Aonian Hours; And Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Aonian Hours; And Other Poems

By J. H. Wiffen

Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes (1792-1836)

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Aspley Wood.

CANTO I.

II.

CANTO II.

POEMS.

To ******.

Propertius; Book III. Elegy X.

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CANTO I.

“Solo, chi segue ciò che piace, è saggio,
E in sua stagion degli anni il frutto coglie;
Questo grida natura.” ------
TASSO.

I

THE breath of Spring is on thee, Aspley Wood!
Each shoot of thine is vigorous, from the green,
Low-drooping larch, and full unfolded bud
Of sycamore, and beech, majestic queen!
With her tiara on, which crowns the scene
With beauty,—to the stern oak, on whose rind
The warmest suns and sweetest showers have been,
And soft voice of the fond Favonian wind;—
His thousand lingering leaves reluctantly unbind.

II

But of all other trees, a clustering crowd
Bow their young tops rejoicingly, to meet
The breeze, which yet not murmurs overloud,
But wastes on Nature's cheek its kisses sweet,
To woo her from dark winter;—the wild bleat
Of innocent lambs is on the passing gale,
Blending with pastoral bells, and at my feet,
From yon warm wood the stockdove's plaintive wail
Wins to the curious ear o'er the subjected vale.

III

O Nature! woods, winds, music, vallies, hills,
And gushing brooks,—in you there is a voice
Of potency, an utterance which instils
Light, life, and freshness, bidding Man rejoice
As with a spirit's transport: from the noise,
The hum of busy towns, to you I fly;
Ye were my earliest nurses, my first choice,
Let me not idly hope nor vainly sigh;
Whisper once more of peace—joys—years long vanished by!

IV

To you I fled in childhood, and arrayed
Your beauty in a robe of magic power;
Ye made me what I am and shall be, made
My being stretch beyond the shadowy hour
Of narrow life,—ye granted me a dower
Of thoughts and living pictures, such as stir
In the eye's apple; to the breathing bower,
Here, where bright chesnut weds the towering fir,
Recal fair Wisdom back that I may dwell with her.

V

Visions on visions! how the moving throng,
These bright remembrances on fancy press
Buried enjoyments as I pass! the song
Sung in the hushed vale's verdant loneliness,—
The storm—the sun—the rainbow—the vain guess
Of notes heard in the distance,—the advance
Of bells upon the wind,—the loveliness
Of flowers, unwithering in the sun's hot glance,
The thousand hopes that high in Youth's brisk pulses dance:

VI

Why, and from what far region come ye back
With bloom and youth all animate? ye seem
Like airy voices on a blighted track,
Peopling my slumber—sybils of a dream.
If of your presence rightly I may deem,
Ye are my better Genii! are ye come
To quicken in my heart each earlier theme
Of innocence, or with alarming drum,
To beat a guilty knell, and strike conviction dumb?

VII

Our first affections are but ill resigned,
The blossoms of tranquillity and peace,
For the world's splendid guilt, which leaves behind
Dark fruits and bitter weeds, the blind increase
Of boiling billows from tumultuous seas,
Which beating on a wild and desolate shore,
Horrid with wrecks of innocence and ease,
Behold our bark without or sail or oar,
Drive to the gusty winds, and anchor nevermore.

VIII

Shut from the world of beauty and repose,
There strive, there toil, there toss we; grasp a shade,
A bubble, and an echo—to the close
Dallying with danger, yet of nought afraid;
Bridling the mad leviathan, yet swayed
By every breath of Fortune, she who mocks
The heart which wooes her, false, coquettish maid!
Till when most seeming kind, her tempest's shocks
Whirl our light boat—a wreck on ruin's lonely rocks!

IX

Ye come—the winning voices of the past,
The warners of the future! I receive
The revelations which ye bring, and cast
All meaner broodings earthward, and thus leave
Turmoil to worldly minions; here till eve
With thee, O Nature, will I commune, gain
Godlike impressions, from thy breast receive
Thy milk, celestial aliment! O deign
To take thy truant back, and staunch his wounds of pain.

X

A world is at my feet of flowers and fern,
Cornfield and murmuring pine, vale, villa, heath,
Aisles through whose sylvan vistas we discern
All Heaven on high, and fruitfulness beneath.
Shades of my love and infancy! bequeath
A portion of your glory to my lay—
A Pilgrim of the Woods; I twine a wreath
Of wildflowers for thy revel, dancing May!
My theatre the woods—my theme one vernal day.

XI

Still floats in the grey sky the moving moon,
A crescent—o'er yon valley of black pines
Where Night yet stands, a centinel; but soon
In the far streaky east the morning shines,
The Iris of whose bursting glory lines
With fire the firmament; distinct and clear
'Gainst the white dawn proud Ridgemount high reclines
His mural diadem:—lo! from his rear
The breaking mists unfurl, and Day has reached me here.

XII

Here on a solitary hill I take
My station—days on years thus hurry by,
And of the varying present mar or make
A gloom or bliss in Man's eternity:
Suns rise—ascend—set—darken—and we die,
The dewdrops of a morning, in whose glass
All things look sparklingly;—alas! where I
Now stand, in how brief time shall others pass,
Nor heed, nor see the blade whereon my moisture was.

XIII

E'en as yon flower with hyacinthine bells
Playful as light, which shivered by my tread,
Is turned to dust and darkness—to all else
It is as though it was not; swiftly sped
Spoil o'er its bruised buds which blossomed
A blending of all sweetnesses—what now?—
A few years hence, and over this bent head,
Dashing all life and gladness from the brow,
The scythe of Time shall pass, and Ruin's silent plough.

XIV

Long ages since, upon his mountain-peak,
The adoring Persian bent him to the flame
Of the uprisen Sun, the whilst with shriek,
And clang of soaring wings the eagle came
From his precipitous eyrie;—See the same
Vicegerent of the Deity ascend
His watchtower in the zenith! by what name
May I best greet thee? what new honour lend,
Cradle of infant Time—his womb, birth, being, end!

