The poems posthumous and collected of Thomas Lovell Beddoes

'Twas in those days
That never were, nor ever shall be, reader,
But on this paper; golden, glorious days,
Such as the sun, (poor fellow! by the way,
Where is he? I've not seen him all this winter,)—
Never could spin: days, as I said before,
Which shall be made as fine as ink can make them;
So, clouds, avaunt! and Boreas, hence! to blow
Old Ætna's porridge. We will make the sun
Rise, like a gentleman, at noon; clasped round
With the bright armour of his May-day beams;
The summer-garland on his beaming curls,
With buds of palest brightness; and one cloud—
Yes, (I'm an Englishman,) one snow-winged cloud,
To wander slowly down the trembling blue;
A wind that stops and pants along the grass,

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Trembles and flies again, like thing pursued;
And indescribable, delightful sounds,
Which dart along the sky, we know not whence;
Bees we must have to hum, shrill-noted swallows
With their small, lightning wings, to fly about,
And tilt against the waters:—that will do.
And now, dear climate, only think what days
I'd make if you'd employ me: you should have
A necklace, every year, of such as this;
Each bead of the three hundred sixty five—
(Excuse me, puss, (&) I could'nt get you in,)
Made up of sunshine, moonshine, and blue skies:
Starlight I'd give you in:—but where are we?
I see: 'twas in those days that Alfarabi lived;
A man renowned in the newspapers:
He wrote in two reviews; raw pork at night
He ate, and opium; kept a bear at college:
A most extraordinary man was he.
But he was one not satisfied with man,
As man has made himself: he thought this life
Was something deeper than a jest, and sought
Into its roots: himself was his best science.
He touched the springs, the unheeded hieroglyphics
Deciphered; like an antiquary sage
Within an house of office, which he takes
For druid temple old, here he picked up
A tattered thought, and turned it o'er and o'er
'Till it was spelled; the names of all the tenants,

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Pencilled upon the wall, he would unite;
Until he found the secret and the spell
Of life. 'Twas not by Logic, reader;
Her and her crabbed sister, Metaphysics,
Left he to wash Thought's shirt, the shirt bemired
On that proverbial morning. By his own mind,
The lamp that never fails us, dared we trust it,
He read the mystery; and it was one
To the dull sense of common man unknown,
Incomprehensible; a miracle
Of magic, yet as true and obvious,
For thoughtful ones to hit on, as the sun.
He knew the soul would free itself in sleep
From her dull sister, bear itself away,
Freer than air: to guide it with his will,
To bear his mortal sight and memory,
On these excursions, was the power he found.
He found it, and he used it. For, one night,
By the internal vision he saw Sleep,
Just after dinner, tapping at the door
Of his next neighbour, the old alderman.
Sleep rode a donkey with a pair of wings,
And, having fastened its ethereal bridle
Unto the rails, walked in. Now, Alfarabi!
Leap, Alfarabi! There! the saddle's won:
He kicks, he thwacks, he spurs,—the donkey flies.
On soared they, like the bright thought of an eye,
'Mid the infinity of elements.

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First through the azure meads of night and day,
Among the rushing of the million flames,
They passed the bearded dragon-star, unchained
From Hell, (of old its sun,) flashing its way
Upon those wings, compact of mighty clouds
Bloodshot and black, or flaring devilish light,
Whose echo racks the shrieking universe,
Whose glimpse is tempest. O'er each silent star
Slept like a tomb that dark, marmoreal bird,
That spell-bound ocean, Night,—her breast o'erwrit
With golden secresies. All these he passed,
One after one: as he, who stalks by night,
With the ghost's step, the shaggy murderer
Leaves passed the dreamy city's sickly lamps.
Then through the horrid twilight did they plunge,
The universe's suburbs; dwelling dim
Of all that sin and suffer; midnight shrieks
Upon the water, when no help is nigh;
The blood-choaked curse of him who dies in bed
By torch-light, with a dagger in his heart;
The parricidal and incestuous laugh;
And the last cries of those whom devils hale
Quick into hell; deepened the darkness.
And there were sounds of wings, broken and swift;
Blows of wrenched poniards, muffled in thick flesh;
Struggles and tramplings wild, splashes and falls,
And inarticulate yells from human breasts.
Nought was beheld: but Alfarabi's heart

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Turned in his bosom, like a scorched leaf,
And his soul faded. When again he saw,
His steed had paused. It was within a space
Upon the very boundary and brim
Of the whole universe, the outer edge
Which seemed almost to end the infinite zone;
A chasm in the almighty thoughts, forgotten
By the omnipotent; a place apart,
Like some great, ruinous dream of broken worlds
Tumbling through heaven, or Tartarus' panting jaws
Open above the sun. Sky was there none,
Nor earth, nor water: but confusion strange;
Mountainous ribs and adamantine limbs
Of bursten worlds, and brazen pinions vast
Of planets ship-wrecked; many a wrinkled sun
Ate to the core by worms, with lightnings crushed;
And drossy bolts, melting like noonday snow.
Old towers of heaven were there, and fragments bright
Of the cerulean battlements, o'erthrown
When the gods struggled for the throne of light;
And 'mid them all a living mystery,
A shapeless image, or a vision wrapt
In clouds, and guessed at by its fearful shade;
Most like a ghost of the eternal flame,
An indistinct and unembodied horror
Which prophecies have told of; not wan Death,
Nor War the bacchanal of blood, nor Plague
The purple beast, but their great serpent-sire,

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Destruction's patriarch, (dread name to speak!)
The End of all, the Universe's Death.
At that dread, ghostly thing, the atmosphere
And light of this, the world's, black charnel house,
Low bowed the Archimage, and thrice his life
Upraised its wing for passage; but the spell
Prevailed, and to his purposed task he rose.
He called unto the dead, and the swart powers,
That wander unconfined beyond the sight
Or thought of mortals; and, from the abyss
Of cavernous deep night, came forth the hands,
That dealt the mallet when this world of ours
Lay quivering on the anvil in its ore,—
Hands of eternal stone, which would unmesh
And fray this starry company of orbs,
As a young infant, on a dewy morn,
Rends into nought the tear-hung gossamer.
—To work they went, magician, hands, and Co,
With tongs and trowels, needles, scissors, paste,
Solder and glue, to make another world:
And, as a tinker, 'neath a highway hedge,
Turns, taps, and batters, rattles, bangs, and scrapes
A stew-pan ruinous,—or as, again,
The sibylline dame Gurton, ere she lost
Th'immortal bodkin, staunched the gaping wound
In Hodge's small-clothes famed,—so those great hands
Whisked round their monstrous loom, here stitching in
An island of green vallies, fitting there

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A mountain extra with a hook and eye,
Caulking the sea, hemming the continents,
And lacing all behind to keep it tight.
'Tis done,—'tis finished; and between the thumb
Depends, and the forefinger,—like a toy,
Button with pin impaled, in winter games
That dances on the board,—and now it flies
Into the abyssal blueness, spinning and bright,
Just at old Saturn's tail. The necromancer
Puffed from his pipe a British climate round,
And stars and moon, and angels beamed upon it.
Just as it joined the midnight choir of worlds,
It chanced a bearded sage espied it's sweep,
And named it Georgium Sidus.

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THE ROMANCE OF THE LILY.

Ever love the lily pale,
The flower of ladies' breasts;
For there is passion on its cheek,
Its leaves a timorous sorrow speak,
And its perfume sighs a gentle tale
To its own young buds, and the wooing gale,
And the piteous dew that near it rests.
It is no earthly common flower
For man to pull, and maidens wear
On the wreathed midnight of their hair.
Deep affection is its dower;
For Venus kissed it as it sprung,
And gave it one immortal tear,
When the forgotten goddess hung,
Woe-bowed o'er Adon's daisied bier:
Its petals, brimmed with cool sweet air,
Are chaste as the words of a virgin's prayer;
And it lives alight in the greenwood shade,
Like a love-thought, chequered o'er with fear,
In the memory of that self-same maid.

