The Flood of Thessaly The Girl of Provence, and Other Poems. By Barry Cornwall [i.e. Bryan Waller Procter] |
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DEDICATORY STANZAS. |
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 | The Flood of Thessaly |  |
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DEDICATORY STANZAS.
“If my slight muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine be all the praise.”
Shakespeare, Sonnet 38.
The pain be mine, but thine be all the praise.”
Shakespeare, Sonnet 38.
I
Art thou still absent?—Then, a strange bright dreamBore thee unto me in its shadowy arms.—
Ah! come again,—so like a pleasant gleam
Of light, that I (free from unjust alarms)
May gaze on my illuminated theme,
And read thy varying smiles and many charms,
And swear by the great Love to love thee long,
Beyond ambition, or the light of song.
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II
Come!—I will crown thee with the fairest flowersThat ever sprang beneath the eyes of May,
When Flora and the wind (young paramours)
Were whispering caught in woods at dawn of day,
And those that blossom quick in April showers,
Or when the Autumn rivers run astray:—
All flowers thou shalt have which perfume yield,
From fountain, lake, or forest,—garden,—field.
III
And first of all the rose; because its breathIs rich beyond the rest, and when it dies
It doth bequeath a charm to sweeten death,
And violets whose looks are like the skies,
And that sad flow'r for which, as story saith,
Echo the nymph once pined, until her sighs
Allured some god to charm her into stone,
And snow-drops winter-born, pining alone.
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IV
And Hyacinth whom Zephyr's jealous wingSlew, and Apollo changed to some soft star:
The lily, of all children of the spring
The palest,—fairest too where fair ones are;
And woodbines which like fondest lovers cling
Round trees that spread their sheltering arms afar;
And flow'rs that turn to meet the sun-light clear,
And those which slumber when the night is near.
V
These and all others:—whatsoe'er is bestBeloved by thee shall I refuse to claim?
The sweetest shall between thy palms be prest;
The nameless—thou shalt kiss and give them name;
The whitest on thy bosom white shall rest,—
Alas! not so, for then they lose their fame:
Not so; but rather shall each flower be
Rank'd and high-honour'd as it aideth thee.
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VI
Sweet friend! my soul is haunted by a vowTo dedicate (frail work!) this book to thee:
With all its weakness—all its errors, thou
Wilt prize the wandering verse that comes from me,
Past its poor merit; and perhaps thy brow—
Lovely beyond that old idolatry,
Which grew to life from marble, (so decreed
Venus) may lose a care as thou shalt read.
VII
And yet thine eye, so summer-bright at times,When sorrow is not (wherefore ever?) there,
May melancholy wane before my rhymes,
And thy young heart may tremble in its lair,
And sigh for her, that girl of southern climes,
Who died because she loved a vision rare:
Pale heathen! languishing like one whose brain
Is sun-stricken on some unshelter'd plain.
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VIII
—Said I not, maiden mine, that I would swearBefore bright Love, the God, to love thee long?
Oh! yes, and to the world proclaim how fair,
How very fair thou art, even among
Beauties who beautiful accounted are.
This duty to thy poet doth belong:
Therefore I swear to thee, by the sweet pain
Of love, to love thee ever,—though in vain.
IX
I swear to thee by all who have famous been!By lovers who have died to live in song!
By Ariadne pining near the green
Ocean, while Theseus' vessel skimm'd along!
By Dido left forlorn,—sad Carthage queen,
Who ended on the pile Love's bitter wrong!
By Phaon's lover plunging from the steep!
By pale Laodamia doomed to weep!—
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X
By all who reach'd in life a happier fateThro' Love's dim mystic mazes! By that day
When Peleus wedded Thetis in such state!
And by those balmy nights when Cupid lay
By Psyche,—tho' at last he lingered late,
And she beheld, and so he fled away.
By all the moonlight hours when Dian lone
Drank in the breathings of Endymion!
XI
By this—by all—by every other taleFabled or true, happy or dark with woe;
By that, which e'er it is, that doth prevail
Over the rest: and by twin hearts that know
Themselves so well that nought can e'er avail
To kill their faith or lay sweet passion low;
(Yet lovers' hearts should armed be alway,
Lest Love, when doubt is born, chance to decay.)
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XII
—Yet wherefore thus? Ah! wherefore not have swornAt once by thy fair self,—thy spotless truth,
By thy quick sense of all that can adorn
Woman, thy modest pride, thy words that soothe
A brightness into beauty like the morn,
Which else might dim thy clear and gentle youth,
Or make the world forget that thou wert young—
Why by thyself have I not said or sung?—
XIII
I know not:—How I write or how have writThe muse, who mistress is, alone can tell:
Bright causer of the poet's pleasant fit,
Who when she well is cherish'd, rhymeth well;
A fair ally of thy most playful wit
Is she, and my true passion. Who may tell
But we may live, all three, familiar friends,
As one dull colour with two brighter blends!
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XIV
Perhaps together we may journey soon(Her wings are sinewy-strong and fit to bear)
Where once Astolpho went, and meet the moon
Tracking her desert—the blue boundless air,
Like thing half lost. 'Tis now but early June,
And time there is while days are long and fair
To taste the sights bards say are something worth:—
And who will miss us, sweet, from this dull earth?
XV
None, none:—Our course—my course, at least, has beenHumble and sad from my most childish time:
Tho' thou indeed hast plucked some pleasures green,
The offspring of a near, less-cloudy clime:
More likely then to judge, from what thou'st seen,
Of things which hitherto have dwelt in rhyme;
So shalt thou master, I the pupil be,
When we set sail to reach the lunar sea.
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XVI
Perhaps we there may find bright creatures straying,Whose light would perish in this clouded world,—
Like her who went thro' Athens' woods a-straying
By night, but slept by day in cowslips curl'd;
Or Ariel, haunting sprite, who wept obeying
The frown of Prosper, and his blue wings furled
In sorrow when he met his master's scorn:
That peerless spirit,—so true, tho' beauty-born.
[OMITTED]
XVII
—Here rest I.—Sickness like a film hath spreadOver mine eye and dimmed its little light,
Since what is writ was writ—(not fable-bred,
But such as truest poets love to write)—
And now methinks I commerce with the dead,
And face the shadowy angel in his might.
—'Tis gone; and melancholy dreams and pain
And scorn of all I do alone remain.
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XVIII
And Fame doth seem a bubble that may burst,Pierced by an ignorant pen or selfish hate;
And Fortune like a vision vainly nursed,
Whose golden strength a breath may dissipate;
And Love—yet am I not so sickness-cursed
As rail against the bounty of my fate.
What I may never look on let me scorn;
But thou art to me like the risen morn.
XIX
Thou livest in my heart, thro' distance—time,'Midst fickle friendships and fantastic joys,
Alone a truth:—Like Love, which is sublime,
Thy sweet smile elevates and never cloys;
And thou art all the beauty of this rhyme,
The brightness, and the spirit that now buoys
A verse which else would fall.—O lady mine!
Gaze on it till it grows like thee,—divine.
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