XV

In wonder risest thou, material orb!
And youthfulness—a symbol and a sign;
Change, revolution, age, decay, absorb
All other essences, but harm not thine:
In thy most awful face reflected shine
Thy Maker's attributes, Celestial Child!
When shapelessness ruled chaos, the Divine
Looked on the void tumultuous mass, and smiled—
Then startedst thou to birth, and trod'st the pathless wild:

XVI

Girt like a giant for the speed, the flight,
The toil of unsummed ages; in thy zone,
Charmed into motion by thy sacred light,
The glad earth danced around thee with the tone
Of music—for then Eden was her own,
And all things breathed of beauty,—chiefly Man
Drank of an angel's joy; where are ye flown,
Too fleeting suns? a mortal's thought may span
Your course—for ye returned to whence your race began.

XVII

And we became all shadow—in the abyss,
The spirit's desolation, here we stand,
Wrestling in darkness for a heavenly bliss,
And an immortal's essence: brightly grand,
How climbest thou thy skies? nor lend'st a hand
To help us to thy altitude! away
Earthborn repinings—ye may not command
A sparkle of that intellectual ray,
Which yet from heaven descends, and communes with our clay.

XVIII

The dark Chaldee, Assyrian, Persian, Mede,
The magic sons of pagan Babylon,
Papyrus-scarfed Egyptian, sacred seed
Of Abram—Greek, Goth, Vandal, Roman—gone!
Where are the many worlds ye lost and won;
Fame, laurels, empire, grandeur, glory, guilt,
Sceptres, crowns, diadems? what can atone,
Avengers! for the blood your pride has spilt?
Can crumbled thrones, or swords though shivered to the hilt!

XIX

With heart all ecstasy, and eye all fire,
Ye drank the morrow's freshness—haply wove
Wreaths round the steel, and myrtles round the lyre,
And woke with dance and revel the still grove,
And heaped your incense at the shrine of Jove,
And hoped your cinnamon should reach the sky
To purchase fresh indemnities of love
And power to whet your biting falchions by,
Some bloodier field to win, and haughtier foes to try.

XX

And built you columns of Corinthian brass,
Babels of stone, and pyramids of clay,
And on the applause of millions sought to pass
In apotheosis of light away—
To be like Gods adored, and blest as they,
The Romuli of earth—with Gods to class;
And did your high ambition pave a way
To them?—your pinnacles ye built on glass,—
Dust—dust is all your tomb, and o'er it nods the grass,

XXI

Which sheds its seeds and withers; but the Spring
Fair as Aurora in her purple cloud,
Descends and wakens in their slumbering,
Life from the ashes, beauty from the shroud,
And speaks of immortality aloud
To mourning man; and thus the flower I trod
To its maternal dust shall issue proud
Of its new birth, and on a greener sod
Bow to the dallying winds—a sign to man from God.

XXII

Thus Life is twofold, twofold are our hopes;
They die to bloom, they sink but to ascend,
E'en as the hill I stand on downward slopes
To that low vale which with a gentle bend
Again aspires, as though resolved to end
In nothing less than heaven: mark with what sweep
Of proud pre-eminence the trees ascend!
But with a softer grandeur, as to keep
Watch o'er the sea beneath, lone, billowy, wild, and deep;

XXIII

And hollow as the mighty sea's scooped bed,
And with a murmur like the mighty sea's,
Heard afar off at intervals—the tread
Of the dark waters breaking by degrees,
To which the ear lists lovingly—but these
Are of the green bough's wafture; here the fir
Sits on its haughty hill, and as the breeze
Vibrates, bids all its thousand branches stir,
And ever as they move the pleasant sounds recur.

XXIV

And the lone Mount hath free and ample scope
To wrap his mantle gloomily around
His mass of shadow, like a misanthrope,
Who breathes a vital scorn on the sweet ground,
And heaven's blue tinct of loveliness, and sound
Of lulling lutes, if chance they meet his ear:
So stern and strict a penance has wrapt round
Its top—it smiles not to the murmurs near,
But loneliest looks and lowers when sunniest is the year.

XXV

And near its summit the funereal yew
Hath built himself a pinnacle, and stands
The guardian of the vale—whose dropping dew
Binds with a deadly barrenness the sands
Which loathe the weeds they nourish; to the bands
Of its mysterious circle not the bee
Comes, which all blossoms seeks, though it commands
A berry beautiful as eye may see,
Nor there one green herb grows, nor harebell of the lea.

XXVI

But well its shade would please the anchorite;
There might he build him his monastic dome,
Arch, cell, cave, cloister, altar, minaret,
And moan and patter in that Gothic home
O'er creeds of o'erpast centuries: but to roam
Yon dell with moorland fragrance overspread
In the sweet summer tide would ill become
His ashy cheek, and heart to pleasure dead,
For him that heathy couch were far too soft a bed.

XXVII

But I thereon in the warm luxury
Of an Italian sky will fling me down
Unscrupulously, lightly envy I
The cowled monk's scapulaire or hermit's gown
Woven of sackcloth, and a bed of down
I scorn as lightly; but on Nature's breast,
Mid flowers, and ferns, and freshness all her own,
And soft airs giving sweetness sweeter zest,
O who could slight such charms, who shun so pure a rest!

XXVIII

The far-extended prospect—the dim spire
Which bounds the blue horizon—white walls seen
In glittering distance—wreathing from the fire
Of pastoral huts ascending smoke—the sheen
Of hamlets humming in the morn—the green
And beautiful hue of youth on every flower,
And herb where Spring's betraying steps have been—
The bright leaves sparkling in a sunny shower,—
Music on every bough, and life in every bower:

XXIX

The plover's shrilly whistle—the quick call
Of pheasants in their devious wanderings,
The heifer lowing from the distant stall,
And sudden flutter of the wild bird's wings,
Invisible in passing—sunrise—springs
Whose crystal gushings momently engage
The babble of an echo—these are things
Too mean, or far too lovely for a Sage
With whom delight is crime, and solitude a cage.

