Fables in Song :: :: University of Virginia Library

One more Alceste, by all the world betray'd,
And overburden'd with unnumber'd wrongs,
The victor vices in their hell-pit leaving,
Sought out on earth some solitary spot
For honourable freedom. Scorn of men
Forth drave him, and desire of desertness,
And deep disgust of affectations fed
On fool'd affections, with a sudden force
Hither and thither, till he found at last
A tract of savage, strange, uncitied land,
Forgotten like himself. There settled he;
Far from each false Philinthe and Celimène,
And “love unruled by reason,” and the troop
Of those “great makers of great protestations”
The world calls friends.

This hater of mankind
Walking alone along the windy wold
One morning, spied a falcon in the wind,
That chased a skylark. And the skylark fled
For shelter to the bosom of the man.
Who, muttering “Miserable little bird,
I give thee what to me none ever gave,”
His cloak unclasp'd, and to the bird vouchsafed
Welcome in woe and shelter from distress.
Then built a bowery cage; where for a while,
With all, save freedom, that a bird can want,
The skylark, seeming well contented, lived.

Was it the memory of a peril past,
That made the sense of present safety sweet?
Or gratitude for benefits received?
Or but the waning charm of change? Alceste,
Tho' disbelieving human kindness still,
And earthly blessedness still disbelieving,
Believed, at least, that he had blest this bird
With so much bliss as he by that belief
Still made his own, because he was a man.

So lapsed the season. Longer wax'd the days
And the nights warmer: till a tremor ran,
Preluding the revival of the year,
Along the leafless boughs. And, ere it pass'd,
Lo you! like love, that changes life, all round,
Above, beneath, the Spring was everywhere;
Troubling the sleep of Nature with mad hopes.

All things of joy and beauty, long represt,
Broke out in revel, riotously sure
Of May's delirious promise. From whose mirth,
Pelted with buds, the frowning Winter wrapp'd
His white robe round him, like a minister
Disgraced, that from the uprisen people runs,
And fled, barefooted; muttering “Motley fools,
That fling a saucy triumph in the face
Of fleeting Power, sing! dance! pavilion all
The tipsy tops of yonder swaggering trees
With tassell'd fringe! on every wanton puff
Of passing wind swing out your banners blithe!
Carpet with squander'd broidery, green and gold,
The dull land deckt for your audacious march!
Break ope earth's hidden treasures! 'twirl and toss
Your silly tinkling timbrels that proclaim
A world's subversion! Fools, I shall return.”

Then, for the skies the skylark yearn'd: and, mad
With memories which the magic of the Spring
Had changed to hopes, he could no comfort find
In any corner of his corbell'd cage.
But, food by day and sleep by night refusing,
He sent forth little plaintive cries, and beat
With petulant beak and breast the ozier bars
Of his unvalued lattice. This, Alceste
Beheld, compassionately vext; and sigh'd
“Thou longest for lost liberty, alas!
The snares of earth, the storms of heaven forgetting,
The chill wind chattering on the rainy wold,

And the hawk hovering in blue ambush high.
A wandering odour on the wakeful night,
A warmer breeze thro' budded thickets breaking,
Suffice thee to efface all sufferings past,
Insensate! and thou flutterest to regain
Thy persecuting freedom. Out on time!
Doth Memory carve the records of Mischance
With such a careless or a clumsy hand
That, ere the lazy creeping ivy-twine
Hath time to lace her latest epitaph,
It fades away? Ah, were her warning words
But graved on granite, the insensible stone
Would keep unblunted all their biting truths:
But she confides them to the tender stuff
That hearts are made of; and the hot blood there,
Born for betrayal, heals old hurts in haste,
Lest the scarr'd nerve, grown callous, miss the smart
Of sufferings yet in store. Go, silly bird!
Thou know'st not how that folk, self-styled elect,
Which deem'd itself Heaven's favourite upon earth,
Tho' in the desert half a hundred years
It linger'd looking for the Promised Land,
Is at this hour a wanderer as of old,
The byword of the nations! Get thee gone,
Truster in promises!” He oped the cage,
And forth, in vain admonisht, flew the bird.

Some few days after, near the self-same spot
Where, in the autumn of the bygone year
Alceste had saved it from its falcon foe,

He found the skylark dead. Desuëtude
Of self-exertion, caused by comfort got
Without an effort, had relax'd the strength,
And dull'd the craft, which Freedom needs to bear
The bruising buffets of Necessity.
Unshelter'd cold and foodless hunger found
No friend in liberty. A little heap
Of frozen feathers in the mountain grass
Was all that rested of a vain desire
Wreckt on a sea of promise.
Seeing this,
“Heart-breaking Liberty!” Alceste exclaim'd,
“If we be strong, with stronger than ourselves
Thou dost confront us: and, if weak we be,
In vain thy gifts thou givest us. Yet ah,
Safe-shelter'd from thy harsh embrace, we droop,
And find no joy wherever thou art not.”