Miscellaneous Verses :: :: University of Virginia Library

iii

TO THE LADY NOEL BYRON, These Verses ARE INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR, IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MANY ACTS OF KINDNESS AND FRIENDSHIP.

All Souls' College, June 10th, 1840.

DEDICATORY STANZAS TO THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY.

The beautiful, that Inner Sun
Which quickens earth, and air, and sea,
Has held, since life her course begun,
The Poet's heart in fee.

From spirits of immortal sway,
Before whose dauntless eagle eyes,
Open and palpable as day,
Her naked glory lies;

Down to the least, who hear alone
Far echoes of her footstep fall,
We gather round her dazzling throne
Sworn liegemen, one and all.

Queen over heaven-embracing space
Her effluence wanders unconfined;
Each has her, in a chosen place,
For his own worship shrined—

Whether in woods, by sunny streams,
At nature's side she rest apart,
Or clothe her presence with the dreams
Of consecrating art.

Or tired of dead unchanging things,
She seek what only soul can give,
Shed softly, as on Angel wings,
From looks that move and live;

vii

In his deep spirit, each may fold
Her sacred shadow veil'd, and dim
To eyes profane, and leave untold
Her chosen Home for him:

To this one fealty confined,
That firm in faith, and loyal love, he bring
To Beauty—by the heart enshrined—
His vassal offering.

RESEMBLANCE.

LINES SUGGESTED BY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS BETWEEN TWO YOUNG LADIES.

What solemn law, what changeless end,
The shaping hand of Nature guides,
So that with outward form may blend,
The spirit that within resides?

And how that spirit working on,
Frames for itself a fitting shrine,
And what the purport, stamped upon
Each varying motion, look, and line?

To us are unrevealèd things,
Far hidden in the clouds, which lower
Above the dark unsounded springs
Of motive will, and living power.

But though we cannot always guess
The scope of her unswerving plan,
Nature is never meaningless,
Nor sway'd by blind caprice, like man:

Not idly then of late, she drew
Forth from her ever-sounding loom,
Those living robes she wove for you,
Twin beauty, and resembling bloom:

Though slight the tie, if human thought
Measure this mystic union well,
Its inner essence may be fraught
With deeper powers than thought can tell.

Perchance, it mutely prophesies
Of the To-come, whilst yet afar,
Of Ante-natal destinies
Launched from the same impending star.

Perchance, apportioned as his own,
One Angel watches both bright flowers;
Perchance, from his refulgent throne
Upon each maiden brow, in hours

Of peril, troubled fear, and need,
The shadow of one love is thrown;
And in your spotless hearts, the seed
Of the same calming amaranth sown.

So that, when o'er this desert dim
With equal steps your feet have trod,
Ye may be led at once by him,
As sister spirits, home to God:

Believe at least, that it was wise
Your graceful reverence to shew
For all the unknown deep, that lies
About our path, where'er we go.

That interchange of happy laughter,
Of emblem blooms, and gentle speech,
Should be a well-spring, ever after,
Of pleasant kindliness, to each.

The symbol flowers you gave, must die;
May what they shadowed forth, live still;
Let not one drop of love run by,
Which Time's wild river brings at will.

CIRCASSIAN WAR SONG.

Though Russia, cheating, crushing, yet
Her web of ruin twines,
Along Caucasian hills, unset
The star of Freedom shines.

The Czar upon his marshy plains,
May count and drill his men;
More must be done, before he gains
The mountain lion's den.

War is to him a science cold
Of numbers and array—
Enough of lead, enough of gold,
Enough of food and pay;

As if men's hearts that sink and swell,
Like wooden chessmen were;
As if the strength of central hell
Could shake a brave despair.

We'll teach this monarch of machines,
What living souls can do,
When noble ends, and noble means,
Conspire to bring them through.

Yes! when blood-red the firing glares
Through floods of smoke, and thunder,
When every ravening echo, tears
The trembling crags in sunder;

When warlike pomp of fife and drum,
And columns clustering deep,
Mere rottenness and dust become,
Against God's mountain-steep;

The planning, marching, numbering Czar,
Among his tools, may find
That something else is strong in war,—
The Spirit of mankind.

A STARLIGHT NIGHT.

The thin white clouds serenely move
Athwart the blue ethereal dome;
The silent stars are bright above,
Each in his own eternal home,
Filling the solemn void of night,
With effluence of primal light.

Ye silent stars! I feel that nought,
Or heart, or world, alone can be,
And know, by human feeling taught,
That over all yon trackless sea,
The myriad worlds that round me shine,
Are linked in sympathy to mine.

Alas! each clear unsullied star
Is but another earth like this;
The same wild hopes, and feelings are
Throughout the infinite abyss:
The same vain thirst to love and know,
And all the mystery of woe.

Yet though strange grief within be folded,
The rays we see are pure and still:
Their orbs to shine on us were moulded
By the great Spirit's plastic will;
And this dark spot, which we contemn,
Lives in eternal light for them.

Though vexed within by countless woes,
They sink not underneath the wound:
By means, which God on all bestows,
The solace of their grief is found.
Leaning, like seraphs, from above,
They fill the skies with light and love.

To those who feel, the power is given
This sign of mystery to scan,
And draw down from the stars of heaven,
A lesson for the heart of man,
That it should cherish, in all grief,
Its own affections, as relief.

By works of love the soul must be
To its own happiness refined;
And thus invincible and free,
Weave ever round the subject mind
(Though gloomy as the wings of night)
An atmosphere of holy light.

HEATHEN LIFE.

μη φυναι τον απαντα νι-
κα λογον: το δ', επει φανη
βηναι κειθεν, οθεν περ η-
κει, πολυ δευτερον, ως ταχιστα.
Sophocles.

Though clear the day, it fadeth,
Though calm the starry night,
The dreams her mantle shadeth
Die with the morning light.
Though softly the rose twineth
Her odours with the air,
Her silent head declineth,
Like love beneath despair:

The graceful flower expireth,
The shapeless rocks yet lower,
Nor storm, nor earthquake, tireth
The ocean's hungry roar.
The lute of softness, weareth
Beneath a hand of snow,
The sword of sternness, beareth
The battle's iron blow:
Like the fleet mirage, flieth
All that is soft and gay;
Gloom brightness underlieth,
And passeth not away.

COUNT OTTO.

Count Otto for once foregoes the chase;
Unhoped-for gladness is in his face,
For an heiress is born to his ancient race.

And Time flew by on swifter wing,
Where she grew like a flower, in the silence of spring,
With an old oak overshadowing.

Lovely in feature, and heart, and limb,
For years she clung in love to him,
Like a graceful plume round a helmet grim.

But again he neglects the reveillè horn;
He talked with the Abbot all night till morn,
Whose eyes were bright with joyful scorn.

And that fair girl, adored by all,
The life of masque and festival,
Why is she absent from the hall?

Cold, pale, and silent, in her bower,
Without a sob, from hour to hour
She sits and weeps—to smile no more—

Count Otto is idle to-day again,
His stalwart hand forgets the rein,
And tears on his cheek have left a stain:

Alas! for the fall of that ancient line!
Alas, Count Otto, for thee and thine!
Alas for him in Palestine.

Behind the inexorable veil,
As hope and sense and motion fail,
Totters and falls that maiden pale.

Before the impenetrable railing,
The aged sire kneels bewailing,
But all things now are unavailing—

Hark! hear ye not the distant swell,
The deep and melancholy knell,
Flung from the convent's iron bell?

Hark! to the masses chanted slowly,
Hark! to the blessing murmur'd lowly,
“Peace to the slumbers of the holy.”

God's love can now alone restore
The heart of him, who goes no more
To rouse the stag, or track the boar.

With settled sorrow in his face,
He sits, and broods in some dark place,
The last of all that ancient race.

THE COMET.

[_]

This poem was suggested by the vague apprehensions of injury to the earth from the Comet of 1832, which were talked over, at least, if not partially acquiesced in, by a great number of persons.