XXX

But I not so have read the leaf of life
In nature's volume, as to task my powers
In mastery of my pleasures; sorrow, strife,
Sufferings—they may be, as they have been ours,
And our drooped eyes have met them with salt showers
Which spoke without repining—they are gone
Like to a biting viper, and my hours
Somewhat for fruitless anguish would atone,
But with a gentle aim, indulged as then alone.

XXXI

With a more melancholy tenderness,
And more subdued intenseness, I would scan
All scene, all life, all pleasure, all distress,
The majesty and littleness of man;
For Melancholy with my youth began,
And marked me for her votary—wherefore not?
Is being bliss? but as my being ran,
My sufferings cherished, and my fire forgot,
With a more placid mind I scrutinize our lot.—

XXXII

Sons of a Sire, to whom the earth is dust,
And man all ashes, save the immortal part
Which will outlive its sanctuary, he must
Sustain, enjoy, weep, wither, and depart,
To what new sphere he knows not—in the mart
Of worldly selfishness, for him I learn
Pity; 'tis in seclusion that my heart
With aspirations to the skies will yearn,
Imbibing mournful joy from her inspiring urn.

XXXIII

He who hath ne'er invested Solitude
With an undying beauty, ne'er hath knelt
In worship when her sceptre brought the mood
Of melancholy o'er him, hath not felt
Sweetness in sorrow—is not used to melt
With the humanities of life, nor hears
The whispered lore, the music which is dealt
Invisibly around us from the spheres,
The tender, bright, and pure—the Paradise of tears:

XXXIV

The ineffably serene, the kind regret
Which speaks without upbraiding, the mild gloom
Of thought without austerity, but yet
Heavy with pensiveness, our future doom
Seen without fear, presages which assume
The features of an Angel—feelings grand—
Grand, and of incommunicable bloom,
The growth of Eden;—O, he hath not spanned
The soul's infinitude with an Archangel's hand!

XXXV

Storm, wind, clouds, darkness, twilight, and deep noon,
Summer and wizard Winter, and thou Eye
Of most mysterious Night, thou moving Moon,
Who yet hang'st out thy cresset in the sky,
Pale, but still beautiful! ye know that I
Have loved her as a Psyche, and have bound
Her sweet zone round my loins when ye were by,
And nought material uttered voice or sound;
Whilst she her face unveiled, smiling when most ye frowned.

XXXVI

Spirit of Ossian! thou too from thy shroud
Didst come and stand around me, charge with light
The wood, the stream, the cave, the flashing cloud,
The thunder and the loneliness of night,
Charm with thy melancholy harp the flight
Of Time, stern chronicler! and in the leaf
Of waning Spring and the autumnal blight
Of her last flower, subdue me into grief,
To which Morn broke unloved, and woe wished no relief.

XXXVII

Thine was the darker solitude of heart,
And solitude of sight—O, pang severe!
Thou felt'st each Loved one, one by one depart
Timelessly, till Time left thee not a tear
To shed o'er all thy kindred, and the drear
Vacuity of sorrow on thee lay;—
But then thou took'st thy harp, Immortal Seer!
And in the reliques of thy song, to Day
Long buried deeds returned, and heroes of old sway.

XXXVIII

By tower all green with ruin, vacant hall,
Or lonely cataract, I saw thee sit,
Blind Prophet! visions swarming at thy call
Tiresias-like—as fancy gave the fit
To sorrow; their eyes shaded—their brows lit
By an eclipsing moon—all substance passed,
Or melted to a shadowy softness, writ
By Pity's finger, whilst the murmuring blast
Unfurled their airy halls, interminably vast;

XXXIX

And all the music of the elements
Stirred in thy bosom, in the cherishing
Of which sublime emotion—which intense
Struggle—the Harp of Passion found a string
Unknown before or after, for the spring
Of harmony was fathomed, and the prize
Was music most unhappy—a sweet thing
Which Melancholy loves to realize,—
Her punishment, pride, pain, gloom, glory in disguise.

XL

And at the Voice of Cona, things around
Uttered similitude of grief; the wave
Broke to the sad shore with a mellow sound,
The dew hung on the floweret of the cave,
Which sparkled droopingly; meanwhile the rave
Of gusty winds spake loudly—calm anon
And russet looked the mountain-tops which gave
A smile as of enchanting seasons gone,
And aye the Canna quaked, the cataract flowed on.

XLI

And thy Malvina is a peerless theme,
Young, sorrowing, sweet, empassioned and refined,
The embodied image of a poet's dream,
Grace warm with feeling, Beauty fraught with mind—
Fair as her sister-lilies—gentle, kind,
And tempered all to tenderness—but she
Soon flew a shadowy Spirit on the wind,
And left the Last One of his line to be
A single shivering leaf on ruin's hoary tree.

XLII

Such as I was in those delicious days,
Smit with the love of sadness, see me still—
A lover of the lines on nature's face,
The gloomy forest and the lonely hill,
My haunt the rustling pines—a leaping rill
My Castaly—inspiring as when first
I touched the simple harp with simple skill,
And in its wild tones sought to slake the thirst
Which classic Milton woke, and wizard Ossian nursed.

XLIII

Sunbeams of Song! ye were my waking bliss,
The visions of my slumber; in the shade
To steep my light cares in forgetfulness,
Lightly dispersed, I called ye to my aid:
At noontide in the boundless forest laid,
I heard you from its deep recesses fling
Voices like Ariel's musical, whilst played
The bee amid the bluebells murmuring,
Who comes e'en now around with memories on her wing.

XLIV

Rise to my thought the shadows and the sheen
As then, of the sought sylvans; the green bough
Waving at will—dun deer at distance seen
Starting, in flight—if but a zephyr blow;
The bittern's sullen shriek—the water's flow
O'er mosses, sauntering idly in the sun,—
A thousand stirring fancies come and go
With thy revisiting sound, but, Murmuring One!
What grieves thy happy wing that thou so soon art gone?