I ever have loved the lily pale,
For the sake of one whom heaven has ta'en

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From the prison of man, the palace of pain.
In autumn, Mary, thou didst die;
(Die! no, thou didst not—but some other way
Wentest to bliss; she could not die like men;
Immortal into immortality
She went; our sorrows know she went:) and then
We laid her in a grassy bed
(The mortal her) to live for ever,
And there was nought above her head,
No flower to bend, no leaf to quiver.
At length, in spring, her beauty dear,
Awakened by my well-known tear,
And at its thrill returning,
Or her love and anguish burning,
Wrought spells within the earth;
For a human bloom, a baby flower,
Uprose in talismanic birth;
Where foliage was forbid to wave,
Engendered by no seed or shower,
A lily grew on Mary's grave.

Last eve I lay by that blossom fair,
Alone I lay to think and weep;
An awe was on the fading hour:
And 'midst the sweetness of the flower
There played a star of plumage rare,
A bird from off the ebon trees,
That grow o'er midnight's rocky steep;

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One of those whose glorious eyes,
In miriads sown, the restless sees,
And thinks what lustrous dew there lies
Upon the violets of the skies:—
And to itself unnumbered ditties
Sang that angel nightingale,
Secrets of the heavenly cities;
And many a strange and fearful word,
Which in her arbour she had heard,
When the court of seraphs sate
To seal some ghost's eternal fate;
And the wind, beneath whose current deep
My soul was pillowed in her sleep,
Thus breathed the mystic warbler's tale.—

King Balthasar has a tower of gold,
And rubies pave his hall;
A magic sun of diamond blazes
Above his palace wall;
And beaming spheres play round in mazes,
With locks of incense o'er them rolled.
Young Balthasar is the Libyan king,
The lord of wizard sages;
He hath read the sun, he hath read the moon,—
Heaven's thoughts are on their pages;
He knows the meaning of night and noon,
And the spell on morning's wing:
The ocean he hath studied well,

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Its maddest waves he hath subdued
Beneath an icy yoke,
And lashed them till they howled, and spoke
The mysteries of the Titan brood,
And all their god forbade them tell.
He hath beheld the storm,
When the phantom of its form
Leans out of heaven to trace,
Upon the earth and sea,
And air's cerulean face,
In earthquake, thunder, war, and fire,
And pestilence, and madness dire,
That mighty woe, futurity.

From the roof of his tower he talks to Jove,
As the god enthroned sits above:
Night roosts upon his turret's height,
And the sun is the clasp of its girdle of light;
And the stars upon his terrace dwell:—
But the roots of that tower are snakes in hell.
Balthasar's soul is a curse and a sin,
And nothing is human that dwells within,
But a tender, beauteous love,
That grows upon his haunted heart,
Like a scented bloom on a madhouse-wall;
For, amid the wrath and roar of all,
It gathers life with blessed art,
And calmly blossoms on above.

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Bright Sabra, when thy thoughts are seen
Moving within those azure eyes,
Like spirits in a star at e'en;
And when that little dimple flies,
As air upon a rosy bush,
To hide behind thy fluttering blush;
When kisses those rich lips unclose,
And love's own music from them flows;
A god might love,—a demon does.
—'Tis night upon the sprinkled sky,
And on their couch of roses
The king and lady lie,
While the tremulous lid of each discloses
A narrow streak of the living eye;
As when a beetle, afloat in the sun,
On a rocking leaf, has just begun
To sever the clasp of his outer wing,
So lightly, that you scarce can see
His little, lace pinions' delicate fold,
And a line of his body of breathing gold,
Girt with many a panting ring,
Before it quivers, and shuts again,
Like a smothered regret in the breast of men,
Or a sigh on the lips of chastity.

One bright hand, dawning through her hair,
Bids it be black, itself as fair

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As the cold moon's palest daughter,
The last dim star, with doubtful ray
Snow-like melting into day,
Echoed to the eye on water:
Round his neck and on his breast
The other curls, and bends its bell
Petalled inward as it fell,
Like a tented flower at rest.
She dreams of him, for rayed joys hover
In dimples round her timorous lip,
And she turns to clasp her sleeping lover,
Kissing the lid of his tender eye,
And brushing off the dews that lie
Upon its lash's tip;
And now she stirs no more,—
But the thoughts of her breast are still,
As a song of a frozen rill
Which winter spreads his dark roof o'er.
In the still and moony hour
Of that calm entwining sleep,
From the utmost tombs of earth
The vision-land of death and birth,
Came a black, malignant power,
A spectre of the desert deep:
And it is Plague, the spotted fiend, the drunkard of the tomb;
Upon her mildewed temples the thunderbolts of doom,

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And blight-buds of hell's red fire, like gory wounds in bloom,
Are twisted for a wreath;
And there's a chalice in her hand, whence bloody flashes gleam,
While struggling snakes with arrowy tongues twist o'er it for a steam,
And its liquor is of Phlegethon, and Ætna's wrathful stream,
And icy dews of death.

Like a rapid dream she came,
And vanished like the flame
Of a burning ship at sea,
But to his shrinking lips she pressed
The cup of boiling misery,
And he quaffed it in his tortured rest,
And woke in the pangs of lunacy.
As a buried soul awaking
From the cycle of its sleep,
Panic-struck and sad doth lie
Beneath its mind's dim canopy,
And marks the stars of memory breaking
From 'neath oblivion's ebbing deep,
While clouds of doubt bewilder the true sky,—
So in the hieroglyphic portal
Of his dreams sate Balthasar,
Awake amidst his slumbering senses,

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And felt as feels man's ghost immortal,
Whom the corpse's earthen fences
From his vast existence bar.
The pestilence was in his breast,
And boiled and bubbled o'er his brain;
His thoughtless eyes in their unrest
Would have burst their circling chain,
Scattering their fiery venom wide,
But for the soft, endearing rain,
With which the trembler at his side
Fed those gushing orbs of white,
As evening feeds the waves, with looks of quiet light.
The tear upon his cheek's fierce flush;
The cool breath on his brow;
And the healthy presage of a blush,
Sketched in faint tints behind his skin;
And the hush of settling thoughts within,
Sabra hath given, and she will need them now.
For, as the echo of a grove
Keeps its dim shadow 'neath some song of love,
And gives her life away to it in sound,
Soft spreading her wild harmony,
Like a tress of smoking censery,
Or a ring of water round,—
So all the flowery wealth
Of her happiness and health
Untwined from Sabra's strength, and grew
Into the blasted stem of Balthasar's pale life,

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And his is the beauty and bliss that flew
On the wings of her love from his sinking wife.
The fading wanness of despair
Was the one colour of her cheek,
And tears upon her bosom fair
Wrote the woe she dared not speak;
But life was in her. Yes: it played
In tremulous and fitful grace,
Like a flame's reflected breath
Shivering in the throes of death
Against the monumental face
Of some sad, voiceless marble maid.
And what is a woman to Balthasar,
Whom love has weakened, bowed, and broken?
Upon his forehead's darksome war,
His lip's curled meaning, yet unspoken,
The lowering of his wrinkled brow,
'Tis graved,—he spurns, he loaths her now.

Along the sea, at night's black noon,
Alone the king and lady float,
With music in a snowy boat,
That glides in light, an ocean-moon;
From billow to billow it dances,
And the spray around it glances,
And the mimic rocks and caves,
Beneath the mountains of the waves,
Reflect a joyous song

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As the merry bark is borne along;
And now it stays its eager sail
Within a dark sepulchral vale,
Amid the living Alps of Ocean,
'Round which the crags in tumult rise
And make a fragment of the skies;
Beneath whose precipice's motion
The folded dragons of the deep
Lie with lidless eyes asleep:
It pauses; and—Is that a shriek
That agonizes the still air,
And makes the dead day move and speak
From beneath its midnight pall,—
Or the ruined billow's fall?
The boat is soaring lighter there,
The voice of woman sounds no more.—
That night the water-crescent bore
Dark Balthasar alone unto the living shore.