We spake of ether—of the midnight heavens,
Of the wide sea, alike in every change
The vassal of the cold and distant Moon;
Of all the solemn workings of the stars
Harmonious to a hidden law, and all
That something “far more deeply interfused”
Which makes the heaven and earth one mighty whole.
Then spake we of the march of destiny

Through her appointed cycles— of the fate
Of ruined planets—of the mystic star
In Cassiopeia, which was seen of old
By the pale shepherdess, and lated hind,
Through many a summer evening to burn,
With an intense effulgence of white light,
Which deepened into red, and then became
Darkness, in its own fury self-consumed:
Thus dropping by a gradual discourse
To Earth, and that fierce shape of erring fire
Which even then (so to the untaught mind
Imagination had interpreted
The simple fact, that in its course a Comet
Would cross the pathway sacred to the earth,)
Was winding its interminable way
Through the black infinite, a wondrous orb
Made heavy with the freight of death, and charged
To crush the earth to chaos, as a hill,
Torn from its strong foundations, in its fall
Crushes the careless traveller beneath—

To say to the wild sea, “Enough, be still,
Thy tides are numbered in Eternity;”
To shake the rocks and mountains into dust,
Or scatter their huge limbs upon the air
Like drops of summer dew; from Caucasus,
And the ice-crowned Himala, unsurpassed
In loftiness, above Cathaian plains,
To the great mountains of the western world,
Clothed in enduring snow, or bright within
With caves of wondrous flame, and galleries,
Where the chained earthquake slumbers, light as day—
Yea, bearing earthwards on its awful car
Than this material ruin of a world
A deeper desolation, since at once
The orb of its destroying wrath must quell
All beatings of the wondrous human heart,
Must quench the sacred light of earthly love,
And wrap in death the soaring mind of man
In the sole world we know.

What marvel then

That when my limbs were laid in pleasant sleep
My brain was haunted with dim phantasies?
That voices of strange music touched mine ear,
And said to me, A vision to thy soul
Shall prophesy, a dream upon thine eye
Shall paint the coming hour?

With fiery speed
I felt myself borne upward far away,
Sustained upon the unessential gloom
Of the starred empyrean, whilst around,
The azure chasms of infinity,
Yawned without limit, and unfathomable!
Then saw I all the congregated worlds
Flowing around their central suns in joy
And exultation, full of perfect life:
Most wonderful! and my delighted spirit
Drank thirstily the noble harmonies
Flung from them as they passed in glorious state.
But as I gazed in passive wonderment
Upon that radiant fleet of breathing worlds

Which navigate eternally the seas
Of hollow space, under the eye of God;
Planets, and satellites, and wandering flames,
And the blind progress of chaotic stars
Ripening from vaporous films, until they shine
As orbèd suns of undecaying fire;
The spirit who accompanied my flight
Spoke to me once again—“I brought thee here
From the low earth up to the sacred heavens
To spare thy human nature, when the hour
Of the annihilation shall arrive;
It were not good to render visible
The divine features of thy mother earth
Made hideous in her fearful agony.
No eye of human mould could look upon
The very lineaments of desolation;
No human ear could listen to a world
Breathing forth strange unprecedented sounds
In solemn woe, or bear the single shriek
Of mighty cities startled out of sleep

Into the arms of death.—Thou shalt behold
The hour of fate prefigured—thou shalt see
God's vengeance on the dark idolatries
Of a near globe that worships the dull earth;
And hear a mighty death-dirge, from above,
Sung by the stars in their eternal course,
Unto the wide ear of the universe;
But this is not our goal; away with me.”
I felt my brain grow dizzy with the speed
Of sudden flight, and when again the mist
Fled from my eyesight, in a plain I stood,
A wide green meadow on a river's brink.
A stately city with its thousand towers,
A wilderness of palaces and domes,
Bounded the southern aspect; on the north
Wild mountains of immeasurable height
Shot up into the sky—upon their sides
Undying snow dazzled the gazer's eye:
But their dread summits were unknown and dark;
The very atmosphere of life and light

Knew not their secret tops, but failed midway
In utter weakness, whilst unweariedly
The barren crags rose on—around them ever
Eternal blackness clung, Eternal calm.
I gazed around in blank astonishment;
The hills were thick with trees, but, as it seemed,
Their vegetation was not of the earth;
Upon the shapely stems, upon the leaves,
Upon the flowers beneath my feet, the seal
Of a mysterious difference was set:
All things, though not discordant, were unlike
Their kindred here—over its pebbly bed
The river murmured with an alien sound;
The winds breathed out a low peculiar tone
As they flew by; the clouds wore not the hues
Of earth; the sky was bright with other stars:
In lieu of the cold moon which rules our night,
Full in the centre of the living heavens
An orb of beauty shone majestical;
Smiling upon us with a disk as broad

As that, wherewith the mighty sun looks down,
Upon the fevered plains of Mercury
In middle summer, yet with light as mild
As the pale glow-worm in a flowery dell:
It filled the air with silver, as a lamp
Girt round with glistering spar of caverns old,
Low in the central earth: how beautiful!
How more than beautiful that smile divine
Fell on the snow-clad rocks, and silent stream!
Long gazed I there forgetful of all else,
In blissful musings wrapt; When suddenly
Once more I heard the voice angelical
Low breathing its mysterious melody
Upon the trancèd air—till the clear heavens
Were satiated with delightful sound
Beneath that queenly moon, whose glorious orb
Blent the full powers of an unclouded sun
With all the weird solemnity of night.
“This region,” thus it spake to me, “is part
Of that fair planet which the sons of men

Have called their moon—and that etherial light,
That brighter Cynthia, upon which thine eyes
Are fixed with such deep love, does not thy heart,
Thy human heart, taught by some magic power,
Acquaint thee with its dear familiar name?
Behold in her thy native earth. How calm!
How beautiful in her serenity
She floats upon the blue empyrean flood!
Who could believe that underneath that calm
The tides of passion are awake? We know
The sorrow and the sin that revel there,
Linked ever with the life of man—we know
What hollowness, and agony, and gloom,
The mantle of her beauty hides—but they
Whom Fate has made the tenants of this orb,
Unknowingly revere that earth as God—
Looking around with soul-less eyes, they see
The outward form and aspect, but forget
The inner life of things—That Mighty One
Whose spirit ever shineth in his works;

For what is all the spacious universe
With its proud splendour? What the thousand shapes
Which fill the human heart with loveliness—
What are they but the presence of the Lord?
Divine conceptions of the beautiful,
Imperishable ever, and deep thoughts,
Coëval with the very being of God,
Embodied in the passive elements:
They have forgotten him who gave them birth,
And turned to worship idols.—Void of love,
Incapable of elevating faith,
They bow their hearts to a debasing creed
Of sensuality, and carnal rites
Which fill the soul with darkness. But at length
The hour of chastisement arrives, and Fate
Implacable, with righteous vengeance armed,
Is pressing onward to its destined goal:
The young men see no visions, and the old
Dream not of woe and ruin, moving on
With wings of lightning speed—they shall behold

The meeting of these mighty combatants;
They shall behold their own eternal God
Vanish in dust and ashes from His sphere.
But see! Where from the city gates advance
The multitudes, thick swarming, self-deceived
With eager zeal; from every land they come,
To swell the great millennial festival
In honour of their moon; join thou the throng,
And follow where its evil guidance leads.”
He spoke; already did the plain resound
With echoing steps and voices; with such speed
The crowd came on. I saw in solemn pomp
Uncounted myriads pass by; distinct
In shape and hue, with vestures manifold,
And various forms of worship and of song.
Nations, and tribes, and languages, they came
From every corner of that populous globe,
From the far isles, and mountains, to assist
At the great sacrifice. By tribes they passed,
Each nation bearing solemn gifts, the produce

Of their own regions: Diamond, and gold,
Rare spices, ivory, and fragrant wood,
With woven robes, and costly merchandize.
Unlike, and yet analogous to man,
The divers races did appear, as though
The children of the many climes of earth,
By some strange chance were gathered in one place;
Tartar, and Ethiopian, and the sons
Of silken Hindostan, Arab, and Copt,
The feathery chieftains of the Southern isles,
The men who drink of that Assyrian stream,
Euphrates, and the wild Caucasian tribes;
Together with the wide-spread progeny
Of those, who in the rough Hercynian wood
Went naked to the beating of the storm;
With all who till that mighty continent,
Which, drawing from the mountains, and the caves,
Innumerable complicated streams
Down their strong slopes to the recoiling sea,
Great Amazon, and Orinoco, drain,

And silver Plata with her double flood;
Araucan, Caribbean, and the men
Of Patagon, feigned of gigantic size:
Such was the aspect which these multitudes
Wore as they passed. I followed in their train,
Until we reached a gently rising ground,
Where, mirrored in the soft and silent wave,
A massive temple stood, majestical
Above all human art; Such as might rise
Upon a poet's eye at dead of night,
If he that day alone had looked upon
The city of the sun—or, mightier yet,
The marble halls of Memphis in her pride;
Syene, or the wide magnificence
Of hundred-gated Thebes, with all her towers
And pyramids, fast by the river Nile;
Whilst yet, through every portal opening wide,
With bannered ornaments, and martial sound
Of echoing brass, the living tide of war
Flowed forth against the dusky kings who sat

In Meroë, and the continuous crowd
Of scythèd chariots, terrible in fight,
Came thundering through her peaceful obelisks.
All of black marble was this wondrous fane,
Spreading itself abroad in halls, and towers
Frequent with mighty columns, underneath
Vast cupolas of mournful majesty.
A pile like to the great metropolis
Of some slain warrior in cycles old,
When a whole people slaughtered on his tomb,
Accompanied unto the home of death
Their ghastly monarch, that he still might rule
The city of the silent—a dead king
Of a dead people, to eternity.
As we came on, under the gloomy walls,
Before the long procession open flowed
The adamantine gates—from either side
On noiseless hinges gliding from our path;
And nation after nation entered in.
The rich moss-agate framed the temple's floor,