XLV

Why didst thou come to bring those moments back,
And make me yet more mournful? severed Friends!
Am I not now companionless? the track
Of innocent boyhood in a desert ends
To which your names are stages;—Youth ascends
The zenith—I review the past with pain;
In what far regions strive ye? my soul blends
In secret with you—Life's elastic chain
Snapt with your parting steps—Fate, join those links again!

XLVI

North, on a mild declivity of hill,
Stands a hoar oak, majestic root! the growth
Of rolling centuries, and haughtier still,
Unbent beneath their passing pressure, both
Scornful, and scorning ruin; Time looks loth
To smite at it with his devouring scythe,
Nor sends one spoiling canker with fell tooth
To gnaw its core, and in its ashes writhe;
But o'er it Spring looks green, beneath it dances blithe.

XLVII

There isolate it stands, and from its height
Sees generations in their ebb and flow;
The mighty tide sweeps on in dark and bright,
Hope, danger, doubt, tranquillity, and woe;—
First, Infancy runs round thee to and fro,
And makes him acorn-cups the dews to sip;
Years pass—the Infant sits a Youth below,
With Beauty in Love's holy guardianship,
Sighs at his beating heart, and kisses on his lip.

XLVIII

He glows, and is made wretched! for the spell
Of love when most it works is most unkind,
And if its first touch is untunable,
It leaves a blasting ecstasy behind—
Its sweets are changed to wormwood; for the mind
Cannot its dragon-folds at will uncoil;
Is not the passion masterless and blind,
Hoping 'gainst hope, redoubling toil on toil?
Unblessed—the mad tears start, the heart-drops overboil.

XLIX

But give the Youth his angel! on his cheek
Let Manhood set his signet, see him blest—
Moons speed, cares thicken, patience waxeth weak,
And all too soon, Age seeks thee in the quest
Of a light slumber—of a little rest,
Or wraps his mantle closer in the chill,
Quick breath of Winter;—shrinking in his vest,
He grasps his staff, and totters down the hill,
His pulse beats, flutters, fails—one throb—and all is still!

L

And chattering Infancy assumes again
Thy acorn-cups, and o'er the turf so late
Trod by her lost sire, sings and weaves a chain
Of bluebells and anemonies—elate,
And forming to her hopes as fair a fate
As the sweet flowers she kisseth; but the noon
Of years, as of the day, with withering weight
And hot breath, passes o'er the twined festoon,—
She blossoms with the flower, and droops almost as soon!

LI

Turn from the thought—the season and the hills
As yet are breathing beauty; all is Youth
Around, undarkened by prelusive ills,
The fanciful of being with the truth;
And who, whilst yet the current lingereth smooth
And every wave reflects a flower above,
Would mar it with a wrinkle? let it soothe
In spring to shun the raven for the dove
Who cooes, herself untaught, yet ever teaching Love.

LII

Hid in a bushy grove, where every wind
That stirs showers down new blossoms from its wings,
Like a lorn voice, all querulous but kind,
In love with grief, that turtle sits and sings
To the wood-echoes of a thousand things
To which her bosom beateth; of her mate
From her side too long absent—of the springs,
Her pastime, all unvisited of late,
Since that a mother's cares were added to her state.

LIII

Cares and a mother's transports! fear and joy,
Meek gentleness and calm solicitude;
The very breathing winds those fears employ,
And now a voice and footfall in the wood:
Listening, alive to aught that may intrude,
What can a mother-bird so gentle do
But o'er her young more flutteringly to brood,
And kiss them with her bill, and sweetlier coo,
And them not e'er forsake whatever ills ensue!

LIV

Peace, fearful one! 'tis but a passer-by,
The fond impatience of a village maid,
Who seeks to trace thy dwelling with her eye,
And bless thy tones, then plunges in the shade:
Why of Ianthe's steps art thou afraid?
She threads this lonely thicket but to cull
The ripest flowers on which the sun has played,
Of which this hazel covert is so full,
And now an orchis seek, and now a primrose pull.

LV

And arm in arm with her Viola trips,
And with an osier basket on her arm,
A murmured song is on her moving lips,
Her looks with busy hope and rapture warm;
Her eyes the violets which she seeks inform,
Eyes glittering on you like two Naiad founts
Of purest azure—skies without a storm:
Each valley she descends, each hill she mounts,
Springs to her lurking flower, and every one recounts.

LVI

And tears down woodbines from the branching planes
To crown her stores, and form her coronal,
That scarce her Sister of the Wood sustains
The heaping coil of leaves which round her fall;
Soon overflowing is her basket small,
But she the more her busy office plies,
And calls Ianthe nearer—to her call
Ianthe comes—fresh flowers rain from the skies,
Then laugheth she aloud, and followeth her who flies.

LVII

And far behind them rosy infants run,
Two darling shoots from one sustaining spray—
For one lorn parent rears their youth, and one
Though loved, is as a stranger passed away.
She, when to her sequestered home they stray
Fondling each other, in their deep-blue eyes,
Looks—how endearingly! and seemeth gay,
But for their sweet caresses gives them sighs,
And aye the more they smile, more fast her tears arise.

LVIII

But they know not her source of grief, or soon
Forget all sense of sorrow in the chase
Of fantasies, on which the mutable moon
Stamps all the changes of her wexing phase,
Joy in them all! now with unequal pace
Those virgins of the village they pursue,
But frequent pause them in the panting race,
To seize some fallen flowers besprent with dew,
And prank each other's breast with quaint devices new.

LIX

Small choice make they of what the green-wood bower
Scatters so lavishly—the daisy pied,
The purple hyacinth, Apollo's flower,
Fresh kingcups, and sweet cowslips crimson-eyed,
Blushing anemonies which plucked, have died
With the first wind, red lychnis, blue eyebright,
And many a golden cup which loves the tide,
The oxeye pale, the laurel blossom light,
Are gathered all in turn, in turn abandoned quite.