Tears, tears for Sabra; who will weep?
O blossoms, ye have dew,
And grief-dissembling storms might strew
Thick-dropping woe upon her sleep.
False sea, why dost thou look like sorrow,
Why is thy cold heart of water?
Or rather why are tears of thee
Compassionless, bad sea?
For not a drop does thy stern spirit borrow,

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To mourn o'er beauty's fairest daughter.
Heaven, blue heaven, thou art not kind,
Or else the sun is not thine eye,
For thou should'st be with weeping blind,
Not thus forgetful, bright, and dry.
O that I were a plume of snow,
To melt away and die
In a long chain of bubbling harmony!—
My tribute shall be sweet tho' small;
A cup of the vale-lily bloom
Filled with white and liquid woe—
Give it to her ocean-pall:
With such deluge-seeds I'll sow
Her mighty, elemental tomb,
Until the lamentations grow
Into a foaming crop of populous overflow.

Hither, like a bird of prey,
Whom red anticipations feed,
Flaming along the fearful day
Revenge's thirsty hour doth fly.
Heaven has said a fearful word;
(Which hell's eternal labyrinths heard,
And the wave of time
Shall answer to the depths sublime,
Reflecting it in deed;)
“Balthasar the king must die.”
Must die; for all his power is fled,

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His spells dissolved, his spirits gone,
And magic cannot ease the bed
Where lies the necromant alone.
What thought is gnawing in his heart,
What struggles madly in his brain?
See, the force, the fiery pain
Of silence makes his eyeballs start.
O ease thy bosom, dare to tell—
But grey-haired pity speaks in vain;
That bitter shriek, that hopeless yell,
Has given the secret safe to hell.
Like a ruffled nightingale,
Balanced upon dewy wings,
Through the palace weeps the tale,
Leaving tears, where'er she sings:
And, around the icy dead,
Maids are winding
Kingly robes of mocking lead,
And with leafy garlands binding
The unresisting, careless head:
Gems are flashing, garments wave
'Round the bridegroom of the grave.
Hark! A shout of wild surprise,
A burst of terrible amaze!
The lids are moving up his eyes,
They open, kindle, beam, and gaze.—
Grave, thy bars are broken,

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Quenched the flames of pain,
Falsely fate hath spoken,
The dead is born again.
As when the moon and shadows' strife,
On some rebellious night,
Looks a pale statue into life,
And gives his watching form the action of their light,—
So stilly strode the awakened one,
And with the voice of stone,
Which troubled caverns screech,
Cursing the tempest's maniac might,
He uttered human speech.
“Tremble, living ones, and hear;
By the name of death and fear,
By lightning, earthquake, fire and war,
And him whose snakes and hounds they are,
From whose judgment-seat I come,
Listen, crouch, be dumb.
My soul is drowned beneath a flood
Of conscience, red with Sabra's blood;
And, from yon blue infinity,
Doomed and tortured I am sent
To confess the deed and fly:
Wail not for me,—yourselves repent:
Eternity is punishment;
Listen, crouch, and die.”

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With that word his body fell,
As dust upon the storm,—
Flash-like darkened was his form;
While through their souls in horror rang
The dragon-shout, the thunderous clang
Of the closing gates of hell.

154

PYGMALION.

There stood a city along Cyprus' side
Lavish of palaces, an arched tide
Of unrolled rocks; and, where the deities dwelled,
Their clustered domes pushed up the noon, and swelled
With the emotion of the god within,—
As doth earth's hemisphere, when showers begin
To tickle the still spirit at its core,
Till pastures tremble and the river-shore
Squeezes out buds at every dewy pore.
And there were pillars, from some mountain's heart,
Thronging beneath a wide, imperial floor
That bent with riches; and there stood apart
A palace, oft accompanied by trees,
That laid their shadows in the galleries
Under the coming of the endless light,
Net-like;—who trod the marble, night or day,
By moon, or lamp, or sunless day-shine white,
Would brush the shaking, ghostly leaves away,
Which might be tendrils or a knot of wine,
Burst from the depth of a faint window-vine,
With a bird pecking it: and round the hall
And wandering staircase, within every wall
Of sea-ward portico, and sleeping chamber,

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Whose patient lamp distilled a day of amber,
There stood, and sate, or made rough steeds their throne,
Immortal generations wrung from stone,
Alike too beautiful for life and death,
And bodies that a soul of mortal breath
Would be the dross of.

Such a house as this
Within a garden hard by Salamis,
(Cyprus's city-crown and capital
Ere Paphos was, and at whose ocean-wall
Beauty and love's paternal waves do beat
That sprouted Venus;) such a fair retreat
Lonely Pygmalion self inhabited,
Whose fiery chisel with creation fed
The ship-wrecked rocks; who paid the heavens again
Diamonds for ice; who made gods who make men.
Lonely Pygmalion: you might see him go
Along the streets where markets thickest flow,
Doubling his gown across his thinking breast,
And the men fall aside; nor only pressed
Out of his elbows' way, but left a place,
A sun-room for him, that his mind had space
And none went near; none in his sweep would venture,
For you might feel that he was but the centre
Of an inspired round, the middle spark
Of a great moon, setting aside the dark
And cloudy people. As he went along

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The chambered ladies silenced the half-song,
And let the wheel unheeded whirl and skim,
To get their eyes blest by the sight of him.
So locks were swept from every eye that drew
Sun for the soul through circles violet-blue,
Mild brown, or passionate black.

Still, discontent,
Over his sensual kind the sculptor went,
Walking his thoughts. Yet Cyprus' girls be fair;
Day-bright and evening-soft the maidens are,
And witching like the midnight, and their pleasure
Silent and deep as midnight's starry treasure.
Lovely and young, Pygmalion yet loved none.
His soul was bright and lovely as the sun,
Like which he could create; and in its might
There lived another Spirit wild and bright,
That came and went; and, when it came, its light
On these dim earthy things, turn where he will,
Its light, shape, beauty were reflected still.
Day-time and dark it came; like a dim mist
Shelling a god, it rolled, and, ere he wist,
It fell aside, and dawned a shape of grace,
And an inspired and melancholy face,
Whose lips were smile-buds dewy:—into him
It rolled like sun-light till his sight was dim,
And it was in his heart and soul again,
Not seen but breathed.

There was a grassy plain,

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A pasture of the deer,—Olympus' mountain
Was the plain's night, the picture of its fountain:
Unto which unfrequented dell and wood
Unwittingly his solitary mood
Oft drew him.—In the water lay
A fragment of pale marble, which they say
Slipped from some fissure in the agued moon,
Which had caught earth-quake and a deadly swoon
When the sun touched her with his hilly shade.
Weeds grew upon it, and the streamlet made
A wanton music with its ragged side,
And birds had nests there. One still even-tide,
When they were perched and sleeping, passed this man,
Startling the air with thoughts which over-ran
The compass of his mind: writing the sand
Idly he paused, and laid unwitting hand
On the cold stone. How smooth the touch! It felt
Less porous than a lip which kisses melt,
And diamond-hard. That night his workmen wrought
With iron under it, and it was brought,
This dripping quarry, while the sky was starry,
Home to the weary, yearning statuary.
He saw no sky that day, no dark that night,
For through the hours his lamp was full of light,
Shadowing the pavement with his busy right.
Day after day they saw not in the street
The wondrous artist: some immortal feat
Absorbed him; and yet often in the noon,