Stretching far onward to the lustrous stair
Behind the crimson veil, which from above,
Fastened to dizzy pinnacles, and heights
Scarce visible, athwart the lofty hall
Hung waving like a sea, and hid from sight
The altar of the oracles, untrod
Save by the priest at the appointed hour.
Circling around, black marble galleries
On columns leant, whose palmy capitals
Were living adamant, intensely bright;
Whilst high above, around the solemn wall,
Sculptured with strange device, and traceries
More beautiful than those of Phidias old,
Huge windows of the purple amethyst
Tier above tier arose, and silently
Mellowed the day into a gloom divine,
Up to the very summit of the fane.
Between each lofty window's slumbrous shade,
Great stars of glowing emerald were set,
Serenely bright and calm, and narrow lines

Of diamond light, between each purple tier,
Ran round the great majestic cupola:
Such was the temple sacred to their Moon.
Along the glossy pavement of the hall
In solemn march continuous, one by one,
The banded tribes advanced—Before the veil
They knelt to offer up the splendid gifts,
Which their vain piety had brought to add
To all the sumless wealth (statues of gold,
Invaluable gems, bright thrones of pearl,
And chrysolite,) which lay unseen below;
Stored up in the ancestral treasuries
Of the great temple, from the days of old.
Nor wanted, as they passed, the sumptuous aid
Of false religion—all the glittering rites
Idolatrous, which captivate the sense;
Music, and light, and perfumes, and the swell
Of frequent hymns, and the protracted prayer,
With change of place, and vesture, and vain forms
Elaborate and perplexed—until the time

Of the last sacrifice, to be performed,
With an exceeding pomp and luxury,
To their bright Moon under the eye of heaven:
The high priest led the way, but suddenly
Upon the threshold stopped and shrieked aloud
With frantic voice and gesture. Then I saw
All that immeasurable multitude,
Fluctuate like the sea—through the long files
Ran a low murmur of despair, and dread,
In the same breath of time, communicate
From man to man, like the electric fire:
Then, with a sudden impulse, from the fane,
Regardless of all order forth they ran,
Confused and masterless, filling the plains
With dissonant and savage screams of fear.
It was indeed an awful spectacle!
A heavy vapour loaded the dense air,
In scorching folds voluminous, through which
Dimly could we discern the swift advance
Of a wild orb, glistening with blood-red beams.

Onward it rolled, shedding around its path
Wide-ruining blasts, and flakes of raging fire,
Insufferably fierce and fast:—The moon
Glowed opposite, with mild and lovely light;
And the two worlds drew near—we saw them join;
Like some bright seraph, and the baleful fiend,
Meeting in mortal combat, on they came;
But we saw naught beyond—for, as they met,
From the dun skies closer and heavier fell
The sullen mist, and burning floods of smoke
Closed over us, making a denser night
Than the black vapour which was shed around
Christ crucified—or that more ancient gloom
When God with palpable thick darkness smote
Proud Egypt; and the monarch of the Nile
Trembled in sudden blindness on his throne;
But, not the less, through that gross atmosphere,
Impenetrable to the sight, there came
Strange thunderings; Ebbing and flowing sounds
Of wild uproar, like the convulsive crash

Of scattered elements in some far world.
Whilst louder than the thunders, heard above
The jar of the dissolving earth, a voice
Like the last trumpet of the Lord, arose,
Crying, “God has judged you in his wrath. That Moon
Shall shine no more in heaven—false worshippers
Of a false God, repent ye of your sins.”

PRUSSIC ACID.

SONG OF THE SPIRITS OF DEATH.

“Feverish and fierce, the hurrying crowd
Can see no beauty in the tomb;
The eyeless skeleton, the shroud,
Appal them into hopeless gloom;

“These are the wrecks of life—not Death,
Before whose loveliness benign,
Each earthly sorrow vanisheth
From all, who cross her calming line:

“Weak man with her identifies
A scythèd monster, he miscalls;
Still this is life, who as he flies,
Turns back, to mock the wretch who falls.

“We know her, in another guise,
Of deepening thought, and quiet love,
Serenely fair, divinely wise,
And changeless as the heavens above.

“We know her, as the faithful spouse
Of sleep from toil and evil free,
And around her pale and placid brows
Wreath'd blossoms of the Almond-tree.

“She loves the flower, she loves the fruit,
Because, within them hidden flows
An essence, rapid to transmute
Man to the dim caves of repose.

“Loud-throated war is swift to kill,
When cannon roar across the lea,
We honour him, but swifter still
The noiseless work of the Almond-tree:

“The Lord of pain, the Lord of grief,
Of fell despair, in it we see;
Proud Life is vassal to each leaf
That flutters, from the Almond-tree.

“Pale genius, too forlorn to live,
When rest and hope like sunlight flee,
Finds, what the laurel will not give,
Upon its kindred Almond-tree.

“And wounded love, whose heart's blood flows,
Like water searching out the sea,
May change its dead and scornèd rose
For chaplets, from the Almond-tree.

“Then rightly, does our Lady wear
This symbol of her sovranty,
And we, in faith of spirit, share,
That reverence for the Almond-tree.”

LINES TO LADY ---

Lady, thou art very fair,
Safe under wings of tenderest care,
Youth her gayest dress doth wear,
And life (as the warm summer day
Bends o'er a rose-bud lovingly,)
Breathes out her blessedness on thee.

Sorrow thou hast never known,
Rank and riches are thine own,
Thy mellow laughter's breezelike tone
Chaseth all mists of gloom away;
What cloud can stain the stars above?
What sorrow quench thy lamp of love?

And yet—though bright the prospect be,
Search well thy spirit's depth, to see
How thou canst bear calamity—
Thou smilest, but I do not speak
Of warm affections chilled for life,
Of young hearts stabbed, as with a knife.

I do not speak of loveliness
Blighted by unforeseen distress,
Nor of the common wretchedness,
Which withers up the roselike cheek,
And makes the wounded heart its prey,
Draining the lifeblood, day by day.

Thy moments winged with pleasure, fly;
Thou smilest, as the hours go by—
But thunder gathers in the sky:
Wake from thy love-dream, wake, and see,
How troubled all things look, how strange,
How full of wickedness, and change.

Wild dreams of sin and strife abound,
Harsh voices mutter, with a sound
Like earthquakes moaning under ground.
Yes! lovely one, I speak to thee,
Strengthen, and arm thy patient will,
To bear the fierce extremes of ill.

It may be, that my dazzled eye
Looks falsely on futurity;
The stream may roll on peacefully;
Yet in thy mirth remember, how
Sunk down of old, the song, the dance,
When Ruin smote the land of France.

There was more pleasure there, more mirth,
Than over all the peopled earth;
But Time to a dark hour gave birth,
And all at once, it seemed as though
Beneath some troop of dancers gay,
The painted floor had given way.

So fearfully, so suddenly,
From laughter, wealth, and luxury,
Down fell that proud nobility;
Struck, as from cloudless skies, with flame,
Into a gulf of blood they fell,
And in their place uprose a hell.

Bright hair, in a few weary hours,
Whitened beneath its crown of flowers
In pleasure's own belovèd bowers;
And world-worn youth, as age became,
And life no longer life did seem,
But a delirious fever-dream.

Gore streamed, as from a fountain head,
The land was covered with the dead,
The young child with its mother bled,
Unstained alike, and innocent,
And madness mixed itself with crime—
Read thou the annals of that time.

Read, and reflect, with earnest prayer,
Thy heart, for softness made, prepare,
Anguish more deep than death, to bear;
Whatever then from God is sent,
Thy soul will be by him endued
With meek unfailing fortitude.

ENOCH.

“A thousand years have faded like a dream
Since the first birth of time;
On either side of our Assyrian stream
Unnumbered cities climb,

“With obelisks and heaven-searching spires,
The blue abysmal sky;
On altars of rich carving, perfumed fires
Are tended carefully:

“And ever in the marble colonnades,
And streets as sunshine bright,
With melodies of love, our bright-haired maids
Quicken the dreamful night:

“And smiles are interchanged, without control,
With full and happy sighs;
New lights have dawned upon the human soul,
And taught it to be wise.

“How would our ancient father, full of woes,
Rejoice that it is so,
Had not the thing within, which feels, and knows,
Fled from him like a foe;

“We too, his children, must like him bow down
To that abhorred power;
Alas! no maiden's smile, no warrior's frown,
Can wring from it one hour.