LX

For, lo! a wilderness of lilies, whither
The merry hum of bees attracts their eye!
The rosy boy on tiptoe flieth thither,
His timid sister nothing does but fly
In fear of the winged insects; sad and shy
At length her secret the coy creature tells—
He on them rushes shouting—none are nigh,
They may fall down and fill their lap with bells,
In a delicious dream, unheedful of all else.

LXI

E'en thus, when Delos started from the wave
Sacred, to blossom in perpetual May,
E'en thus, on myrtles in a pleasant cave,
The infant Phœbus and Diana lay:
A triple crown of sunbeams did the day
Knit round the awful temples of its god,
On her the crescent cast a lunar ray,
And tall trees bowed in homage, whilst the sod
Poured forth a thousand flowers where sportively they trod.

LXII

There rest you, Wearied Ones! at pleasure use
What childhood's Amalthean horn may grant;
If on your lids fall slumber's golden juice,
May wizard Fancy be your pursuivant
Into her fairy halls, around your haunt
Music and floating whispers lull your ear,
But may the noxious adder coil aslant,
Nor grey gnat sound his shrill reveillé near,
With bitter venom wound, or cause one sorrowing tear!

LXIII

Sleeping—perchance the redbreasts may behold,
And deem you shapes of beauty passed away,
And with their bills, as beldames oft have told
The tale, aspire to make your pillow gay,
Bringing you odorous herbs and mosses gray,
As to the Innocents of yore, whom grief
Slew without fault, and for your shroud array
The ashy-pale rosemary, mourner chief,
And many a lily-flower, and many a lily-leaf.

LXIV

Look on that Flower—the Daughter of the Vale,
The Medicean statue of the shade!
Her limbs of modest beauty, aspect pale,
Are but by her ambrosial breath betrayed.
There, half in elegant relief displayed,
She standeth to our gaze, half-shrinking shuns;
Folding her green scarf like a bashful Maid
Around, to screen her from her suitor suns,
Not all her many sweets she lavisheth at once.

LXV

Locked in the twilight of depending boughs,
Where night and day commingle, she doth shoot
Where nightingales repeat their marriage-vows;
First by retiring, wins our curious foot,
Then charms us by her loveliness to suit
Our contemplation to her lonely lot;
Her gloom, leaf, blossom, fragrance, form, dispute
Which shall attract most belgards to the spot,
And loveliest her array who fain would rest unsought.

LXVI

Her gloom, the aisle of heavenly solitude;
Her flower, the vestal Nun who there abideth;
Her breath, that of celestials meekly wooed
From heaven; her leaf, the holy veil which hideth;
Her form, the shrine where purity resideth;
Spring's darling, nature's pride, the sylvans' queen—
To her at eve enamoured Zephyr glideth,
Trembling, she bids him waft aside her screen,
And to his kisses wakes—the Flora of the scene.

LXVII

But O, the thousand charms of this wood-cover,
The plain, the steep, the musical, the still,
The sad, the cheerful! here may Nature's lover
For ever taste, yet never have his fill:
The tangled valley now becomes a hill,
The hill a glade, the glade a vista riven
From depth of groves, and then we view at will
Far towns and plains, and where earth blends with heaven
Blue Ocean seems to roll, and mimic waves are driven.

LXVIII

And thus we wander, e'en as though a spell
Clung to our footsteps, and transformed the view;
Making the bosky hill a pansied dell,
And tinging all things with Enchantment's hue.
Small need have we of Ariadne's clue,
To guide us through our labyrinth to-day;
Here, where each step creates a landscape new,
Here, where to linger is a sweet delay,
O, who would not be lost within a maze so gay!

LXIX

Hark to the merry Gossip of the spring—
The sweet mysterious voice which peoples place
With an Italian beauty, and does bring
As 'twere Elysium from the wilds of space
Where'er her wing inhabits! give it chace,
In other bowers the Fairy shouts again;
Where'er we run it mocks our rapid race—
Still the same loose note in a golden chain
Rings through the vocal woods, and fills with joy the plain.

LXX

Hail to thee, shouting Cuckoo! in my youth
Thou wert long time the Ariel of my hope,
The marvel of a summer! it did soothe
To listen to thee on some sunny slope,
Where the high oaks forbade an ampler scope
Than of the blue skies upward—and to sit,
Canopied, in the gladdening horoscope
Which thou, my planet flung—a pleasant fit,
Long time my hours endeared, my kindling fancy smit.

LXXI

And thus I love thee still—thy monotone
The self-same transport flashes through my frame,
And when thy voice, sweet Sybil, all is flown
My eager ear, I cannot chuse but blame.
O may the world these feelings never tame!
If age o'er me her silver tresses spread,
I still would call thee by a lover's name,
And deem the spirit of delight unfled,
Nor bear, though grey without, a heart to Nature dead!

LXXII

Thus too the Grasshopper is still my friend,
The minute-sound of many a sunny hour
Passed on a thymy hill, when I could send
My soul in search thereof by bank and bower,
Till lured far from it by a foxglove flower
Nodding too dangerously above the crag,
Not to excite the passion and the power
To climb the steep, and down the blossoms drag,
Them the marsh-crocus joined, and yellow water-flag.

LXXIII

Shrill sings the drowsy Wassailler in his dome,
Yon grassy wilderness where curls the fern,
And creeps the ivy; with the wish to rove
He spreads his sails, and bright is his sojourn
'Mid chalices with dews in every urn:
All flying things a like delight have found—
Where'er I gaze, to what new region turn,
Ten thousand insects in the air abound,
Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer-sound.