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When the town slept beneath the sweltering June,
—The rich within, the poor man on the stair,—
He stole unseen into the meadow's air,
And fed on sight of summer, till the life
Was too abundant in him; and so, rife
With light creative, he went in alone,
And poured it warm upon the growing stone.
The magic chisel thrust, and gashed, and swept,
Flying and manifold; no cloud e'er wept
So fast, so thick, so light upon the close
Of shapeless green it meant to make a rose:—
And as insensibly out of a stick,
Dead in the winter-time, the dew-drops quick,
And the thin sun-beams, and the airy shower
Raise and unwrap a many-leaved flower,
And then a fruit: so from the barren stock
Of the deer-shading, formless valley-rock,
This close stone-bud, he, quiet as the air,
Had shaped a lady wonderfully fair,
—Dear to the eyes, a delicate delight,—
For all her marble symmetry was white
As brow and bosom should be, save some azure
Which waited for a loving lip's erasure,
Upon her shoulder, to be turned to blush.
And she was smooth and full, as if one gush
Of life had washed her, or as if a sleep
Lay on her eye-lid, easier to sweep
Than bee from daisy. Who could help a sigh

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At seeing a beauty stand so lifelessly,
But that it was too beautiful to die?
Dealer of immortality,
Greater than Jove himself,—for only he
Can such eternize as the grave has ta'en,
And open heaven by the gate of pain,—
What art thou now, divine Pygmalion?
Divine! gods counting human. Thou hast done
That glory, which has undone thee for ever.
For thou art weak, and tearful, and dost shiver
Wintrily sad; and thy life's healthy river,
With which thy body once was overflown,
Is dried and sunken to its banks of bone.
He carved it not; nor was the chisel's play,
That dashed the earthen hindrances away,
Driven and diverted by his muscle's sway.
The winged tool, as digging out a spell,
Followed a magnet wheresoe'er it fell,
That sucked and led it right: and for the rest,
The living form, with which the stone he blest,
Was the loved image stepping from his breast.
And therefore loves he it, and therefore stays
About the she-rock's feet, from hour to hour,
Anchored to her by his own heart: the power
Of the isle's Venus therefore thus he prays.
“Goddess, that made me, save thy son, and save
The man, that made thee goddess, from the grave.
Thou know'st it not; it is a fearful coop

160

Dark, cold, and horrible,—a blinded loop
In Pluto's madhouse' green and wormy wall.
O save me from't! Let me not die, like all;
For I am but like one: not yet, not yet,
At least not yet; and why? My eyes are wet
With the thick dregs of immature despair;
With bitter blood out of my empty heart.
I breathe not aught but my own sighs for air,
And my life's strongest is a dying start.
No sour grief there is to me unwed;
I could not be more lifeless being dead.
Then let me die. . Ha! did she pity me?
Oh! she can never love. Did you not see,
How still she bears the music of my moan!
Her heart? Ah! touch it. Fool! I love the stone.
Inspire her, gods! oft ye have wasted life
On the deformed, the hideous, and the vile:
Oh! grant it my sweet rock,—my only wife.
I do not ask it long: a little while,—
A year,—a day,—an hour,—let it be!
For that I'll give you my eternity.
Or let it be a fiend, if ye will send
Something, yon form to humanize and bend,
Within those limbs,—and, when the new-poured blood
Flows in such veins, the worst must soon be good.
They will not hear. Thou, Jove,—or thou, Apollo—
Ay, thou! thou know'st,—O listen to my groan
'Twas Niobe thou drov'st from flesh to stone:

161

Shew this the hole she broke, and let her follow
That mother's track of steps and eyelid rain,
Treading them backwards into life again.
Life, said I? Lives she not? Is there not gone
My life into her, which I pasture on;
Dead, where she is not? Live, thou statue fair,
Live, thou dear marble,—or I shall go wild.
I cover thee, my sweet; I leave thee there,
Behind this curtain, my delicious child,
That they may secretly begin to give
My prayer to thee: when I return, O live!
Oh! live,—or I live not.” And so he went,
Leaving the statue in its darksome tent.

Morn after morn, sadder the artist came;
His prayer, his disappointment were the same.
But when he gazed she was more near to woman;
There was a fleshy pink, a dimple wrought
That trembled, and the cheek was growing human
With the flushed distance of a rising thought,
That still crept nearer:—yet no further sign!
And now, Pygmalion, that weak life of thine
Shakes like a dew-drop in a broken rose,
Or incense parting from the altar-glows.
'Tis the last look,—and he is mad no more:
By rule and figure he could prove at large
She never can be born,—and from the shore
His foot is stretching into Charon's barge.
Upon the pavement ghastly is he lying,

162

Cold with the last and stoniest embrace:
Elysium's light illumines all his face;
His eyes have a wild, starry grace
Of heaven, into whose depth of depths he's dying.
—A sound, with which the air doth shake,
Extinguishing the window of moonlight!
A pang of music dropping round delight,
As if sweet music's honiest heart did break!
Such a flash, and such a sound, the world
Is stung by, as if something was unfurled
That held great bliss within its inmost curled.
Roof after roof, the palace rends asunder;
And then—O sight of joy and placid wonder!
He lies, beside a fountain, on the knee
Of the sweet woman-statue, quietly
Weeping the tears of his felicity.

163

LINES WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF THE ‘PROMETHEUS UNBOUND.’

Write it in gold—A spirit of the sun,
An intellect a-blaze with heavenly thoughts,
A soul with all the dews of pathos shining,
Odorous with love, and sweet to silent woe
With the dark glories of concentrate song,
Was sphered in mortal earth. Angelic sounds
Alive with panting thoughts sunned the dim world.
The bright creations of an human heart
Wrought magic in the bosoms of mankind.
A flooding summer burst on poetry;
Of which the crowning sun, the night of beauty,
The dancing showers, the birds, whose anthems wild
Note after note unbind the enchanted leaves
Of breaking buds, eve, and the flow of dawn,
Were centred and condensed in his one name
As in a providence,—and that was Shelley.

Oxford, 1822.

164

SONNET:

TO TARTAR, A TERRIER BEAUTY.

Snow-drop of dogs, with ear of brownest dye,
Like the last orphan leaf of naked tree
Which shudders in bleak autumn; though by thee,
Of hearing careless and untutored eyes,
Not understood articulate speech of men,
Nor marked the artificial mind of books,
—The mortal's voice eternized by the pen,—
Yet hast thou thought and language all unknown
To Babel's scholars; oft intensest looks,
Long scrutiny o'er some dark-veined stone
Dost thou bestow, learning dead mysteries
Of the world's birth-day, oft in eager tone
With quick-tailed fellows bandiest prompt replies,
Solicitudes canine, four-footed amities.

165

LETTER TO B. W. PROCTER, ESQ.

FROM OXFORD; MAY, 1825.

In every tower, that Oxford has, is swung,
Quick, loud, or solemn, the monotonous tongue
Which speaks Time's language, the universal one
After the countenance of moon or sun,—
Translating their still motions to the earth.
I cannot read; the reeling belfry's mirth
Troubles my senses; therefore, Greek, shut up
Your dazzling pages; covered be the cup
Which Homer has beneath his mantle old,
Steamy with boiling life: your petals fold
You fat, square blossoms of the yet young tree
Of Britain-grafted, flourishing Germany:
Hush! Latin, to your grave:—and, with the chime,
My pen shall turn the minutes into rhyme,
And, like the dial, blacken them. There sits,
Or stands, or lounges, or perhaps on bits
Of this rag's daughter, paper, exorcises,
With strange black marks and inky wild devices,
The witch of worlds, the echo of great verse,
About the chasms of the universe,
Ringing and bounding immortality.—
Give him thy bosom, dark Melpomene,