“Even now, to think of Death, who mixes grief
With all things that delight;
Our seared hearts tremble, as the sapless leaf
Shakes in an eastern blight.

“Oh! that some spirit mild, and wise, and good,
Would teach us how to keep
The life for ever young within the blood;
Secure of that chill sleep;

“Then should we never suddenly let fall
The wine-cup at our lips;
Then should we live, and love, together all,
In mirth without eclipse.

“Thou art a prophet, father; call aloud,
Unto the God of truth,
That he may chase this overhanging cloud,
From the bright skies of youth:

“How can the Lord of mercy vex mankind
With knowledge such as this,
When every living thing around is blind
In unalarmèd bliss?

“Like one pale coward, who trembles in a host
Of heroes flushed with hope,
When the shrill trumpet-sound is tossed
Down some long grassy slope—

“Like one unwelcome guest, in some bright hall
Thronged with the beautiful,
Who troubleth all that gorgeous festival
With aspect strange and dull,

“Such, amid all the merriment, and bliss,
Which this life furnisheth,
The many joys of love, and wine, is this,
The single thought of death.

“Call therefore, prophet, on thy worshipped sire,
Distant, and vague, and cold,
And all the wide earth's monarchs shall conspire
To fill thy home with gold.”

Thus amid moonlit palaces, and towers,
And columned halls of pride,
The young and gay, crowned with ambrosial flowers,
Spoke sad, and downward-eyed;

They spoke to one, who sat upon the ground,
Under a cypress tree,
And heard, or seemed to hear, the heavy sound
Of an outbursting sea.

The noise of mighty waters, evermore
Smote on his throbbing ears;
In sleep he heard unearthly screams, which tore
His lonely soul with fears:

And faces of drowned men came floating by,
Lit each as with a ray,
Pale faces painted on his straining eye,
That would not pass away.

And viewless messengers about him trod,
With footsteps echoing loud;
Wide shadows, from the secret form of God,
Fell on him like a cloud.

Thus his mind hung upon futurity,
In that all-evil time,
And saw, by heaven unrolled, before her lie
The map of human crime.

A secret influence, like wasting flame,
Withered him day and night,
Till every thing he used to love, became
As nothing in his sight.

Strength melted from his mighty limbs, and sleep
Touched not his burning eye;
Often he sat, without the power to weep,
And only prayed to die.

Alas! no earthly spirit can sustain,
By her inherent force,
Without convulsions of oppressive pain,
That awful intercourse:

Before all worlds, was it appointed so,
That it could not be given
To man, but with such agonies, to know
The secret things of heaven.

But at that time, the supernatural dread—
The spirit's secret chill—
Before some power of gentleness had fled,
Leaving him calm, and still.

100

All motionless had he been stretched for hours,
Under the deepening shade,
Dreaming of Eden's amaranthine bowers,
In heaven's own light arrayed:

The stars came out above that lonely place,
The river gurgled on,
The breeze played round and round his haggard face,
As if its task were done.

The gentle influence of declining day
Melted into his breast;
The balmy moonlight soothed him, and he lay
Cradled in perfect rest.

Why do the sons of pleasure strive to break
That brief hour of repose?
Why, with these idle questionings, awake
His deep heart to its woes?

101

Say, is it not enough, without control,
Lapped in such joys to live?
Have they not satisfied, and filled the soul,
With all that earth can give?

No! there are memories which ache and burn,
And bitter tears to flow;
In each light-seeming heart, a shrouded urn,
Sacred to love and woe.

They had asked answering looks, from eyes now dead,
Hands they had clasped, were bone;
Out of their path belovèd things had fled,
Into a world unknown.

Day after day, their forced and fitful mirth
Sunk into deeper gloom,
Until, to all alike, the glad warm earth
Seemed rayless, as the tomb.

102

Then came they from the feast, in blank despair,
Seeking that lonely seer;
As if there needed but a prophet's prayer
To quench sorrow, and fear.

Alas! the mind which in its anguish flies
Still to the joys of earth,
To nought, but hollow sensualities,
And grovelling hope, gives birth.

They prayed, as if the deep laws of the sky,
Which in God's heart abide,
Coëval with his own eternity,
Could thus be set aside:

As if the Lord, that Spirit pure and just,
Who sees the soul within,
Would give immortal life to this vile dust,
Or happiness to sin.

103

The rapt seer heard—he felt celestial ire
O'ermastering his will;
He started to his utmost height, as fire
Leaps from some caverned hill.

With pangs, on which no human eye could look,
Beneath some touch of power,
The prophet's mighty stature reeled and shook,
Like an imperial tower,

Which feels the earthquake, raging underground
Against its marble root,
Whilst the calm air above it, and around,
Stirs not the ripened fruit.

A brooding stillness covered all things near,
As if before a storm,
Until, like evil spirits, Pain and Fear
Fled from his stately form.

104

Then, as the dead upon a field of fight,
After a hard-fought day,
That impious multitude, in dumb affright,
Around the prophet lay.

His keen eye, sharper than a two-edged sword,
Smote on them from afar;
On his high front, the presence of the Lord
Sat like a burning star.

He spoke of those unquiet souls, which lie
Fast bound in chains of clay;
Of the strong hope of immortality
Thrown, like a weed, away;

Till all high aspirations, one by one,
Fade from the darkened heart;
As those brief splendours, which outlive the sun,
From the grey clouds depart.

105

“The world,” he said, “beyond their senses dim,
The realm of upper air,
Invisible to all on earth, but him,
Before his eye lay bare.”

Often, he said, with a deep sense of awe,
His heart within him died,
Rebuked by some high presence; and he saw
A spirit at his side:

And voices of strange music hovered near,
Denouncing death and woe;
Or demon laughters jarred upon his ear,
In mocking cadence slow.

He told them, how before his trancèd eye,
From morn to eventide,
Visions of a sad future floated by:
And one there was, that cried—

106

“Let loose the wild winds in their destined flight,
For I, the Lord, must sweep
The offending sons of Adam from my sight:
Let loose the raging deep.”

The prophet paused—an awful shadow smote
The flower-enamelled sod—
A sound there was, as thunder heard remote,
And Enoch walked with God.

107

ODE ON THE FALL OF POLAND.

Poland has fallen! Heaven! how long
Shall fraud and tyranny be strong?
How long shall Russia's impious lord be free
To trample on the hearts of men,
That he may turn, with smiles of savage glee,
To revel in his Arctic den?
What! must the sword of righteous vengeance sleep?
Must the warm heart its even tenor keep?
And shroud its feelings from the light,
And veil its horror and affright,
Lest we should rouse the Muscovite?

108

Alas! how great is England's fall;
Was it for this she smote the Gaul?
And poured her blood, like summer rain,
Upon the burning fields of Spain?
Is it to this barbaric race
That the fierce Corsican gave place?
Alas! old Warsaw's crumbling wall
Startled no echo in its fall:
Though Poland flung her banners forth,
Against the millions of the north:
And faced the slaves, who rushed to slay,
Like some proud forest-stag at bay,
In foreign lands, no answering shout
From nations burst in thunder out;
No people started from their rest,
No trumpet sounded in the west;
That high and holy enterprise
Awoke no feeling, but surprise.
The hatred ceasing but with life,
The fierce roar of the rapid strife,

109

The smoke, the death-fires covering all around,
As though from some volcano cast,
The heavy tramp, that shook the heated ground,
As if an earthquake past,
The axe of vengeance raised and bare,
The despot's panting haste to smite,
The high hearts breaking in despair,
As the last column sunk in fight,
On Europe's languid senses fell,
Like a theatric spectacle;
Yea; as in some luxurious room,
We fix our rapt and earnest eyes
On scenes, which some great limner's sight,
In darkness saw by its own light,
Wild paintings full of death and gloom,
Like dreams arrested in their flight;
Yet feel no human sympathies
For the pale forms within, which seem
Convulsed in suffering's fierce extreme,

110

So gazed the sons of Europe all
On that brave land's disastrous fall.
Alone they stood, alone they fell,
Sprung from those knights, to God, and Europe true,
Whose war-cry well the Turkish Spahi knew,
Whose coursers, as the tameless eagle, flew,
Whose spears, like fire set to grass, broke through
The masses of the infidel;
And gave to death the turbaned lord
Of many an Asiatic horde,
When from the East, with fierce acclaim,
The children of the Crescent came,
Like locusts warping on the wind,
To leave despair and death behind.
Alone they stood, alone they fell;
For many a month, the cannon's roar
Boomed from old Warsaw's citadel;
For many a month, with earthquake sound,
The hoofs of charging horsemen tore