LXXIV

And chief the Fly, upon whose fans are spread
Hues with which summer warms the occident
At the rich sunset, epicure in taste,
Beholds the odorous light, and deems it lent
For amorous pastime, and in truth seems bent
To find or form a paradise below;—
With blooms and herbs of every various scent
Dallies her tongue—her wings expanded show
Like ornamented clouds hung round by Iris' bow.

LXXV

O'er mead, moor, river, garden, forest, mount,
In her gay search the delicate Lady flies,
Tries every odour, sips of every fount,
Nor trusts her form but to most crystal skies.
Coquettish in her motions, how she tries
Thousand admiring hearts to captivate!
The Swallow too pursues so bright a prize,
Wins, and destroys—so Beauty bows to Fate,
Caught in the toils she spread, to be bewailed too late.

LXXVI

That pageant past, comes the quick Squirrel forth
From his high cedar with a burst and bound,
To sport upon the warm grass of the earth
Feeding, and wave his graceful brush around,
And pause—and prick his ears, and at each sound
List in a breathless attitude, and start
If far away intruding steps resound:
With feet already raised to spring, to dart
On to the nearest pine, but claims a moment's part.

LXXVII

Anon he cowers upon a branch, and thence
Looks deeply down on his pursuer's shape,
And yet alarmed, on his glad eminence
Stamps wrathfully, then looks a laughing ape,
Playing his thousand pranks o'er an escape
Almost too lofty for our eye to reach
Through the thick gloom, then hies he to the rape
Of the pine's cones, or to his nest, the pleach
Of many a wilding bough in the next giant beech.

LXXVIII

This his spring-life—e'en when the October wind
His firm beech rocks with a sea-murmur loud,
That squirrel the same merry mime I find—
A mariner on his vibrating shroud:
Though darkly glooms the burning thunder-cloud,
And rends with sulphurous bolt some mighty tree,
He hears the roar as fearlessly and proud
As a Fleet-admiral when dark—alee,
The fiery battle joins, and chaos shakes the sea.

LXXIX

Hush! for the most shy Pheasant leaves the brakes
To bask her beauteous plumage in the sun,
Which, as in love with its bright colours, makes
A hundred brilliant Irises of one.
Autumn is past: the desolating gun
Haunts not her dreaming sleep; she now may tread,
A Princess, through the halls she wont to shun,
Silence around, and verdurous domes o'erhead,
More high exalt her crest, her whirring pinions spread.

LXXX

She looks down on a swarming multitude,
The Commonwealth of Ants—a populace
Moved by one mighty aim, a nation's good;
Instructive lesson to a haughtier race!
For here no selfish ministers efface
The charter step-dame Nature first designed,
The people's independence; nor for place,
Truck to a crown their dignity of mind—
The Emmet's polity leaves Europe's far behind.

LXXXI

They throne prosperity in grainy hives,
Her throne has been an armed seignorage;
Their social bond through centuries survives,
Hers homicide infracts in every age;
A spotless quiet is their heritage,
Hers the keen scythe of fierceness and of guilt;
At but a breath—her myrmidons engage
In fratricidal crime, and blood is spilt,
Till Power's all-evil blade is shivered to the hilt—

LXXXII

The voice of purple Pride, whose barbarous rod,
Shaken o'er vassal-realms, in time became
Consociated with the cross of God,
A bigot torch, lit at revenge's flame,
To be the scourge of nations! of this frame
Empires and thronedoms have been, and are made—
Erewhile to crumble at some mighty name,
Philip or Mahmoud—or that Giant Shade
Who struck at crowns for France, and was by France betrayed!

LXXXIII

O, with what sweet abruptness to this bower
Of woodbine comes the music of those bells,
Blown by the dissolute winds! a marriage hour
Is nigh, that sound can chronicle nought else.
Over the uplands, into the gay dells
Momently sinking, momently to rise,
It rings around a syren-mass of spells—
To the bride-maid some silenced hopes and sighs,
And many a smile and tear in two fond bridal eyes.

LXXXIV

To One I deem it brings remembered trace
Of a faint dream, a phantasm of delight,
When the fresh morning wore a cherub's face,
And there were tears and sufferings long ere night.
When unsubdued Affection hastes to plight
Long summer-vows to a maid's icy frown,
There is no sun, no shade, no bud, no blight,
He can feel more—albeit, romantic town!
Ring out thy merry bells till yon tired sun goes down.

LXXXV

But the young mourner, his first pangs gone by,
Consorted by the sacred Sisters nine,
In their communion finds tranquillity,
Served with nepenthe from their spring divine,
Which laps the soul in gentleness benign,
Reversing what the Fatal Sisters weave;—
This gift, Alonzo, this should now be thine,
Woo thee a kinder Fair and cease to grieve,
Assured no future hope can like the past deceive.

LXXXVI

Then still, romantic Town! thy sweet bells ring,
Waft it o'er primroses to his lulled ear,
Wind of the south! not one tone scattering,
The pleasant sound might make a desart dear;
What, where of all her charms the virgin year
Wistfully flings the sweetest, as to crown
With mirth the melancholious? Lo! tis here
She builds her bower—then still, romantic Town!
Ring out thy merry bells till yon tired sun goes down.

LXXXVII

Wensdon! up thy sequestered hill I spring,
Thy hill of broom, with flowers on every stem;
Of these secluded precincts thou art King,
And mak'st the mountain-pines thy diadem.
Thy yellow sands are an enchasing gem
To those who love thee, for thou dost bequeath
A far pervading vision unto them:—
Here many a sheepbell tinkles on the heath,
Green waves the fir above—a cottage smokes beneath—

LXXXVIII

In a blue Pillar to the sky, so calm
Is Heaven's high cærule vault!—the palisade
Round the nigh garden sweeping, throws a charm,
A pastoral beauty round the lovely maid
Verduta, culturing roses with her spade,
And watering them erewhile—needs but a fount
Of dulcet waters bubbling in its shade
To make the hill of glorified account,
As Aganippe bursts beneath the Muses' mount.