166

And let him of thy goblet and thine eye
Exhaust the swimming, deep insanity.
He hath the soul, O let it then be fed,
Sea after sea, with that which is not read,
Nor wrung by reasoning from a resolute head,
But comes like lightning on a hill-top steeple;
Heaven's spillings on the lofty laurelled people.
Verse to thee, light to thee, wings upraise thee long
In the unvacillating soar of song,
Thou star-seed of a man! But do not dare
To tempt thy Apollonian god too far,
Clogging and smoking thy young snake, Renown,
In the strait, stony shadows of the town,
Lest he grow weak, and pine, and never be
What he was born, twin to Eternity.
So come, shake London from thy skirts away:
So come, forget not it is England's May.
For Oxford, ho! by moonlight or by sun:
Our horses are not hours, but rather run
Foot by foot faster than the second-sand,
While the old sunteam, like a plough, doth stand
Stuck in thick heaven. Here thou at morn shalt see
Spring's dryad-wakening whisper call the tree,
And move it to green answers; and beneath,
Each side the river which the fishes breathe,
Daisies and grass, whose tops were never stirred,
Or dews made tremulous, but by foot of bird.
And you shall mark in spring's heaven-tapestried room

167

Yesterday's knoppe, burst by its wild perfume,
Like woman's childhood, to this morning's bloom;
And here a primrose pale beneath a tree,
And here a cowslip longing for its bee,
And violets and lilies every one
Grazing in the great pasture of the sun,
Beam after beam, visibly as the grass
Is swallowed by the lazy cows that pass.
Come look, come walk,—and there shall suddenly
Seize you a rapture and a phantasy;
High over mountain sweeping, fast and high
Through all the intricacies of the sky,
As fast and far a ship-wrecked hoard of gold
Dives ocean, cutting every billow's fold.
These are the honey-minutes of the year
Which make man god, and make a god—Shakespeare.
Come, gather them with me. . If not, then go,
And with thee all the ghosts of Jonson's toe,
The fighting Tartars and the Carthaginians:
And may your lady-muse's stiff-winged pinions
Be naked and impossible to fly,
Like a fat goose pen-plucked for poetry.
A curse upon thy cream to make it sour:
A curse upon thy tea-pot every hour;
Spirits of ice possess it! and thy tea,
Changed at its contact, hay and straw leaves be!
A cold and nipping ague on thine urn!
And an invisible canker eat and burn

168

The mathematic picture, near your fire,
Of the grave, compass-handed, quiet sire!
No more.—Be these the visions of your sorrow
When you have read this doggrel through to-morrow,
And then refuse to let our Oxford borrow
You of the smoky-faced, Augustan town,
And unpersuaded drop the paper down.

ANOTHER LETTER TO THE SAME.

FROM GÖTTINGEN; MARCH, 1826.

To-day a truant from the odd, old bones
And rinds of flesh, which, as tamed rocks and stones
Piled cavernously make his body's dwelling,
Have housed man's soul: there, where time's billows swelling
Roll a deep, ghostly, and invisible sea
Of melted worlds antediluvially,
Upon the sand of ever-crumbling hours,
God-founded, stands the castle, all its towers
With veiny tendrils ivied:—this bright day
I leave its chambers, and with oars away
Seek some enchanted island, where to play.
And what do you that in the enchantment dwell,
And should be raving ever? a wild swell

169

Of passionate life rolling about the world,
Now sun-sucked to the clouds, dashed on the curled
Leaf-hidden daisies, an incarnate storm
Letting the sun through on the meadows yellow,
Or anything except that earthy fellow,
That wise dog's brother, man. O shame to tell!
Make tea in Circe's cup, boil the cool well,
The well Pierian, which no bird dare sip
But nightingales. There let kettles dip
Who write their simpering sonnets to its song,
And walk on sundays in Parnassus' park:—
Take thy example from the sunny lark,
Throw off the mantle which conceals the soul,
The many-citied world, and seek thy goal
Straight as a star-beam falls. Creep not nor climb,
As they who place their topmost of sublime
On some peak of this planet, pitifully.
Dart eagle-wise with open wings, and fly
Until you meet the gods. Thus counsel I
The men who can, but tremble to be, great:
Cursed be the fool who taught to hesitate,
And to regret: time lost most bitterly!
And thus I write, and I dare write, to thee,
Not worshipping, as those are wont to do,
Who feed and fear some asinine review.
Let Jaggernaut roll on; but we, whose sires
Blooded his wheels and prayed around his fires,
Laugh at the leaden ass in the god's skin.

170

Example follows precept. I have been
Giving some negro minutes of the night,
Freed from the slavery of my ruling spright
Anatomy the grim, to a new story,
In whose satiric pathos we will glory.
In it despair has married wildest mirth,
And, to their wedding-banquet, all the earth
Is bade to bring its enmities and loves,
Triumphs and horrors: you shall see the doves
Billing with quiet joy, and all the while
Their nest's the scull of some old king of Nile.
But he who fills the cups, and makes the jest,
Pipes to the dancers, is the fool o'th' feast,—
Who's he? I've dug him up and decked him trim,
And made a mock, a fool, a slave of him,
Who was the planet's tyrant, dotard death;
Man's hate and dread. Not, with a stoical breath,
To meet him, like Augustus, standing up;
Nor with grave saws to season the cold cup,
Like the philosopher; nor yet to hail
His coming with a verse or jesting tale,
As Adrian did and More:—but of his night,
His moony ghostliness, and silent might
To rob him, to uncypress him in the light,
To unmask all his secrets; make him play
Momus o'er wine by torch-light,—is the way
To conquer him, and kill; and from the day,
Spurn'd, hiss'd, and hooted, send him back again,

171

An unmask'd braggart to his bankrupt den.
For death is more “a jest” than life.—You see
Contempt grows quick from familiarity.
I owe this wisdom to Anatomy.—
Your muse is younger in her soul than mine:
O feed her still on woman's smiles and wine,
And give the world a tender song once more;
For all the good can love and can adore
What's human, fair, and gentle. Few, I know,
Can bear to sit at my board, when I show
The wretchedness and folly of man's all,
And laugh myself right heartily. Your call
Is higher and more human: I will do
Unsociably my part, and still be true
To my own soul; but e'er admire you,
And own that you have nature's kindest trust,
Her weak and dear to nourish,—that I must.
Then fare, as you deserve it, well, and live
In the calm feelings you to others give.

THE BODING DREAMS.

I

In lover's ear a wild voice cried:
“Sleeper, awake and rise!”
A pale form stood at his bed-side,
With heavy tears in her sad eyes.

172

“A beckoning hand, a moaning sound,
A new-dug grave in weedy ground
For her who sleeps in dreams of thee.
Awake! Let not the murder be!”
Unheard the faithful dream did pray,
And sadly sighed itself away.
“Sleep on,” sung Sleep, “to-morrow
“'Tis time to know thy sorrow.”
“Sleep on,” sung Death, “to-morrow
“From me thy sleep thou'lt borrow.”
Sleep on, lover, sleep on,
The tedious dream is gone;
The bell tolls one.

II

Another hour, another dream:
“Awake! awake!” it wailed,
“Arise, ere with the moon's last beam
“Her dearest life hath paled.”
A hidden light, a muffled tread,
A daggered hand beside the bed
Of her who sleeps in dreams of thee.
Thou wak'st not: let the murder be.
In vain the faithful dream did pray,
And sadly sighed itself away.
“Sleep on,” sung Sleep, “to-morrow
“'Tis time to know thy sorrow.”
“Sleep on,” sung Death, “to-morrow

173

“From me thy sleep thou'lt borrow.”
Sleep on, lover, sleep on,
The tedious dream is gone;
Soon comes the sun.

III

Another hour, another dream:
A red wound on a snowy breast,
A rude hand stifling the last scream,
On rosy lips a death-kiss pressed.
Blood on the sheets, blood on the floor,
The murderer stealing through the door.
“Now,” said the voice, with comfort deep,
“She sleeps indeed, and thou may'st sleep.”
The scornful dream then turned away
To the first, weeping cloud of day.
“Sleep on,” sung Sleep, “to-morrow
“'Tis time to know thy sorrow.
“Sleep on, sung Death, to-morrow
“From me thy sleep thou'lt borrow.”
Sleep on, lover, sleep on,
The tedious dream is gone;
The murder's done.

174

LOVE'S LAST MESSAGES.