111

The bloody turf around:
And still untamed, from day to day,
They kept the northern wolf away,
But help in none was found.
Instead of filling heaven and earth
With the loud trumpet's awful mirth;
Instead of pouring to the breeze
A shout, like the awakened seas;
Instead of pressing to the strife,
Like lightnings bursting into life;
Instead of leaping on the foe
As leaps the eager lawine-snow;
All fawned around the man of blood;
All fawned around him, as he stood
On freedom stiffening in her gore,
With his foul triumph crimsoned o'er.
Even now the threat of vengeance is deferred,
No people breathes a single word;
Though still within that stately city,
The sob of breaking hearts is heard,

112

For the tyrant has no pity;
The buoyant hope, the keen desire,
Which filled the souls of all with fire;
Now to the eye doth seem,
The shadow of an unremembered dream;
Silent, and cold, like some deep frozen stream,
Which none would deem to be the rill,
That in the golden summer's beam,
With gurgling rush, and dazzling gleam,
Leapt joyously from hill to hill.
Alike on every spirit press
Deep lassitude and hopelessness;
Alike, by day and night, on all
The Tartar's iron scourges fall.
The vassal, on the ravaged wold
Sighs for the glorious deeds of old:
He sighs in secret, to behold
The downfall of his country's pride,
Wherewith, he was identified;
He mourns, because his native lord,

113

The son of an heroic name,
(Now fading, like an unfed flame)
Is forced, even as the idle foam
Shifts in the changing gale, to roam
With crest defaced, and useless sword,
An exile from his ruined home:
The warworn noble must endure,
In bitterness of heart, to see
The axe of ruthless vengeance laid,
To his ancestral tree;
Beneath whose venerable shade,
In all the pomp of age displayed,
The peasant slept secure:
See that young mother, trembling there,
Pale, as a statue of despair.
What recks she, that like death around
The harsh blast strikes the lifeless ground?
To her intense, and cureless grief,
Such outward suffering, is relief.

114

See! how with feeble steps and slow,
She tracks, along the frozen snow,
The crowded wain, wherein is borne,
From arms of clasping fondness torn,
The child of some historic stem,
Who might have worn a diadem.
Perchance the fairest flower of all,
The life of some ancestral hall,
She moved, like light, to cheer and bless,
A very star of loveliness:
Who tore that child of hope away?
Who turned those locks of gold to grey?
Who pierced that heart of love from far,
And outraged nature thus? The Czar!
Alas! alas! for Poland's fate;
Her castles now are desolate;
Each city, is a place of tears,
The home of woe, and killing fears;
O'er her wide meadows, like a blight,
Hath swept the ruthless Muscovite:

115

Her bravest children wake to weep
Their ruined country's woe,
Where the cold skies of northern Asia steep
The trackless plains in snow:
On wilds above, in mines below,
The mark of servile scorn;
Forbid o'er Poland's fate to sigh,
Too proud to sink, too brave to die,
From Poland, and from glory, torn,
They live, forgotten, and forlorn.
No more, as in the days of old, no more
Does God fight visibly for martyrs here:
Our dim eyes reach not to the happy shore,
Beyond time's clouded ocean moaning near:
Therefore it is, that round my spirit cling,
Dejection deep as death, forlorn dismay,
And heaviness, that will not pass away.
We cannot in our blindness see,
What will, what ought to be;
We cannot soar on angel's wing,

116

Above the atmosphere of doubt and gloom,
Which makes this wide earth darker than the tomb,
Into that upper air,
Where all is bright and fair;
The soul is fettered to a heavy doom,
Which it must learn to bear:
But still, the eyes of Heaven do not sleep,
The wisdom of the universe is deep;
Though all around be dark, 'tis not for man
The footsteps of the Lord to scan:
What though we cannot shape the lightning's way,
To scare the tiger from his prey?
What though we dare not say,
That heaven will rain down vengeance from above,
On those who draw the sword to slay?
It is enough to know, that God is love,
And wiser than the sons of clay.

117

SYMPATHY.

The dew-drop is a trivial thing,
Yet it lends freshness to the rose,
When diamonds, from the sun would fling,
New withering on her wan repose.

With pride of their own lustre fired,
The unloving gems burn on in vain;
The humble dew-drop, love inspired,
Can wake the flower to life again.

Judge not a gift from outward show,
Nor test it by its actual worth;
These are its body, far below,
Its soul, is that which gives it birth.

126

TO LEONORA.

It is a joy and blessing to behold
Maidens of such ethereal mood,
Ripening, amid the smiles of young and old,
Into the bloom of womanhood.

I saw thee, moving like a seraph's bride,
Serenely gay in quiet grace;
And marked, on thine own river's grassy side,
The beauty of that thoughtful face.

127

The native warmth of feelings, pure and deep,
Alternating with graceful glee,
The souls of all, within thy sphere, did steep
In fond, and yearning love, for thee.

The meekness of a spirit without strife,
A heart from grief and passion free,
Just showed how beautiful a thing, the life
So wasted here on earth, might be.

I see thee in a different scene to-night,
Hurried along in pleasure's round;
A thousand lamps have filled the air with light,
Rich flowers are dropping to the ground.

In me the dance, in me this painted room,
With all its empty forms of mirth,
To nothing, but a sense of smothered gloom,
And heaviness of heart, gives birth.

128

Thou too its chilling influence hast proved;
Thy smiles as yet their sweetness keep,
But not their sunny flash; the voice I loved,
Though musical, is not so deep.

Oh thou, whom all things flatter and caress,
Take heed lest meaner thoughts invade
That soul of reverential tenderness,
For all, which the high God has made.

Fly from this scene of jealousy and strife,
The realms where vanity has power:
This joyless and unprofitable life,
Suits not so delicate a flower.

To thy old feelings, and old haunts, return;
The woods—the streams—the ocean flood—
And the undying stars of night, which burn
Like seraphs in the house of God.

129

TO THE MEMORY OF A DEAR FRIEND.

In our dim eyes too often doth it seem,
As if the Architect of earthly life
Built, only to pull down—the burning lamp
Of genius, in the very dawn of youth,
And love, and happiness, before its orb,
Has gathered strength to shed a deathless light
Upon the drear gloom of humanity,
Feels the chill blast of death, and vanishes
In the shadowy silence of the past.
The star is quenched by Him who framed its sphere,

130

When it begins to shine.—The forest oak,
Nurtured, and cherished long, in one short moment
Is smitten by God's thunder into dust.
The temple of the soul, elaborate
In splendour, and endowed with glorious gifts,
At once, as if in sport, is overthrown
By the same hand that raised it, leaving here
Sorrow that dieth not.—Friend of my youth,
Lamented spirit of lost excellence,
Thus has it been with thee!—the intellect,
Whose light was rising like a sun—the heart
Instinct with love, together have sunk down
Into the darkness of the sepulchre.
Alas! for those who watched thee with deep love,
Who knew thee as thou wert—and daily said,
When will his spirit open her strong wings,
Scaling the heaven of fame? when shall we see
His name, engraven among those which shine
Imperishable, with a starry fire
Piercing the sullen mists of death and time?

131

It is indeed a heavy blow—but yet
Not altogether sorrowful—not bare
Of solemn consolation.—If we turn
To the old time, and picture to ourselves
The loss of a dear friend, we shall be taught
How light our burden is.—Everything then
Ended with life—the proud philosopher
Smiled in derision at the blessed hope
Of immortality, and endless love
Among the spirits of departed men,
Coldly repeating, “Let us eat and drink,
To-morrow we shall die.”—The poet's soul,
Feeding on melancholy thoughts of death,
And dull annihilation in the tomb,
Envied the falling flowers, and rotting leaves,
Their annual life.—Under the mellow light
Of sunset, on the warm Sicilian sea—
Under the moon, and the ethereal ray
Of the clear stars, amid the works of God,
Unconscious of his own high destiny,

132

He walked, musing uncomforted, and drew
From the chill Stygian fountain of despair,
The yearning pathos of his deathless verse.
Alas! how hopeless then, the pilgrimage
Of life, how sharp and terrible the stroke
Sundering the bonds of love!—We should have stood
Over his early tomb, and scattered flowers
To perish, and shed perfumes on the ground:
With a vain providence we should have called
The dews of heaven, to keep for ever green
The consecrated spot, and bid the winds
Breathe low and deep around; we should have prayed
The Naiades and Dryads, to respect
The silence of his everlasting sleep.
Finding, alas! in prayers and hopes like these
A feeble solace and a last resource
For the rich fund of tenderness, and love,
Which, baffled as it was, in the warm heart
Lay undecayed, and inexhaustible.
Owning the horrible supremacy

133

Of death, over the hopes and joys of man,
We should have clung to the delights of earth,
Anchoring our hearts on sensuality,
And the low pleasures of this mortal state,
To spare ourselves such woe.—With dust, and mud,
We should have choked the fount of love within,
That its deep waters might be vexed no more.
How miserable! happier far to know
The word of Heaven, to be empowered to say,
Not in the grave, not in the loathsome pit
Of darkness, is the friend we love entombed.
He lives in God—through life, unstained like him,
Let us pass, comforting the heart with hope
Of meeting, in the sunny land of souls.