LXXXIX

But the still Picture far away expands
Into an ampler scope for ear and eye;
Herds low—flocks graze—distant a hamlet stands,
Its steeple tolling as the breeze blew by.
We may discern an antique Library,
Where blossomed lilachs shake in bright relief
Their tassels—with whose grateful tint may vie
The green Corn, rising into lofty leaf
On plains which Ceres piles with a redundant sheaf.

XC

Art thou a lover of thy race? advance,
And view a nation's opulence in seed;
A child of nature? lo! the woodlands dance,
The vales are vocal with the shepherd's reed.
A patriot? England's garner is thy meed—
A soldier? bear thy idle honours hence,
For on this stage no gladiators bleed;
The patriot's glory and the sage's sense
Inhabit with the lark, and she is Innocence.

XCI

Where the flute warbles, should the war-drums knoll?
Where ripen vines, should conflagrations curl?
Should nature's leaf become a shrivelled scroll?
Where wave her pines should bannerols unfurl?
Should Murder her destroying lightnings hurl,
Sweet Freedom! o'er thy populated plains,
To seas of blood transform thy streams of pearl,
And turn thy rosy fillets into chains?
Should e'en a Wellesley tread the turf which yet retains—

XCII

Remembrance of our Howard? you have seen,
Hung round with delicate herbs, a little rill
Gush into life, and make creation green,
Where'er ‘it glideth at its own sweet will,’
Heaven settles on its face—its course is still,
Nor would betray its currents as they pass,
Did not a livelier colour clothe the hill,
The valley-flowers, the moss of the morass—
Like to that little rill benignant Howard was:

XCIII

A Spirit in our wilderness below,
Scattering ambrosial verdure, sanctified
For the severe discipleship of Woe,
Pity's apostle, Duty was his bride.
By him no panacea was denied
Which lulled affliction—Mercy was his tone,
His acts the good man's wish personified—
Lutes—whose sweet strains were touched for heaven alone,
But by the winds betray'd, and o'er far billows blown.

XCIV

Aspley! thy pleasant bowers his feet have wooed,
The Pilgrim came and loved them, for on thee
There doth repose a holy quietude,
The inspiring Genius of philanthropy:
Within yon simple mansion, where the bee
Murmurs and feeds all June amid the limes,
Paused a few sunny hours the Devotee,
Ere yet again he sought in scorching climes
Each dreadful Lazar-house of sicknesses and crimes.

XCV

His deeds are scions of a nobler stem
Than laurels gathered in a nation's tears;
With healthy tenderness we turn to them,
And grey Tradition chronicles for years
The walk where once an age the man appears
Shaped out by deep communings with the sky,
Heaven's Mercury to earth—whom earth reveres:
Bowers fall—yet here thy memory should not die,
But like the Banyan spread, and flower immortally.

XCVI

Yes! still amid this beauteous Theatre
His gentle spirit seems to hover round,
The vallies breathe of him; of him the fir,
Vibrating, whispers in a silver sound.
It is his voice which hills to hills resound,
As echo to enchanted echo calls:
I gaze—I rove on consecrated ground,
Where broods his gentleness—his mantle falls;—
Groves, vallies, warbling hills, and ornamented Halls.

XCVII

Such talisman within my mind awakes
The melting sweetness of the Month I sing:
The spirit its own gloom or Eden makes
Whene'er it wills to strike the secret spring
Of Good or Evil: for we have a string
Which touched aright divinely will respond,
Like Love amid blown roses—as we bring
Virtue in sight, of Virtue we grow fond,
We are not of the earth—our spirits soar beyond.

XCVIII

Yet here the warrior in his armed hall
Sate throned in evil state in ages gone,
A powerful prince within his Capitol—
And whensoe'er he blew his Saxon horn,
Corn blazing, hamlets rifled, virgins torn
Weeping away from their paternal cot,
His ravage marked with blood—a little Urn
Of marble now is all the Guises' lot,
They came and passed away—they won and are forgot!

CXIX

Yon Church contains their ashes—enter there!
Through arched aisle, low cell, and gallery dim,
To purge the stain from off the scimitar,
Dark murmurs stole of orison and hymn.
There, but no more armipotent of limb,
Some man of many sins recumbent lies
Pillowed on stone, and there antiquely grim,
His hands beseech the offended Deities,
Clasped, as in love with life whilst passing to the skies.

C

The crest, the spear, the banner, and the plume,
Emblazoned shield, and iron-twisted mail—
Which lent devices to their sculptured tomb,
Pomp to their battles—can they more avail?
Alas for them the maid, the widow's wail,
The morning spoil, the midnight sacrilege!
On high that stony warrior will wax pale
When thousand tongues the heavenly throne besiege,
And the scorned Vassals' wrongs condemn the guilty Liege.

CI

From Jenghis-Kahn to terrible Mahmoud,
Trace Slaughter through all chronicles to Cain,
From Cain to Cæsar—from the Hounds of blood,
Peru's fierce spoilers, to the Scourge of Spain—
'Tis the same Tale! first pride, ambition then,
The spur of frenzy, anger's trumpet-call,
Mirth, murder, victory; a boast—a stain—
Last, closing conscience with her snakes and pall—
Enough! the Conqueror bends, and Nations bless his fall!

CII

'Tis well! his life was like the Upas-tree,
The curse of all his kind! who touched him, drew
Contagion from the contact, they might flee,
But guilt, the Simoom, ever would pursue;
And still around would hang the fatal dew,
Corroding what it poisoned to the core,
Tinging the bough till lividly it grew
All ashes! as the shirt of Nessus bore
Torture, and tears, and shrieks, to Hercules of yore.

CIII

Away! all else is whiteness by his side:
A many-chambered Hall before me stands—
The House of Learning flings its portals wide,
And Knowledge bears within his ample hands
The volumes of the dead; at his commands
What busy pupils class the tribes of mind
And banquet upon fruitage! as he scans
The past—long ages will their scrolls unbind,
See Rome her eagles bear, and Greece her clarions wind.