Merry, merry little stream,
Tell me, hast thou seen my dear?
I left him with an azure dream,
Calmly sleeping on his bier—
But he has fled!

“I passed him in his church-yard bed—
“A yew is sighing o'er his head,
“And grass-roots mingle with his hair.”
What doth he there?
O cruel! can he lie alone?
Or in the arms of one more dear?
Or hides he in that bower of stone,
To cause and kiss away my fear?

“He doth not speak, he doth not moan—
“Blind, motionless he lies alone;
“But, ere the grave snake fleshed his sting.
“This one warm tear he bade me bring
“And lay it at thy feet
“Among the daisies sweet.”

Moonlight whisperer, summer air,
Songster of the groves above,
Tell the maiden rose I wear,
Whether thou hast seen my love.

175

“This night in heaven I saw him lie,
“Discontented with his bliss;
“And on my lips he left this kiss,
“For thee to taste and then to die.”

THE GHOSTS' MOONSHINE.

I

It is midnight, my wedded;
Let us lie under
The tempest bright undreaded,
In the warm thunder:
(Tremble and weep not! What can you fear?)
My heart's best wish is thine,—
That thou wert white, and bedded
On the softest bier,
In the ghosts' moonshine.
Is that the wind? No, no;
Only two devils, that blow
Through the murderer's ribs to and fro,
In the ghosts' moonshine.

II

Who is there, she said afraid, yet
Stirring and awaking
The poor old dead? His spade, it
Is only making,—

176

(Tremble and weep not! What do you crave?)
Where yonder grasses twine,
A pleasant bed, my maid, that
Children call a grave,
In the cold moonshine.
Is that the wind? No, no;
Only two devils, that blow
Through the murderer's ribs to and fro,
In the ghosts' moonshine.

III

What dost thou strain above her
Lovely throat's whiteness?
A silken chain, to cover
Her bosom's brightness?
(Tremble and weep not: what do you fear?)
—My blood is spilt like wine,
Thou hast strangled and slain me, lover,
Thou hast stabbed me, dear,
In the ghosts' moonshine.
Is that the wind? No, no;
Only her goblin doth blow
Through the murderer's ribs to and fro,
In its own moonshine.

177

FROM THE GERMAN.

I.

“Come with me, thou gentle maid,
“The stars are strong, and make a shade
“Of yew across your mother's tomb;
“Leave your chamber's vine-leaved gloom,
“Leave your harp-strings, loved one,
“'Tis our hour;” the robber said;
“Yonder comes the goblins' sun,
“For, when men are still in bed,
“Day begins with the old dead.
“Leave your flowers so dewed with weeping,
“And our feverish baby sleeping;
“Come to me, thou gentle maid,
“'Tis our hour.” The robber said.

II.

To the wood, whose shade is night,
Went they in the owls' moonlight.
As they passed, the common wild
Like a murderous jester smiled,
Dimpled twice with nettly graves.
You may mark her garment white,
In the night-wind how it waves:
The night-wind to the churchyard flew,
And whispered underneath the yew;

178

“Mother churchyard, in my breath,
“I've a lady's sigh of death.”
—“Sleep thou there, thou robber's wife.”
Said he, clasping his wet knife.

THE PHANTOM-WOOER.

I

A ghost, that loved a lady fair,
Ever in the starry air
Of midnight at her pillow stood;
And, with a sweetness skies above
The luring words of human love,
Her soul the phantom wooed.
Sweet and sweet is their poisoned note,
The little snakes' of silver throat,
In mossy skulls that nest and lie,
Ever singing “die, oh! die.”

II

Young soul, put off your flesh, and come
With me into the quiet tomb,
Our bed is lovely, dark, and sweet;
The earth will swing us, as she goes,
Beneath our coverlid of snows,
And the warm leaden sheet.

179

Dear and dear is their poisoned note,
The little snakes' of silver throat,
In mossy skulls that nest and lie,
Ever singing “die, oh! die.”

A DIRGE.

(WRITTEN FOR A DRAMA.)

To-day is a thought, a fear is to-morrow,
And yesterday is our sin and our sorrow;
And life is a death,
Where the body's the tomb,
And the pale sweet breath
Is buried alive in its hideous gloom.
Then waste no tear,
For we are the dead; the living are here,
In the stealing earth, and the heavy bier.
Death lives but an instant, and is but a sigh,
And his son is unnamed immortality,
Whose being is thine. Dear ghost, so to die
Is to live,—and life is a worthless lie.—
Then we weep for ourselves, and wish thee good bye.

180

ANOTHER DIRGE.

(FOR A YOUNG MAIDEN.)

Hushed be sighing, near the string,
O'er whose tremors deep we sing
The youngest Death, who hath no fears,
Blood, nor pang, nor any tears.
Hushed be sighing!
Fair and young as Venus' child,
Only paler, and most mild;
End of all that's dear and young,
Thee we mean, soft Drop of roses;
Hush of birds that sweetest sung,
That beginn'st when music closes;
The maiden's Dying!

BRIDAL SERENADE.

Maiden, thou sittest alone above,
Crowned with flowers, and like a sprite
Starrily clothed in a garment white:
Thou art the only maiden I love,
And a soul of fondness to thee I bring,
Thy glorious beauty homaging,—
But ah! thou wearest a golden ring.

181

Maiden, thou'st broken no vow to me,
But undone me alone with gentleness,
Wasting upon me glances that bless;
And knew'st that I never was born for thee.
No hope, no joy; yet never more
My heart shall murmur; now 'tis o'er,
I'll bless thee dying at thy door.

DIRGE.

To her couch of evening rest
'Neath the sun's divinest west,
Bear we, in the silent car,
This consumed incense star,
This dear maid whose life is shed,
And whose sweets are sweetly dead.

DIRGE AND HYMENEAL:

SUPPOSED TO BE SUNG AS THE FUNERAL AND WEDDING PROCESSIONS CROSS EACH OTHER AT THE CHURCH-DOOR.

Dirge.

Woe! woe! this is death's hour
Of spring; behold his flower!
Fair babe of life, to whom
Death, and the dreamy tomb,

182

Was nothing yesterday,
And now is all!
The maiden, from her play
Beside her lover gay,
The church-yard voices call,
Tolling so slow,
Woe! woe!

Hymeneal.

Joy! joy! it is love's day;
Strew the young conqueror's way
With summer's glories young,
O'er which the birds have sung,
Bright weeds from fairy rings;
Here, there, away!
Joy, joy the tree-bird sings,
Joy, joy, a hundred springs'
Melodies ever say,—
Maiden and boy,
Joy! joy!

Dirge.

She cut the roses down,
And wreathed her bridal crown.
Death, playful, called her ‘blossom,’
And tore her from life's bosom.
Fair maiden, or fair ghost,—

183

Which is thy name?—
Come to the spectral host;
They pity thee the most,
And, to the cold world's shame,
Soft cry they, low,
Woe! woe!

DIAL-THOUGHTS.

I

I think of thee at day-break still,
And then thou art my playmate small,
Beside our straw-roofed village rill
Gathering cowslips tall,
And chasing oft the butterfly,
Which flutters past like treacherous life.
You smile at me and at you I,
A husband boy and baby wife.

II

I think of thee at noon again,
And thy meridian beauty high
Falls on my bosom, like young rain
Out of a summer sky:
And I reflect it in the tear,
Which 'neath thy picture drops forlorn,
And then my love is bright and clear,
And manlier than it was at morn.

184

III

I think of thee by evening's star,
And softly melancholy, slow,
An eye doth glisten from afar,
All full of lovely woe.
The air then sighingly doth part,
And, or from Death the cold, or Love,
I hear the passing of a dart,
But hope once more, and look above.

IV

I think of thee at black midnight,
And woe and agony it is
To see thy cheek so deadly white,
To hear thy grave-worm hiss.
But looking on thy lips is cheer,
They closed in love, pronouncing love;
And then I tremble, not for fear,
But in thy breath from heaven above.