134

A COMMON PROSPECT.

How strange it must be without any pain,
To lie upon the bed of death;
As the last pulses thrill each languid vein,
And the lip trembles yet with breath:

Whilst the clear spirit, all unchanged within,
Looks back along life's eddying stream,
And feels reality at length begin,
After a long and fevered dream.

135

That scene made up of darkness, and of light,
The irrecoverable past,
Like a great picture lies before our sight,
Seen all at once from first to last.

Its hopes, its passions, its events, we see,
Its acts of hate, and fear, and love,
Just as the gate of immortality
Turns on its golden hinge above.

Some think of time alone, to others life
Is the porch of eternity:
In that last hour of inward calm, or strife,
How awful must the difference be!

137

SONNET.

You spake of reason, of reality,
As if high monuments of mental power
Were nought but dreams, to be thrown idly by,
Just glanced at, and forgotten in an hour.
A hollow creed, and false philosophy,
For one so pure and beautiful to hold.
Let others phantom-following, strive in vain,
To make those mocking visions, fame and gold,
A haven and a resting-place for life.
But live not thou with thine own heart at strife,
To build up that in beauty, without stain,
Is the true end of being—and God has given,
(Lest the soul faint in weariness and pain,)
Ethereal wings, to lift her up to heaven.

138

SONNET WRITTEN IN A MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY.

The poet, is like one by fancy led,
Whose footsteps in the lonely morning press
Some stubborn hill of difficult access,
Which seems to lengthen on above his head,
As though it sported with his weariness.
His path is steeped in vapour dark as death,
And flooded with chill mist—whilst to and fro
Thousands, along the dusty road beneath,
Securely in bright sunshine come and go:
But, ever and anon, in that steep way
The sudden mountain gales, with joyous breath,
Uproot the seated clouds—the sun's warm ray
Leaps forth, and on wide plains below are thrown
Ethereal splendours, seen by him alone.

139

THE EAGLE'S NEST.

[_]

THESE VERSES WERE SUGGESTED BY AN INCIDENT RELATED IN “WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST.”

“Speed hither, all my vassals bold,
And in the brown rock's caverned breast,
Where yon huge fissure yawns, behold
The ocean eagle's nest.

“The waves beneath in thunder fling
Unbroken leagues of angry foam;
Above, with iron beak and wing,
The Osprey wheels around her home.

161

“Five hundred feet of sheer ascent,
As metal darkly smooth and bare,
No jutting stone, no twig is lent
To help the cragsman there.

“Who boasts a fearless heart, and limbs
Like the wild cat, or mountain roe,
An eye that neither winks nor swims,
Though the waves dance and shine below?

“Who in that rush, and whirl and glare,
A pulse unhurried can maintain;
And face the mother-bird's despair,
With steady hand and brain?”

In air the chosen vassal stands,
Down swinging on his venturous quest;
Now, now he touches it, his hands
Scrape round the unprotected nest.

162

“Up with him, friends, in pride and mirth!
Up with the rope, the prize is won!”—
Won is it?—no—by heaven and earth
His task is but begun!

With claws fast clenched, and eyes that gleam
Like light'ning when it leaps from high,
The vast bird swoops, with one long scream,
Flung forward through the echoing sky.

But gallantly and cheerily
The hunter shakes his faithful knife;
Then with strung arm and measuring eye,
Makes ready for the strife.

And for a moment, from between
The covering wings of his wild foe,
His upturned face by all was seen,
Untroubled wholly cheek and brow;

163

But as the bold bird swept around,
And keener shrill'd its frantic shriek,
At something in the savage sound,
The hunter's heart grew weak.

Those gloomy wings above him spread,
Cast, as he deemed, unnatural shade;
Whilst all about the eye-balls dread
Unnatural heat and brightness played.

Bold as the sun, he yet had grown
Among the grim and lonely hills,
Where many a legend dark, self-sown,
The air with influence fills.

His solitary shepherd hours,
In their wide silences were past,
Whilst gathering round him, viewless powers
Their shadow on his spirit cast.

164

Weak only there, his nerves unstrung,
From early childhood ever drew
Omens from dreams, and blindly clung
To each wild tale that grew

On the night-covered mountain side,
Dim shapes which lurk away from men,
Under the hollow mists, that hide
The wailing stream, and haunted glen.

Hence in that breathless interim,
Ere the knife fell, like withering flame,
Each half-seen ghost and phantom grim
Across his memory came.

His strained sense imaged that it heard
The rocks with horrid laughter rife,
Whilst momently the demon-bird,
Grew larger into monstrous life.

165

Wild gibbering faces flickered near,
Fantastic shapes convulsed the air,
A whisper glided round his ear,
“It is a fiend-beware!”

Upwards he looked to the void heaven,
And downwards on the dazzling main;
Whilst fiercely round and round were driven,
The surges of his eddying brain.

He strikes at length, but on his eyes
Danced giddily the white wave's gleam,
As the whirling rocks and the wavering skies,
Rang to the eagle's scream.

There was dead silence upon high,
And the tall forms of armèd men
Shone motionless against the sky,
For a brief breathing-time, and then

166

Huge frames of giant height and bone
Reeled all at once like foundering ships,
Whilst a low half-unconscious moan
Slid from their quivering lips.

Not idly from his comrades true,
Hissed forth that deep-drawn breath of dread,
For the stout cord was severed through,
To its last link of straining thread.

They fall together on their knees,
With one short thrilling prayer for aid,
To the good saints who rule the seas,
And the blest mother-maid.

Then without words their tasks they ply,
Sick with alternate fear and hope;
Whilst the poor wretch instinctively
Clings senseless to the shivering rope.

167

But still it holds together, still
They lift him silently and slow,
Inch after inch with steady skill,
Up from the depth below.

Hurrah! the arm of God can make
Frail thread as firm as iron bands,
His power forbids it now to break,
And safe the bloodless trembler stands.

The agony of that affright,
One awful sign remained to show—
His hair went down as black as night,
It rises white as snow.

181

SONG.

A flower, a welcome flower, I bring
With drops of liquid diamond bright;
See, how the first moss-rose of spring,
Blooms for the ball to-night.

A fairy nursed the bud for you,
For you she warded off the blight;
And cherished it with heavenly dew,
For your first ball to-night.

182

But she who takes the magic flower,
Must of no magic laws make light,
Even when her beauty learns its power
Over the ball to-night.

Trusted by sylphs in fairy-land
To bear their elfin-message right,
I claim to press that maiden-hand
First at the ball to-night.

This is Titania's message, “Wear
No other dress than simple white;
The rose alone in your bright hair,
To charm the ball to-night.

“To other lovers use a tone
Of civil but decided slight;
And on the bringer smile alone,
At your first ball to-night.”

183

TO A LADY WHO WORE GREEN, THE COLOUR SACRED TO THE FAIRIES, ON FRIDAY.

“I am that lady of the air,
The fairy Amabel:
I come from the rose-scented heart
Of a distant Indian dell.
I have left the graceful jessamine,
And flowers of burning bloom,
Whose cups are filled with fairy wine,
To seek this wintry gloom.

184

“I was floating above my tuberose,
(Deep-hearted queen of flowers,)
Drinking the fragrance of its love,
In silent citron bowers;
I chased the bright-winged moths away,
With passion's jealous care;
I folded it, from the sun's warm ray,
And the embrace of air.

“Then I saw my page, that humming-bird
Whom I dipped in a shooting star,
Burn through the green and quiet wood,
Like a flying gem from far.
And he said, that a sullen English gnome,
Who barbs the darts of snow,
From within his cold and lurid home,
Had sworn to be thy foe.

185

“So I yoked my birds of Paradise,
Whose speed knows no decay,
To a car of light, which I have framed
Of the sun's violet ray.
And darted hither on the sigh
Of a fairy-widowed rose;
That the lightnings of mine eye
Might chase away thy foes.”

189

THE MANICHEAN.

How wonderful a place is earth!
To lend its gloom a single spark,
Birth must be death, and death be birth,
And even then, 'tis dark.

We know not whence, or how, we come,
We see not how, or where, we go;
And this, our only certain home,
It is a home of woe.

190

The mysteries that lie about,
Warred on the fearless hearts of yore,
Till, in long combatings worn out,
Their swords were keen no more;

Unvexed, our fathers lived beneath
The calming shadow of the cross;
How blest their power of simple faith!
We can but mourn its loss:

That waning shadow will not cover
Man's heart, as in its orient youth;
Through its faint flutterings, we discover
The wintry light of truth.

Far up as eye or thought can climb,
We find the howling gale of life
Lashing the ancient floods of Time,
From stillness into strife.

