 | The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell |  |
SCENE I.
A Study, with Books, MSS. and Statues. A Window looks over a Country Valley to the neighbouring Mountains. A Door in the Study communicates with an adjoining Room.Balder
(musing).
To-morrow I count thirty years, save one.
Ye grey stones
Of this old tower gloomy and ruinous,
Wherein I make mine eyrie as an eagle
Among the rocks; stones, valley, mountains, trees,
In which I dwell content as in a nest
Of Beauty,—comprehended less by more—
Or above which I rise, as a great ghost
Out of its mortal hull; vale, mountains, trees,
And stones of home, which, as in some old tale
O' the east keep interchange of prodigies
10
Are stomached by mine hunger, unappeased
That sucks Creation down, and o'er the void
Still gapes for more; ye whom I love and fear
And worship, or i' the hollow of my hand
Throw like a grain of incense up to Heaven,
Tell me your secrets! That ye have a heart
I know; but can it beat for such as I?
Or do I unbeheld behold the fair
And answering mystery of your countenance
Passionate with rains and sunshine, and, unheard,
Have audience of your voices, but as one
Who in a temple passes unrespect
Between the kneeling suppliant and the saint,
Meeting the uplifted face and the rapt eyes
That look beyond? Am I but as a fly
Touching the vestal beauties of a maid
Unchidden; intimate but by how much
Inferior? Do ye speak over my head
Even as we pray aloud before a child?
You trees that I have loved so well, ye flowers
Unto whom, by so much as ye are more
In beauty, hath befallen a better love
Than mine, being her chosen who to me
Is as your airy fragrance and mere hues
To your unblushed substantial; thou sweet vale
In which my soul, calm lying like a lake,
Reflects the stars, or, stirred, upon the shores
11
Rising in sudden flood, and breaking up
That firmament to heaped and scattered stars,
Chaotic to and fro from hill to hill
Defiesthe rounding elements, and rolls
Reverberating thunder; have I lived
Not unbeloved, and shall I pass away
Not all unwept?
You floors, in whose black oak
The straitened hamadryad lives and groans,
Ye creaking dark and antiquated floors,
Who know so well in what sad note to join
The weary lullaby what time she rocks
Her babe, and murmurs music sad and low,
So sad and low as if this tower did keep
The murmur of the years as a sea-shell
The sea, or in these legendary halls
The mere air stirred, and with some old unknown
Sufficient conscience moved upon itself,
Whispering and sighing; ruined castle-wall
Whereby she groweth like some delicate flower
In a deserted garden, thou grim wall
Hemming her in with thine unmannered rock
Wherein I set her as a wandering clown
Who, in a fairy-ring, by night doth seize
Some elfin taper, and would have it burn
In his gaunt lanthorn wrought by human hands
Uncouth, yet art so passing bright with her—
So fragrant! little window in the wall,
Eye-lashed with balmy sprays of honeysuckle,
Sweet jessamine, and ivy ever sad,
Wherein like a most melancholy eye,
All day she sits and looks forth on a world
Less fair than she, and as a living soul
Informs the rugged face of the old tower
With beauty; when the soul hath left the face
The sad eye looks no longer from the lid,
The sweet light is put out in the long rain,
The flower is withered on the wall, the voice
Will never murmur any more, and ye,
Ye, that both spake and saw, are dumb and blind,
—Blind save when midnight bolt from your death's-head
Starts like a bloody eyeball, or your rot
Glimmers in corse-lights on the shuddering dark——
And dumb, but for such noise as dumb men make,
When winds are moaning in your empty jaws—
Will there be aught to tell of what has been?
Where for so many nights and days she wept,
Shall not sweet colours in the slanting sun
Cross and recross, and floor the empty space
With rainbows? Will the lingering swallow stay
Within, as conscious of an influence
Like summer? Will an earlier primrose shine
On a peculiar season whereabout
The winds beat idly? Shall the winter thrush
Alight upon your dreary round and sing
As to a nestling? Shall the village school
Know the low turret where all stricken birds
Do shelter? Or the curious traveller note
The lonely tower where evermore the dew
Hangs on the herbs of ruin?
The straitened hamadryad lives and groans,
Ye creaking dark and antiquated floors,
Who know so well in what sad note to join
The weary lullaby what time she rocks
Her babe, and murmurs music sad and low,
So sad and low as if this tower did keep
The murmur of the years as a sea-shell
The sea, or in these legendary halls
The mere air stirred, and with some old unknown
Sufficient conscience moved upon itself,
Whispering and sighing; ruined castle-wall
Whereby she groweth like some delicate flower
In a deserted garden, thou grim wall
Hemming her in with thine unmannered rock
Wherein I set her as a wandering clown
Who, in a fairy-ring, by night doth seize
Some elfin taper, and would have it burn
In his gaunt lanthorn wrought by human hands
Uncouth, yet art so passing bright with her—
12
Eye-lashed with balmy sprays of honeysuckle,
Sweet jessamine, and ivy ever sad,
Wherein like a most melancholy eye,
All day she sits and looks forth on a world
Less fair than she, and as a living soul
Informs the rugged face of the old tower
With beauty; when the soul hath left the face
The sad eye looks no longer from the lid,
The sweet light is put out in the long rain,
The flower is withered on the wall, the voice
Will never murmur any more, and ye,
Ye, that both spake and saw, are dumb and blind,
—Blind save when midnight bolt from your death's-head
Starts like a bloody eyeball, or your rot
Glimmers in corse-lights on the shuddering dark——
And dumb, but for such noise as dumb men make,
When winds are moaning in your empty jaws—
Will there be aught to tell of what has been?
Where for so many nights and days she wept,
Shall not sweet colours in the slanting sun
Cross and recross, and floor the empty space
With rainbows? Will the lingering swallow stay
Within, as conscious of an influence
Like summer? Will an earlier primrose shine
On a peculiar season whereabout
The winds beat idly? Shall the winter thrush
Alight upon your dreary round and sing
13
Know the low turret where all stricken birds
Do shelter? Or the curious traveller note
The lonely tower where evermore the dew
Hangs on the herbs of ruin?
Sun and moon
Rising and setting, but now face to face
In equal Heaven, remember us! O ye
Celestial lovers, you at least should make
A love immortal! On this final eve
Methinks that ye look down on me with eyes
Of human contemplation. Lady Moon,
Casting as yet no shade, thy shade dissolved
In daylight of thy lord, O royal Sun,
Who though at last thou sink beneath the tides
She raiseth, unsubdued shalt glorify
The fatal waters, and still shine on her
With undiminished love, to you I leave
Our memories. Oh consecrate these stones
And point with mindful shadow day and night,
Where we lie dust below.
Rising and setting, but now face to face
In equal Heaven, remember us! O ye
Celestial lovers, you at least should make
A love immortal! On this final eve
Methinks that ye look down on me with eyes
Of human contemplation. Lady Moon,
Casting as yet no shade, thy shade dissolved
In daylight of thy lord, O royal Sun,
Who though at last thou sink beneath the tides
She raiseth, unsubdued shalt glorify
The fatal waters, and still shine on her
With undiminished love, to you I leave
Our memories. Oh consecrate these stones
And point with mindful shadow day and night,
Where we lie dust below.
| The Poetical Works of Sydney Dobell | |