Minor Poems, including Napoleon :: :: University of Virginia Library

It is sweet to give birth to the harp's flowing numbers,
When the heart of the minstrel beats high to their sound;
It were madness to waken its strings from their slumbers,
When the shadows of darkness encompass him round.

II

There are feelings which cannot by words be imparted,
And moods of the mind where expression is pain;
When despondency sinks down the desolate-hearted,
And even the Muses' high mandates are vain.

III

Such clouds are around me, sweet Fancy enthralling,
Creating dark visions where bright ones should dwell;
Every whisper of Hope into silence appalling
Is hush'd by their baneful and fear-breathing spell.

163

IV

The butterfly, flitting from jasmines to roses,
May be welcom'd wherever he folds his soft wings;
Let him light where he will, while on sweets he reposes,
Of the odours he came from, some vestige he brings.

V

While the reptile that creeps over Spring's fairest blossom,
When its beauty and fragrance are both in their prime,
But poisons the perfume he finds in its bosom,
And mars all its glory by traces of slime.

VI

Thus it fares with the bard who delighted to hover,
In the spring of the soul, o'er the Eden of mind,
And but seem'd to descend on its sweets to discover,
Or dispense by alighting, some pleasure refin'd.

VII

When that Eden, once cloudless, is darkly o'ershaded,
Or seems so to him (bitter fruit of our fall):
No longer with beauty its flow'rets are braided,
“But the trail of the serpent is over them all.”

164

VIII

Then vain is the glory of noon's brightest splendour,
The stillness of evening, morn's rapturous hymn;
The lustre of moonlight no longer seems tender;
And a star-sprinkled sky to his vision is dim.

IX

Existence itself, then, in his estimation,
Appears but a blank, where enjoyment is not;
And the words of the monarch, that “All is vexation,”
The legend inscrib'd on mortality's lot.

X

Can he, then, give birth to the harp's flowing numbers,
When his soul can no longer rejoice in their strain?
It were weakness to waken its visionless slumbers,
When the memory, alone, of its music is pain!

XI

No, no; let him hang on some yew-tree, all blasted,
The pride of past moments, to which he still clings;
Be its mouldering frame by the midnight winds wasted,
And ivy and aconite twine round its strings.

165

XII

Even then, by the hand of its master forsaken,
It may prove that its music was truly its own,
As the winds sweeping by it may fitfully waken
Its echo-like dirge, with their tenderest tone.