191

And ever and anon, grim Ruin,
Wearied with idle change beneath,
And mocked by viewless powers, renewing
The urns of life and death,

With wide fires round her awful way,
Or garmented in ocean's thunder,
Swoops sudden, like a bird of prey,
And tears the world in sunder;

Then light and love no more are seen,
Death reigns, uncounterpoised by birth,
And a dense veil is drawn between
The Lord of life, and earth:

Till the slow cycles roll it back,
To its chill waking hour again,
Equipping it, to tread the track
Of ancient doubt and pain.

192

Then time and space are loosed from high,
Once more to shed deluding gleams
On a fresh pageant, peopled by
Another crowd of dreams.

There are two powers, not made to die,
Pursued and caught, and then pursuing,
Creation, everlastingly
Alternating with Ruin.

Whether they wage an awful war,
Or play a still more awful game,
Victims, or pawns, alike we are
The sufferers in the same.

Happy who die, and are, as when
These evil days had not begun;
But happier still as yet, the men
Which have not seen the sun.

196

THE STOIC.

The cup of joy is found,
A shallow draught and vain;
The cup of joy! but who shall sound
The secret gulfs of pain?

The mystery of death—
The mystery of birth—
The hourly groans that rise like breath
From this bewildered earth,

197

Grow wild and wilder still
In that expiring light,
Whose living lustre once could fill
The ghastliness of night.

Alas! the star which poured
Belief on pastoral men,
Through ages not in vain adored,
Sets ne'er to rise agen.

And over earth is spread
A grim rëentering gloom;
Whilst doubts and fears contemned as dead
Their ancient strength resume.

Sitting in sullen state
Upon his joyless throne,
Daily becomes the sage's fate,
More intimately known.

198

With all that heaven could shower
Of gifts esteemed the best;
Health, wisdom, beauty, wealth and power,
Only the unending rest

Of death seemed good to him;
Yea better still to keep,
For ever in the regions dim
Of ante-natal sleep;

But yet, however wise,
Oh man! believe him not;
The noble realm of duty lies
Within thy clouded lot.

Following her steady beam
Across the waste abyss,
Taint not thy spirit with the dream
Of future bale or bliss.

199

It well may be that God
Sends immortality,
Earthwards from his unknown abode,
To summon those who die.

And if when life is o'er
Our fate is fixèd so,
Beyond the sable ocean's shore,
We soon enough shall know.

Still let not hope debase,
Nor horrors overawe,
Our love for her celestial face,
Whose name is truth and law.

200

THE CATHOLIC.

Still, let not sordid hopes debase,
Nor horrors over-awe,
Our love for her celestial face
Whose name, is Truth and Law.

When, wooing vague and baseless dreams,
Man spurns all best control,
And drunken in his weakness, seems
A God, to his own soul,

201

Oh! that the proud of heart could hear
One sound of joyless mirth,
Could look upon the icy sneer
Of him, who loves not earth.

“Duty,” you say, “unto the wise,
Blooms like a virgin bride,
With starry softness in her eyes,
And Pleasure at her side.”

Is Duty such?—Aye! who is then
That mailed and sceptred queen,
Whose voice falls on the souls of men
Consumingly serene?

“The Lifeblood of the Infinite,
The Shadow of the Lord,
I am, to those who scan me right,
A thing, and not a word.

202

“Did not my quenchless impulse fill
The veins of the Most High,
The heart of God were numb and still,
And the great world would die.

“Ye have stretched forth your arms, and striven
As human strength may do,
There have been men who called on heaven—
Which triumphed, they or you?

“The mighty men of old, have borne
Burdens ye could not bear;
The warriors of the Cross, have worn
Armour ye may not wear.

“The hands of man are sinewless
To curb the tempted will,
Let him despair and die, unless
God lift him upward still.”

203

Low but with spirit-withering might
Glide in the words of power,
Darkening all courage, as a blight
Dries up some joyous flower.

To our own purposes, we give
At first unfearing trust,
By our own strength, we will to live,
Holy, and wise, and just:

Till that calm scorn with pity blent,
Breaks through the sleep of sin,
And our whole nature shudders, rent
To its dim depths within.

Soul-smitten then, we writhe and pine
In one unresting strife,
Seeking a promise, and a sign,
Under the mask of life.

204

Till this wild world, around the brain,
Reels like a feverish dream,
So that we know not in our pain
Whether it be, or seem.

Is there no ray athwart the gloom?
No hope for the distrest?
No one unwavering stay, on whom
That weary world may rest?

Over Chaldean plains, a star
Shed light and warmth on high,
Divine looks floated thence from far,
As from a living eye,

A living eye, which showed to man
A living God was there,
A Hope, a Promise, and a Plan,
Not chaos and despair.

205

Until this withered heart of earth,
So long a stagnant thing,
Rushed into blossom, like the birth
Of bursting buds, in Spring.

Surely the elder years, no less
Than this unquiet age,
Staggered in weight and weariness,
Through their bleak pilgrimage.

Hunters of Wisdom, wasting Youth,
And rest, and joy, and fame,
Have plunged into the gulphs of Truth,
And Thought, till madness came:

And Bards have felt, beneath the curse,
The heavens and earth grow black,
Questioning this veiled universe,
Which gives no echo back.

206

And bitterer still, bereavèd love
Has sorrowed on in vain,
No seraph answering from above,
“Yet shall ye meet again.”

There is no pang, no doubt, no dread,
Thou idly striv'st to flee,
That slept not with the noble dead,
Before it lived in thee;

The soul of man had dived, and soared,
Through depths and heights sublime;
Plato had mused, and Homer poured
His spirit upon Time,

Before the Lord of Calvary
Under his thorny crown,
Looked in divine benignity
Upon his murderers down.

207

Yet sages, weak with thought, which still
Led to defeat and shame,
From their proud schools, to learn his will,
As lisping children came,

And those, to whom this varied earth
Was one sepulchral den,
Felt on their withered hearts, the birth
Of Hope and life again.

No levity of jealous pride
Fettered the deep assent;
Each eye unseal'd, at once descried
What God and Nature meant.

They did not test each burning word
By Logic's barren art,
Only a voice within they heard,
The Reason of the heart.

208

Power touched their Spirits, as they knelt,
Like renovating dew,
God lived within them, and they felt,
Yea, saw that Christ was true.

Age teaching Age, flung forward light,
As out of beacon-pyres,
Till the rejoicing earth was bright
With countless mountain-fires.

The weak thence nerved, were strong to die
Exulting crowds before,
Calm, though the Lion's kindling eye
Glared through the grated door;

Full of meek hope, not only men,
But fragile girls, have seen
The slow unclosing of the den,
With nought but God between.

209

“Alas! that yonder spotless maid,
So delicately fair,
Should through mean carnage, undismayed
Be dragged, to perish there.

“Alas! for her, she stands alone,
With large uplifted eye,
On the harsh sand, profusely thrown
O'er planks it will not dry.

“No; not alas! she does not see
The famished creature's rage,
There seems to her a company
Of Angels round the cage.

“Aye, but if when the monster grim
Rush roaring from his lair,
Over that awful interim,
Lie only—vacant air,

210

“If that fresh flower, that lovely child,
To the fanged savage cast,
By mocking fancies self-beguiled,
Bleed for a dream, at last.”

A dream—oh no, believe it not,
Rather sink down, and die.
The Hope, that glorified her lot,
Was deeper than a lie.

Have we another creed to make?
Another God to raise,
Out of the Phantom forms, which shake
These melancholy days?

Better to join the quiet dead,
Than aimlessly live on,
With rayless heavens over-head,
And faith for ever gone.

211

Let not the drunken pride of will
In logic's glittering fence,
Entice thee to the ranks of ill,
Against thy holier sense.

The Cross to save is as divine,
The Spirit sword to quell,
As when of old, its primal sign
Silenced unresting Hell.

Martyrs and saints, a reverent train,
Gleams yet of glory cast;
Oh! sever not the golden chain
That links thee to the past.

Pray with meek heart, and tearful eye,
Fixing the inner mind
Upon that noble company,
Who live in light behind.

212

Still to the man of humble knee,
For human fear and grief,
The Church's old and mystic tree
Has healing on its leaf.

213

THE CRUSADER'S RETURN.

[_]

(STANZAS FOR MUSIC.)

At length we meet again, love—we meet, but where and how?
Dark time has rolled between us, but we stand together now;
The flowers I wreathed at parting, around thy sunny hair,
Have left nor sign nor shadow, of their blessèd presence there;

214

I have thought of thee, love, ever, through years of toil and pain;
Whilst the Syrian sun was burning down through the very brain:
Whilst the dungeon damps were eating their way into my frame,
I have soothed my soul by dwelling on the music of thy name.

To thee the past is nothing, a dream of fled delight
Long gathered to its brothers, in the caverned gloom of night;
Through all the common channels thy life has glided by,
Whilst mine has been but one long wish, to see thee once—and die.

