University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

MAGNOLIAS.

Thou pale sad moon, slow-waning, night by night,
From thy fair throne, when nightly thou didst busk
Thy swelling bosom in more silvery light,
I breathed on Como's shore the odorous dusk
Of great magnolias! Whiter than the tusk
Of Indian elephant, like beakers bright,
Their Bacchic flowers they lifted in delight,
And made libation of their winy musk.
To thee they made libation, and their leaves
Murmured of joy's increase; yet never more
Shall they nor I renew beneath thy spell
That joy. Thou changest; and my spirit grieves
That naught may be as it hath been before,
That welcome makes sad music with farewell.

A DAY-DREAM IN KENT.

In some remote, rich tract of Keats's mind
These woodlands might have grown, where all day long
Ten thousand nightingales their moonlight song
Rehearse, with bursting notes that load the wind
Like hyacinth-bells in spring. Sweet chance to find
In one delicious jungle, green and strong,
Growths of all climes—see birch-stems shine along
Dim rhododendron thickets, overtwined
With English woodbine! In so fair a dream
Those pigeons might be thoughts, through dream-lit glades
Winging their way to shadowy haunts unknown.
For ever might they fly; for ever gleam
Their wings through happier woods; each songster lone
For ever warble in more bowery shades!

LOVE AND LIFE.

I met Love wandering in the fields of Life,
Whose arrows, winged with joy and barbed with pain,
Had marred his fair Olympian limbs,—in vain,
For with his dreaming eyes, blind to all strife,
He held his way, and, often left for slain,
Still rose, to spend his shafts on things despised,
Weak, sad, uncomely things; and I, surprised
To see him idiot-like, such mien maintain,
Questioned him as he passed why this was so.
Then, for all answer, with a martyr's smile,
He bent his golden bow, and all my heart
In sudden flame I found, and grew to know
Strange secrets of the melancholy Isle,
Where Life and Love, the twins, were torn apart.

A DREAM OF EGYPT.

Night sends forth many an eagle-wingèd dream
To soar through regions never known by day;
And I by one of these was rapt away
To where the sun-burnt Nile, with opulent stream
Makes teem the desert sand. My pomp supreme
Enriched the noon; I spurned earth's common clay;
For I was Antony, and by me lay
That Snake whose sting was bliss. Nations did seem
But camels for the burden of our joy;
Kings were our slaves; our wishes glowed in the air
And grew fruition; night grew day, day night,
Lest the high bacchanal of our loves should cloy;
We reined the tiger, Life, with flower-crowned hair,
Abashlessly abandoned to delight.

TO THE ALBANI ATHENA.

What was he, man or more, whose valorous brain
Endured anew the throes of Zeus, and wrought
Glad self-deliverance when this virgin thought
Leaped forth full-armed to ease creation's pain?
Waste is that womb of gods; thou dost remain
Orphaned, alone. So stood grave Pallas, fraught
With radiant power, and gazed her foes to naught,
Calm sentinel of her Athenian fane!
August, serene, austere, thou marble dream
Of her, the holiest life of living Greece,
Terrible Maid! did thy creator bow
In a sublime abasement, when the beam
Of thy full beauty awed his hand to cease—
Transfigured by stern love—as I do now?

A JULY NIGHT.

The dreamy, long, delicious afternoon
That filled the flowers with honey, and made well
With earliest nectar many a secret cell
Of pulping peaches, with a murmurous tune
Lulled all the woods and leas; but now, how soon
The winds have woke to break the sultry spell—
The drowsy flocks, that low in the west did dwell,
Like Oreads chased fleet madly by the moon!
So, Cleopatra-like, has rich July,
A Queen of many moods, outdreamed the day
To hold by night wild revel. Odours warm
Come panted with each gust, as royally,
Magnificent alike in calm or storm,
With some voluptuous anger she would play.

THE MARSEILLAISE.

What means this mighty chant, wherein the wail
Of some intolerable woe, grown strong
With sense of more intolerable wrong,
Swells to a stern victorious march—a gale
Of vengeful wrath? What mean the faces pale,
The fierce resolve, the ecstatic pangs along
Life's fiery ways, the demon thoughts which throng
The gates of awe, when these wild notes assail
The sleeping of our souls? Hear ye no more
Than the mad foam of revolution's leaven,
Than a roused people's throne-o'erwhelming tread?
Hark! 'tis man's spirit thundering on the shore
Of iron fate; the tramp of titans dread,
Sworn to dethrone the gods unjust from heaven.