CIV

Sages again and legislators build
The wealth of realms, the policy of states,
Numa, and Solon, and Lycurgus, wield
Their ivory sceptres at the city-gates.
Cumæan Sibyls here aread the Fates,
With holy fillets there the priest divines,
There the grave Senate holds its dread debates,
Here speaks a Cicero, a Cimon shines,
And gay Anacreon bathes his song in Teian wines.

CV

Bends to their sway the ductile soul of youth,
Now touched, stung, softened, mellowed, rapt, on fire,
As pity, fervour, eloquence, zeal, truth,
Or music glances on the electric wire
Which moves their passions. Hark they to the lyre
Which Horace, Virgil, and Tibullus strung
To satire, war, and love; or what the Sire
Of verse, divine Melesigenes sung,
Strains—through the lapse of years imperishably young.

CVI

O glorious records of the march of Time,
Gems of a world in shadow and decay!
Whilst you exist to soften and sublime—
Earth's noblest relics are not passed away.
The birth of Empire seems of yesterday,
Seen through your telescope; lo! cycles, suns
Melt to a span,—man seems a child to play
Beside Creation's waters, yet at once
Pervades her glassy stream, all sweeping as it runs.—

CVII

Yet are those Halls not always dedicate
To Grecian sweetness and Ausonian lore;
Some hours there are when pastime can create
Of simple pleasures an unblemished store—
Pleasures, by past restraint enhanced the more,
Welcomed with smiles, and closed without a sigh:
Why in the noon of manhood evermore
Should the fair flowers of morning-promise die
Around the heart, whose bloom no future can supply?—

CVIII

Nor want there happier hours when hours are sweetest
With mirth and music to awake delight,
When eyes the most benign and steps the fleetest,
Do make a dancing vigil of the night.
When the whole room is beautiful and bright,
And on young lips the heart's warm sunshine dwells,
When voices are melodious as the light,
And pleading Love to blushing Beauty tells
Regards in pleasing tones, but pleasing from none else;—

CIX

When in the shadow of each full dark orb
He sees the Morning-star of Passion break,
And the dear smiles which all his soul absorb,
Around her cheeks a warm Aurora make,
Fair as the Sunrise on a mountain lake;
When at each tread of her harmonious toe,
Pendants, like dew-drops on the lily, shake
And odorous tresses negligently throw
Sweets round the breathing room, a twilight round her brow:

CX

Then—let the meditative mind retire
To some near region of illumined ground.
The spell begins: fond fairy hands aspire
To deal the magic of emotions round;
The woods are filled with a voluptuous sound
Now floating full, now faint upon the ear,
And tones are heard to swell, and feet to bound,
Which heavenly Dian curbs her car to hear,
And all the sparkling stars which make chaste night so dear.

CXI

The uncurtained window looks a gay recess,
A burst of unexampled brilliancy,
And there are forms of finished loveliness
In scarf, and robe, and flowers, seen sweeping by;
A gorgeous crowd is ever in the eye,
Divinest of imaginable things!
The wizard Fancy throws his heavenly dye
On all, and each resounding valley rings
To the rich, kissing touch of instrumental strings.

CXII

To sit thus in a blissful solitude,
With mirth around and innocence within,
With no disturbing passion to intrude,
To mark the Vision and its rites begin—
The invisible Eye of All—this is to win
The dream o'er which ecstatic Milton smiled
Ere yet he communed with the Cherubin;—
It hath a sense, sweet, wonderful, and wild,
And well may suit the vein of a poetic Childe.

CXIII

He who is wise will gather joy from joy,
And bid the busy brain of sadness sleep,
When Life has no amusement to employ
Thought in her chambers, it may soothe to weep.
But the Lethean stream should not be deep,
To drown reflection is but to alarm—
We have a few Elysian drops to steep,
And this is one, our sadnesses with balm,
No Moralist need frown on a so simple charm.

CXIV

But the shade shortens: 'tis the sultry hour,
The hush of noon—siesta of the day;
The wind has left the field, the dew the flower,
The gathered flower droops witheringly away.
Where have I wandered? whither do I stray
With half-shut eye, in wildering reverie?
Leave thou thy air-built palace to the Gay—
Thy spell is broken—broken let it be,
Winningly waves the Wood, to its Lycæum flee.

CXV

Hail and farewell, sweet Valley! though farewells
Are vainly given to grieve o'er thine and thee,
For thou dost colour the mind's secret cells
With prism-tints, from which we cannot flee,
Most vivid still in absence! and our knee
Devoutly bent beneath a vault so blue
To the Great Spirit, never can be free;
We pause—turn—linger—love—admire anew,
Hallowing the ground where first our inspiration grew.

CXVI

Hail and farewell! farewell a little while,
Vision of beauty! with the yellowing leaf,
I come to watch thy melancholy smile,
The music of thy features spent in grief
O'er their decay, a glory bright but brief,
Pathetic sweetness to the heart applied;
Who could view Winter—a Plutonic thief,
Coming to claim thee for his Mourning Bride,
Nor shed few parting tears of passion and of pride?

CXVII

The scene recedes. Welcome these aisles of larch,
The walk of happy spirits! so the mind
May fitly deem, that views the heavenly arch
Hung o'er it like a Sapphire: look behind!
Earth shows a mossy Eden just resigned
By Adam, no more mingling with the blest,
For they are vanished—and a wandering wind
Comes with its whispering dirges from the west,
And the green shady bank is wooing to be pressed.

CXVIII

'Tis sweet to throw at will, as now I throw
My limbs upon the dainty lap of May,
And hold in dalliance the ripe flowers which grow
Confusedly among the lichens gray.
Is this Titania's bower, where fairies play
Their antique revels in the glowworm's sight?
Moss and wild thyme are all the weeds which stray
To pave her palace with a green delight—
Thus then for dulcet dreams and slumber's soothing rite.

END OF CANTO I.