Rememberest thou the sunset, love, at the gleaming forest-well,
On thy young and blushing fondness how its mellowed radiance fell?

215

From an hour before its dawning, I had ridden fast and far,
To see thee in the spirit-light of the silver evening star;

Not the sand wind of the desert, in its swift and circling gloom,
Not the purple harbinger of the pitiless Simoom,
Not the dungeon roof of darkness, nor the howling storm of war,
Had power to stain that sunset—that silver evening star.

I blame thee not, belovèd—nay, I rejoice to see
How life and love conspire to breathe, their blessedness on thee;
I come in pain and sickness, like a leaf about to fall,
To look upon thy beauty, ere the spirit-voices call.

They call me, yes, belovèd, I hear them call me now;
Oh! joy unhoped, to perish with thy tears upon my brow;

216

Yet weep not for the wounded bird, who seeks that peaceful rest,
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

227

THE DREAM OF PILATE'S WIFE.

[_]

The same subject is much more successfully treated by my Friend Mr. Milnes, in the Volumes which he has just published.

In the mild Eastern Spring-time, far away
From Latian hills, and Tiber's yellow stream,
Upon a couch a Roman matron lay,
And felt the awful presence of a dream:

To the blind sons of men, there was no more
Than a fair woman sleeping through the night,
To rise to household duties as before,
Or chase the fleeting shadow, called delight.

228

But Angels stood around in trembling love,
Till the stern vision had unrolled its power,
And the whole chorus of the stars above
Was hushed in humble silence at that hour.

What heart can number up the mystic throng
Of shapes, down-drifting upon human eyes,
Through all the darkness that has flowed along,
Since the first moonlight looked on Paradise?

There have been dreams of agonizing pain,—
Of love—of bitter vengeance, of despair—
Of madness working in upon the brain,
And wildly-woven trifles light as air:

Nor are they wanting to the fated few,
By some fine sense, foreshadowing what will be,
Of deeper import, and of clearer hue,
Than those thin phantoms which the million see;

229

But, whether bubble of the mind's emotion,
Or prophet visions, over the grey foam
Of Time's unfathomed and unmeasured ocean,
They pass in dim procession to their home;

Banded together in the twilight pale,
Like shadows of a troop of ghosts, they weep
And flit about fantastically frail;
Unwilling to go down into the deep;

But this was not as they: its task being done,
With stately mien, and covered brow, it stood
Before that gibbering crowd, nor strove to shun,
As they did, the inevitable flood.

Its purpose known, all else remained untold,
In that wise silence that from reverence flows,
The woman felt it would be over-bold
Its unimagined aspect to disclose.

230

And still within its nameless resting place
The monarch of all dreams, upon its throne
It sits immoveably, with veilèd face,
In unrevealing majesty—alone.

231

SAPPHO.

What power has caused the ocean swell,
Like startled sleep, to flee?
What conquering Thessalian spell
Breathed on the raging sea,
To sudden rest hath bowed and bent
The soul of the wild element?

232

Nothing is there, save one sweet bird,
Yet as she glideth on,
With wing that moves through heaven unheard,
Wave after wave is won,
Under her shadow soft to lie
Lulled into clear tranquillity.

It is the halcyon, holy thing!
To whom the gods have given,
That the sea should smile beneath her wing,
And reflect the bright blue heaven
Unsullied, and serenely fair,
As the dreams of my youthful spirit were.

The halcyon flitteth to and fro,
Above the charmèd sea;
My thoughts like troubled waters flow,
Why comes she not to me?
Why calms she not the waves of pain,
Which vex this weary heart and brain?

233

My harp is silent at my side,
It has been silent long;
Vainly these trembling hands have tried
To wake it into song.
My soul is full of one desire—
One dream—one fever-fit—one fire.

At every sound mine ears have caught,
This heart has throbbed so fast,
That broken down, and over-wrought
It hardly beats at last;
Ebbing from hot and bitter strife,
To utter weariness of life.

My cheek is wan—my pulse is low,
With waiting here alone;
I cannot stay, I cannot go.
Oh! that the day were done;
Oh! that some power my brain would steep
In slumber motionless and deep.

234

Oh bear me to some forest glade,
Far from this glaring sun,
Where, dark with overhanging shade,
The fresh cold waters run;
If God and nature fail to cure,
The hand of healing death is sure.

235

TARPEIA.

In yonder magic hill,
There is a dungeon deep,
Wherein, girt round with darkness, still
Tarpeia sits, in sleep.

Let no rude murmur break
The charmèd trance of sin;
It were not good, for man to wake
The maid, who sleeps within.

236

For many an age, she sate,
Forbid to rest or die;
Fast fettered by the hand of fate
To quenchless agony.

Wreathed flames around her head
Were fastened by a spell;
The gems, upon her neck, were fed
With lurid light from hell.

And as the inmost hill
Shook to her speechless pain;
Insulting demon-voices still
Kept singing on their strain.

That is the crown of gold
Which made this rock your home;
Those are the jewels, for which you sold
The warlike sons of Rome.

237

Such was Tarpeia's doom,
Within the grim hill side;
Until that day of mystic gloom,
When God for sinners died.

Since that, these pangs no more
Her heavy slumbers chase;
God grant, that by the penance sore,
Her soul may have found grace.

Still, let no murmurs break
The charmèd trance of sin;
It were not good, for man to wake
The maid who sleeps within.

247

DIDO'S ANSWER TO ÆNEAS IN HADES.

[_]

These verses are founded on the dreary Homeric notion of a future state, according to which nothing but mere being remained to the Dead.

I know thee—yet no quickening thrill
Glides through the icy breast of death:
The shadowy veins are cold and still,
The silent tide of seeming breath
Is regular and tranquil as before:
I loved thee once—but the dead feel no more.

248

The chill blue lake of Acheron,
Whose flood has never moved at all;
The dim grey forest, overgrown
With withered leaves which do not fall;
The still mist seated on the herbless ground;
The numb sky, barren of all light and sound;

These are not merely dreams, the spawn
Of Chaos and unmeaning Fate,
But pictured types around us drawn
To image forth Man's inward state,
As soon as Time, ebbing in giant waves,
Has rolled him down through Death's unsounded caves.

The earth, the air, the sea, the sky,
Lovely in unrelaxing change,
With deepest harmonies reply
To Life in all her boundless range:
Even so accords, this wan unmoving gloom,
With what our spirits are beyond the tomb.

249

You ask me to forgive—'Tis vain,—
We have not here the human will;
Nor feelings now, nor powers remain
To wish thee either good or ill:
The shapes that sail around care not for thee;
I am the same with them, and they with me.

Once bound for this unchanging place,
One solemn change all undergo;
Though still ourselves, we lose all trace
Of that which used to make us so:
One vast and shadowy soul, diffused in each,
Gives us our phantom thought and dreaming speech.

Pass on then, through this pulseless deep,
Home to the eddying world of man;
There love and hate, rejoice and weep,
And hurry through thy little span:
For earth must close above thee—and this orb
Into its dim monotony thy soul absorb.

250

FROM THE GREEK.

Alas! the mallows, when along the dale
They fade and perish—when the parsley pale
And the bright-leaved anethus droops—once more
These live, and bloom in beauty, as before.
But we—the wise, the warlike, and the great,
Wither beneath the touch of death—and straight
Sleep, deaf within the hollow earth, a sleep
For ever lengthening, limitless, and deep.

SONNET.

Thus sung the ancient bark of Sicily,
The shepherd poet—as he wandered forth,
And saw the flowers of summer droop and die,
Under the touch of the malignant north,

251

Rare visitant of that unclouded sky.
And yet he knew, each semivital flower
Was watched by nature's God, and clothed in sleep
By the wise tenderness of sovran power,
That it might live.—What demon whispered there?
What charms, and magic drugs, conspired to steep
The poet's heart in darkness and despair?
How dull a thought! that God, whose love can bless
The falling rose, and tend the worm with care,
Made man a living soul—for nothingness.

252

THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPIAS.

FROM SIMONIDES.

This turf lies on a woman's breast,
Shrouded in deep and peaceful rest;
The scion of a royal tree,
Mother, and wife of kings, was she;
Yet, though to these high names allied,
Her gentle spirit knew not pride.

SONNET.

Her father was a man of violent mood,
Hated—and hating many.—Restless fear
Alternately, and burning anger glowed
Beneath his heart—and death seemed ever near,

253

Such multitudes were thirsting for his blood.
But she was young, and beautiful, and mild
As is the morning star—in their own clime,
Taught by her natural love, though yet a child,
She sung to him, and smiled his cares away:
Thus did she ever in her maiden prime,
And when his head in foreign lands was grey,
She soothed him still with love that grew not dull,
And stood before him, striving to be gay,
With pleading eyes, divinely beautiful!