DREAM-PEDLARY.

I

If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,
That shakes from Life's fresh crown
Only a rose-leaf down.

185

If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rung the bell,
What would you buy?

II

A cottage lone and still,
With bowers nigh,
Shadowy, my woes to still,
Until I die.
Such pearl from Life's fresh crown
Fain would I shake me down.
Were dreams to have at will,
This would best heal my ill,
This would I buy.

III

But there were dreams to sell
Ill didst thou buy;
Life is a dream, they tell,
Waking, to die.
Dreaming a dream to prize,
Is wishing ghosts to rise;
And, if I had the spell
To call the buried well,
Which one would I?

IV

If there are ghosts to raise,
What shall I call,

186

Out of hell's murky haze,
Heaven's blue pall?
Raise my loved long-lost boy
To lead me to his joy.—
There are no ghosts to raise;
Out of death lead no ways;
Vain is the call.

V

Know'st thou not ghosts to sue?
No love thou hast.
Else lie, as I will do,
And breathe thy last.
So out of Life's fresh crown
Fall like a rose leaf down.
Thus are the ghosts to wooe;
Thus are all dreams made true,
Ever to last!

BALLAD OF HUMAN LIFE.

I

When we were girl and boy together,
We tossed about the flowers
And wreathed the blushing hours
Into a posy green and sweet.
I sought the youngest, best,
And never was at rest

187

Till I had laid them at thy fairy feet.
But the days of childhood they were fleet,
And the blooming sweet-briar breathed weather,
When we were boy and girl together.

II

Then we were lad and lass together,
And sought the kiss of night
Before we felt aright,
Sitting and singing soft and sweet.
The dearest thought of heart
With thee 'twas joy to part,
And the greater half was thine, as meet.
Still my eyelid's dewy, my veins they beat
At the starry summer-evening weather,
When we were lad and lass together.

III

And we are man and wife together,
Although thy breast, once bold
With song, be closed and cold
Beneath flowers' roots and birds' light feet.
Yet sit I by thy tomb,
And dissipate the gloom
With songs of loving faith and sorrow sweet.
And fate and darkling grave kind dreams do cheat,
That, while fair life, young hope, despair and death are,
We're boy and girl, and lass and lad, and man and wife together.

188

SONG, ON THE WATER.

I

Wild with passion, sorrow-beladen,
Bend the thought of thy stormy soul
On its home, on its heaven, the loved maiden;
And peace shall come at her eyes' control.
Even so night's starry rest possesses
With its gentle spirit these tamed waters,
And bids the wave, with weedy tresses
Embower the ocean's pavement stilly
Where the sea-girls lie, the mermaid-daughters,
Whose eyes, not born to weep,
More palely-lidded sleep,
Than in our fields the lily;
And sighing in their rest
More sweet than is its breath;
And quiet as its death
Upon a lady's breast.

II

Heart high-beating, triumph-bewreathed,
Search the record of loves gone by,
And borrow the blessings by them bequeathed
To deal from out of thy victory's sky.
Even so, throughout the midnight deep,
The silent moon doth seek the bosoms

189

Of those dear mermaid-girls asleep,
To feed its dying rays anew,
Like to the bee on earthly blossoms,
Upon their silvery whiteness,
And on the rainbow brightness
Of their eyelashes' dew,
And kisseth their limbs o'er:
Her lips where they do quaff
Strike starry tremors off,
As from the waves our oar.

LOVE-IN-IDLENESS.

I

“Shall I be your first love, lady, shall I be your first?
Oh! then I'll fall before you, down on my velvet knee,
And deeply bend my rosy head and press it upon thee,
And swear that there is nothing more, for which my heart doth thirst,
But a downy kiss, and pink,
Between your lips' soft chink.”

II

“Yes, you shall be my first love, boy, and you shall be my first,
And I will raise you up again unto my bosom's fold;

190

And, when you kisses many one on lip and cheek have told,
I'll let you loose upon the grass, to leave me if you durst;
And so we'll toy away
The night besides the day.”

III

“But let me be your second love, but let me be your second,
For then I'll tap so gently, dear, upon your window pane,
And creep between the curtains in, where never man has lain,
And never leave thy gentle side till the morning star hath beckoned,
Held in the silken lace
Of thy young arms' embrace.”

IV

“Well thou shalt be my second love, yes, gentle boy, my second,
And I will wait at eve for thee all lonely in my bower,
And yield unto thy kisses, like a bud to April's shower,
From moonset till the tower-clock the hour of dawn hath reckoned,
And lock thee with my arms
All silent up in charms.”

191

V

“No, I will be thy third love, lady, ay I will be the third,
And break upon thee, bathing, in woody place alone,
And catch thee to my saddle and ride o'er stream and stone,
And press thee well, and kiss thee well, and never speak a word,
'Till thou hast yielded up
The first taste of love's cup.”

VI

“Then thou shalt not be my first love, boy, nor my second, nor my third;
If thou'rt the first, I'll laugh at thee and pierce thy flesh with thorns;
If the second, from my chamber pelt with jeering laugh and scorns;
And if thou darest be the third, I'll draw my dirk unheard
And cut thy heart in two,—
And then die, weeping you.”

THE REASON WHY.

I

I love thee and I love thee not,
I love thee, yet I'd rather not,
All of thee, yet I know not what.
A flowery eye as tender,

192

A swan-like neck as slender,
And on it a brown little spot
For tears to fall afraid on,
And kisses to be paid on,
Have other maidens too.
Then why love I, love, none but you?
If I could find the reason why,
Methinks my love would quickly die.

II

Ay, knew I how to hate thee, maid,
I'd hate thee for I knew not what,
Excepting that I'd rather not
Be thy friend or foeman;
For thou'rt the only woman,
On whom to think my heart's afraid;
For, if I would abhor thee,
The more must I long for thee.
What others force me to,
I turn me from; why not from you?
If I could find the reason why,
Methinks my love would quickly die.

III

Yet should'st thou cease my heart to move
To longings, that I'd rather not,
And tried I hate, I know not what
My heart would do for mourning;

193

Love I,—it bursts, love scorning.
O loveliest hate, most hateful love,
This combat and endeavour
Is what enslaves me ever.
I'll neither of the two,
Or hate or love the love of you.
And now I've found the reason why,
I know my love can never die.

THE TWO ARCHERS.

I

At break of bright May-morning,
When, triumphing o'er dark,
The sun's inspired lark,
All sprites and spectres scorning,
And laughing at all creatures' joys
Who could not hang, and dive, and poise
In their own web and flood of noise,
Dropped, out of his heart's treasure,
The sunbeam's path along,
Sparks and dews of song,
As if there were no pleasure
But to rise and sing and fly,
Winged and all soul, into the sky:

194

II

At break of this May-morning,
A maiden young and coy
Saw a wild archer boy
Flying around and scorning,
Birdlike, a withered bowman's arts,
Who aimed, as he, at roses' hearts.
Each cried “come buy my darts,
They are with magic laden
To deify the blood;
An angel in the bud,
Half-closed, is a maiden,
Till, opened by such wound, she fly,
Winged and all soul into the sky.”

III

“You archers of May-morning,”
Said she, “if I must choose,
Such joy is to peruse,
In the star-light adorning,
The urchin's eye, that my desire
Is for his darts, whose breath fans higher
The smitten roses like a fire.”
So Love,—'twas he,—shot smiling
His shaft, then flew away;
Alas! that morn of May!
Love fled, there's no beguiling
Repentance, but by hopes to fly,
Winged and all soul, into the sky.

195

IV

So one December morning,
When the bold lark no more
Rebuked the ghosts so sore,
When dews were not adorning
Ought but that maiden's cheek, where wide
The blushes spread their leaves, to hide
The broken heart which such supplied;—
She sought the pair of May-day,
And to the old one saith,
“Let thy dart, stedfast Death,
Cure a forsaken lady;
Its point is but for those who'd fly,
Winged and all soul, into the sky.”

