 | Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and minor poems |  |
56
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
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My nothingness—my wants—
My sins—and my contrition—
Southey E Persis.
My sins—and my contrition—
Southey E Persis.
And some flowers—but no bays.
Milton.
Milton.
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PREFACE.
1
Romance who loves to nod and singWith drowsy head and folded wing
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been—a most familiar bird—
Taught me my alphabet to say—
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie
A child—with a most knowing eye.
2
Of late, eternal Condor yearsSo shake the very air on high
With tumult, as they thunder by,
I hardly have had time for cares
Thro' gazing on th' unquiet sky!
And, when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings—
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away—forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Did it not tremble with the strings!
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TO --- ---
1
Should my early life seem,[As well it might,] a dream—
Yet I build no faith upon
The king Napoleon—
I look not up afar
For my destiny in a star:
2
In parting from you nowThus much I will avow—
There are beings, and have been
Whom my spirit had not seen
Had I let them pass me by
With a dreaming eye—
If my peace hath fled away
In a night—or in a day—
In a vision—or in none—
Is it therefore the less gone?—
3
I am standing 'mid the roarOf a weather-beaten shore,
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Some particles of sand—
How few! and how they creep
Thro' my fingers to the deep!
My early hopes? no—they
Went gloriously away,
Like lightning from the sky
At once—and so will I.
4
So young? ah! no—not now—Thou hast not seen my brow,
But they tell thee I am proud—
They lie—they lie aloud—
My bosom beats with shame
At the paltriness of name
With which they dare combine
A feeling such as mine—
Nor Stoic? I am not:
In the terror of my lot
I laugh to think how poor
That pleasure “to endure!”
What! shade of Zeno!—I!
Endure!—no—no—defy.
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SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.
1
Thy soul shall find itself alone'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone—
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy:
2
Be silent in that solitudeWhich is not loneliness—for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
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Shall overshadow thee: be still.
3
The night—tho' clear—shall frown—And the stars shall look not down,
From their high thrones in the Heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given—
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever:
4
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish—Now are visions ne'er to vanish—
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more—like dew-drop from the grass:
5
The breeze—the breath of God—is still—And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token—
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!—
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TO M---
1
O! I care not that my earthly lotHath—little of Earth in it—
That years of love have been forgot
In the fever of a minute—
2
I heed not that the desolateAre happier, sweet, than I—
But that you meddle with my fate
Who am a passer-by.
3
It is not that my founts of blissAre gushing—strange! with tears—
Or that the thrill of a single kiss
Hath palsied many years—
4
'Tis not that the flowers of twenty springsWhich have wither'd as they rose
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With the weight of an age of snows.
5
Nor that the grass—O! may it thrive!On my grave is growing or grown—
But that, while I am dead yet alive
I cannot be, lady, alone.
| Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and minor poems | |