knew him. Blind and pale, but undepressed,
He sat beneath his hovel's silent shade,
Sternly quiescent. At his feet were laid
Two forms reclining there in heavenly rest:
One held a book; his hand the other kissed
With awe; but while the younger daughter read
I saw the mournful drooping of his head,
I saw the sideway leaning of his breast
Like Theseus bending o'er the Minotaur.
Supported on one hand, he seemed to gaze
Into the face of some accursèd thing—
O Nation, self-enslaving more and more,
And thou, disastrous, nation-selling King,
Why trouble ye this blind man old in days?

XXIV.

For we the mighty mountain plains have trod
Both in the glow of sunset and sunrise;
And lighted by the moon of southern skies!
The snow-white torrent of the thundering flood
We two have watched together: In the wood
We two have felt the warm tears dim our eyes
While zephyrs softer than an infant's sighs
Ruffled the light air of our solitude!
O Earth, maternal Earth, and thou, O Heaven,
And Night first-born, who now, e'en now, dost waken
The host of stars, thy constellated train!
Tell me if those can ever be forgiven,
Those abject, who together have partaken
These Sacraments of Nature—and in vain?

XXV.

Flowers growing to the level of the hand;
Flowers we may pluck without the toil of stooping;
And fruits from orchard branches gently drooping,
To our warm lips by every Zephyr fanned;
Delights, timid, yet tame, that come fast trooping,
Like birds that hear a well-known summons bland,
Such are the joys we hold at our command;
The joys that we escape, for ever scooping
The insalubrious mines of sensual Care
For stuff to load a back already weary,
Or climbing mountain ridges dark and bare
In search of colder winds, and views more dreary.
Ah, fatal Contradiction! do we roam,
Hoping to fly from self, or find a home?

XXVI. MARCELLA.—1.

Marcella! those that to the Gods are dear
On thee may gaze with forehead undepressed:
Thy sire, thy brothers thou hast oft caressed,
And others are there, men whom all revere,
On whom thou canst not look with eye austere:
Nay, there may come a time when on thy breast
Or knee, a child of thine in sleep may rest
Or upward gaze untroubled with a fear.
But we, Marcella, never without awe
Approach thee; never without awe depart:
To us thy gentlest words are as a law:
The sacred wisdom of the virgin heart
Shines through these clear calm eyes, and to thine hand
Commits unseen a sceptre of command.

XXVII. MARCELLA.—2.

Eyes justly levelled, searching yet sedate,
A marble brow enthroning a still light,
A cheek that neither seeks nor shuns our sight,
A form severely fair, on which aye wait
All natural emblems of unboastful state;
A step reserved, yet steadied by the might
Of fearless frankness, garments dark as night,
A breast the Loves in vain would penetrate—
Thou hast no wishes: for the vestal Spirit
As with a beaming breastplate doth repel
Whate'er of troubled joy with her would dwell.
The brave with thee approval find, not merit:
Thy first of duties deem'st thou this—to scorn
Whatever is not of the Immortals born.

XXVIII. RATIONALISM.

Notions of notions docketed and classed:
Shadows self-chased along a barren ground:
Pale tracks of foam in wandering waves half-drowned:
Thin shreds of song half lost in winter's blast—
These starved and squalid Systems cannot last:
Vainly man's plummet the great deep would sound,
Man's arms enclose within their pigmy bound
Of sense, the Present, Future, and the Past.
Well skilled to trace the diagrams of thought,
Our modern Muse (with aid of compass) shines
In abstract lore of surfaces and lines;
Courses along Truth's limits; enters not;
Steps not across the threshold; dares not tread
The space within devote to God and to the dead!

XXIX.

System o'erstrained offends through haughtiness:
Hours chained to tasks, resolves in steel arrayed,
Words strict as edicts, measured each, and weighed,
Are well; but nought is healthy in excess.
Our thoughts grow tangled in their phalanxes:
And oft, by inward discipline betrayed,
From outward things we win a lowlier aid,
From chance a surer guide in our distress.
With her habitual, half-unconscious kindness,
Nature, our sweet companionable friend,
Upon our forehead breathes and clears our blindness,
Sends her familiar sprites our steps to tend,
A scent, a sound, a swan that cuts the lake,
To lure dark fancies brightening in her wake!

XXX. SOLITUDE WITHOUT VOCATION.

In this Seclusion, from the world secure,
Her frauds, her force, her clamour, and her din,
O what a prosperous height might virtue win,
If, entering first these courts, the soul were pure!
But to a tainted soul, how weak the lure
Of outward things compared with snares within,
Where thought tracks thought, insatiable pursuer,
On through the inmost caves of lurking sin—
Dark thoughts which nobler presences had scared,
And palpable duties crushed! Ah, well of old
Fabled the priest, if priest he were or bard,
His Dian strenuous of life and bold:
A Huntress o'er the mountain summits hard,
Her couch beside the fountain calm but cold.