THE RUNAWAY.

I

Has no one seen my heart of you?
My heart has run away;
And, if you catch him, ladies, do
Return him me, I pray.
On earth he is no more, I hear,
Upon the land or sea;
For the women found the rogue so queer,
They sent him back to me.
In heaven there is no purchaser
For such strange ends and odds,

196

Says a jew, who goes to Jupiter
To buy and sell old gods.
So there's but one place more to search,
That's not genteel to tell,
Where demonesses go to church:—
So christians fair, farewell.

SONG ON THE WATER.

I

As mad sexton's bell, tolling
For earth's loveliest daughter,
Night's dumbness breaks rolling
Ghostily:
So our boat breaks the water
Witchingly.

II

As her look the dream troubles
Of her tearful-eyed lover,
So our sails in the bubbles
Ghostily
Are mirrored, and hover
Moonily.

197

ALPINE SPIRIT'S SONG.

I

O'er the snow, through the air, to the mountain,
With the antelope, with the eagle, ho!
With a bound, with a feathery row,
To the side of the icy fountain,
Where the gentians blue-belled blow.
Where the storm-sprite, the rain-drops counting,
Cowers under the bright rainbow,
Like a burst of midnight fire,
Singing shoots my fleet desire,
Winged with the wing of love,
Earth below and stars above.

II

Let me rest on the snow, never pressed
But by chamois light and by eagle fleet,
Where the hearts of the antelope beat
'Neath the light of the moony cresset,
Where the wild cloud rests his feet,
And the scented airs caress it
From the alpine orchis sweet:
And about the Sandalp lone
Voices airy breathe a tone,
Charming, with the sense of love,
Earth below and stars above.

198

III

Through the night, like a dragon from Pilate
Out of murky cave, let us cloudy sail
Over lake, over bowery vale,
As a chime of bells, at twilight
In the downy evening gale,
Passes swimming tremulously light;
Till we reach yon rocky pale
Of the mountain crowning all,
Slumber there by waterfall,
Lonely like a spectre's love,
Earth beneath, and stars above.

SONG: TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE.

I.

Under the lime-tree, on the daisied ground,
Two that I know of made their bed;
There you may see, heaped and scattered round,
Grass and blossoms, broken and shed,
All in a thicket down in the dale;
Tandaradei—
Sweetly sang the nightingale.

II.

Ere I set foot in the meadow, already
Some one was waiting for somebody;
There was a meeting—O gracious Lady!

199

There is no pleasure again for me.
Thousands of kisses there he took,—
Tandaradei—
See my lips, how red they look!

III.

Leaf and blossom he had pulled and piled
For a couch, a green one, soft and high;
And many a one hath gazed and smiled,
Passing the bower and pressed grass by;
And the roses crushed hath seen,—
Tandaradei—
Where I laid my head between.

IV.

In this love passage, if any one had been there,
How sad and shamed should I be!
But what were we a doing alone among the green there,
No soul shall ever know except my love and me,
And the little nightingale.—
Tandaradei—
She, I think, will tell no tale.

SONG OF THE STYGIAN NAIADES.

I

Proserpine may pull her flowers,
Wet with dew or wet with tears,
Red with anger, pale with fears,
Is it any fault of ours,

200

If Pluto be an amorous king,
And comes home nightly, laden,
Underneath his broad bat-wing,
With a gentle, mortal maiden?
Is it so, Wind, is it so?
All that you and I do know
Is, that we saw fly and fix
'Mongst the reeds and flowers of Styx,
Yesterday,
Where the Furies made their hay
For a bed of tiger cubs,
A great fly of Beelzebub's,
The bee of hearts, which mortals name
Cupid, Love, and Fie for shame.

II

Proserpine may weep in rage,
But, ere I and you have done
Kissing, bathing in the sun,
What I have in yonder cage,
Bird or serpent, wild or tame,
She shall guess and ask in vain;
But, if Pluto does't again,
It shall sing out loud his shame.
What hast caught then? What hast caught?
Nothing but a poet's thought,
Which so light did fall and fix
'Mongst the reeds and flowers of Styx,

201

Yesterday,
Where the Furies made their hay
For a bed of tiger cubs,—
A great fly of Beelzebub's,
The bee of hearts, which mortals name
Cupid, Love, and Fie for shame.

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.

Where the hare-bells are ringing
Their peal of sunny flowers,
And a bird of merry soul
Sings away the birthday hours
Of the valley-lily low,
Opening, dewily and slow,
Petals, dear to young and fair
For the prophecy they bear
Of the coming roses—
The free bold bird of merry soul
Amidst his leaves cannot control
His triumphant love of spring.

Thou bird of joyous soul,
Why can'st thou not control
Thy triumphant love of spring?
I know that thou dost rally
Thy spirit proud to sing,

202

Because to-day is born
The lily of the valley.
Oh! rather should'st thou mourn;
For that flower so meek and low,
Born with its own death-bell,
Only cometh to foretell
Unpitying winter's doom,
Who in scorn doth lay it low
In the tomb.

Vain is all its prayer,
It may flatter, as it will,
The ungentle hours
With its ring of toying flowers;
Unrelenting they must kill
With their scornful breath,
For the very petals fair,
Which the destined flower uncloses
In its innocence,
To plead for its defence,
By the prophecy they bear
Of the coming roses,
Sign the warrant for its death.

A LAMENT.

In the twilight, silent smiled
All alone the daisy's eyelid,
Fringed with pink-tipped petals piled.

203

—In the morning 'twas no more;
In its place a gout of gore.
Break of day was break of heart,
Since, dear maiden, dead thou art.

DIRGE.

Let dew the flowers fill;
No need of fell despair,
Though to the grave you bear
One still of soul—but now too still,
One fair—but now too fair.
For, beneath your feet, the mound,
And the waves, that play around,
Have meaning in their grassy, and their watery, smiles;
And, with a thousand sunny wiles,
Each says, as he reproves,
Death's arrow oft is Love's.

EPITAPH.

The form's divinity, the heart's best grace,
Where are they? Have they their immortal throne
Upon thy maiden's thought, and peerless face,
Thou cold-eyed reader? Yet, beneath this stone
Dust lies, weeds grow: and this is the remain
Of one best union of that deathless twain.

University of Virginia Library

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

ALFARABI; THE WORLD-MAKER.

A rhapsodical fragment.

THE ROMANCE OF THE LILY.

PYGMALION.

LINES WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF THE ‘PROMETHEUS UNBOUND.’

SONNET:

TO TARTAR, A TERRIER BEAUTY.

LETTER TO B. W. PROCTER, ESQ.

FROM OXFORD; MAY, 1825.

ANOTHER LETTER TO THE SAME.

FROM GÖTTINGEN; MARCH, 1826.

THE BODING DREAMS.

I

II

III

LOVE'S LAST MESSAGES.

THE GHOSTS' MOONSHINE.

I

II

III

FROM THE GERMAN.

I.

II.

THE PHANTOM-WOOER.

I

II

A DIRGE.

(WRITTEN FOR A DRAMA.)

ANOTHER DIRGE.

(FOR A YOUNG MAIDEN.)

BRIDAL SERENADE.

DIRGE.

DIRGE AND HYMENEAL:

SUPPOSED TO BE SUNG AS THE FUNERAL AND WEDDING PROCESSIONS CROSS EACH OTHER AT THE CHURCH-DOOR.

Dirge.

Hymeneal.

Dirge.

DIAL-THOUGHTS.

I

II

III

IV

DREAM-PEDLARY.

I

II

III

IV

V

BALLAD OF HUMAN LIFE.

I

II

III

SONG, ON THE WATER.

I

II

LOVE-IN-IDLENESS.

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

THE REASON WHY.

I

II

III

THE TWO ARCHERS.

I

II

III

IV

THE RUNAWAY.

I

SONG ON THE WATER.

I

II

ALPINE SPIRIT'S SONG.

I