I.
TO POESY.
1.
Thou “Wine of Demons!” by dull Flesh abjured,
But the true Essence of all things divine!
The Incense that perfumeth Nature's shrine!
Nectar of the heart and brain!
Spirit's sun-unfolding Rain!
Deep Poesy! I come to thee, allured
By all that I do hear, scent, touch, or see;
From the flower's delicate aglet, where the bee
Makes music; to the depths of sea and ether,
Where winds and waves in fierce love leap together,
And storms are thunder-voiced and lightning-plumed,
And worlds, Creation's sparks, extinguish'd and illumed!
2.
The mysteries which the Dreamers of old days
Did gird thee with, in many a solemn strain,
Are buried in the grave of our disdain:
Men now no altars to Apollo raise;
And rich-brain'd Memory's glorious Daughters
Sink in Oblivion's Lethe-waters:
The Mount whence Eros shot his golden arrow
At jeering Phœbus' heart, revered by none,
Hath less advertence than a war-left barrow,
And every spring mates that of Helicon:
The blood-engender'd Horse, the winged vision!
With the child's steed becomes the man's derision;
Round poet-brows no laurel crownlet clings,
And outward symbols all are scoff'd as idle things!
3.
But life and death remain unread;
And by the same
Aspiring flame
Their poor inheritors are fed:
And thou and thy sublime rewards,
Deep-dwelling in the mind's regards,
Unchanged, are now as when dark Sappho writ,
Or Carus' wisdom on the world alit.
4.
Some idle voices are gone forth of late,
That thou art fading from the dreamless world;
But darkness cannot yet decree light's date,
Nor thine imperial flag by slaves be furl'd!
From many a stately and electric pen
Thou still shalt rule and lighten amid men,
Blinding their common being
To teach diviner seeing!
Thou art immortal!
The lurid portal
Which openeth at life's last declivity
Is not for thee;
For thou wilt hold thine high festivity
Of grief and glee
Till mind with matter shall no longer mingle,
And crush'd be every world where breathing soul doth tingle!
5.
Deep Cell of Honey! evermore unclosed,
But filling fast as feasted on: thou Flower!
That on the steep of Life aye overpeerest
The ocean of Eternity, and rearest
Thy beauteous head beneath Time's hurricane power,
In which, though shaken, thou hast still reposed:
Even as a green bough waveth o'er a tomb,
Thy glories float above the old world's doom;
And as sweet blossoms beat to earth by rain
Rise with fresh beauty in the morning sun—
When Barbarism hath thy grace o'errun,
Thou with a most tender
And more perfect splendour
Hast blush'd reviving o'er the world again!
6.
Words, the keen instruments of Mind and Thought,
Are but the semblance which thou deign'st to wear
To make thy godhead visible to sense:
Then, on thy wings and in thy gaze intense
To Heaven by a divine assumption caught,
We mount amid the Soul's ascending thunder;
Sublimer spirits for awhile appear,
And spurn this clay-work with disdaining wonder!
Deep-mirror'd, in the ocean of the Mind
Thy heavens are in reflected glory kindled;
Till, like a Typhon, thunder-struck and blind,
We fall, in darkness crush'd—helpless, and dwindled
Into our insect-cells again! but thou
Dost comfort us with balm:
A holy calm
Falls on our woe;
We bathe in thy sweet waters of delight,
And, so refresh'd, into our mortal night
Droop cheerful as the pinky daisy's eye,
That closeth in the twilight quietly.
7.
As many wander by the wondrous Ocean
Only to gather pebbles, thou to millions
Art but as vanity; but that emotion
Which of the hearts who feast in thy pavilions
Is the ripe-gushing fruit and foaming wine,
Is deep as Bacchus' vat, or Mammon's mine!
Those who despise thee and thy dreamy glories,
Because they know thee not, are dreamers vainer,
Who sleep through their dark life, and think it light;
Reality their spell-word: but thy sight
Out-glanceth dull day-life; thy lofty stories
Are clear as their fond creeds, and thy religion plainer.
8.
Oh! be thou with my dense soul interfused!
That it may float in buoyant gladness
Upon thy stream of sober madness
Over the grave, within itself bemused:
When I am dead, be thou my cenotaph!
As shakes the shingle-foam beneath the wind,
I quiver at thy breath, which whirls the chaff
From out the stored garners of the mind:
Thou dost anneal the spirit, till each hue
O' the outward Universe doth pierce it through
And there live colour'd in resemblance rife!
Thy lightning flashes from the clouds of life!
As the eye, eastward fix'd afar,
Plucks from the dawn a paling star,
Seen but by a striving vision;
Thou, with a sublime decision,
Forcest from the Universe
Many a dream and secret golden,
In its depths of glory folden,
And weav'st it into soul-essential Verse!
Like the storm-presaging bird
In the van of thunder heard,
Thou prophesiest of Eternity;
And from the great To-Come clouds roll before thine eye!
9.
Like the Mæander's, thy sweet streams return,
From their diverse and mazy wandering,
To their bright fountain-urn;
And to the spirit bring
Tidings of a diviner blossoming,
In meadows far away of endless Spring.
Nature's most common page with thee is fraught;
Thy flowers expand around us, dew'd and sunny—
But the wing'd hearts by whom thy balm is sought
Are few, and fewer those that find the honey
Which sleepeth in the depths of thy perfume:
Bees amass sweetness from the lowliest flower;
But vulgar insects o'er a world of bloom
Flit, and reveal no nectar-hiving power.
10.
Thy mighty elements, in peace prepared
In the creative chaos of the soul,
Are blent in fury; and that storm is shared
By all who walk within thy sky's control:
But between them that in thy tempests pant
And thee, is seal'd a rainbow-covenant!
As in the banner'd gloom the dusk Night reareth
The solitary sea-bird disappeareth,
Thou fadest in the depths of our despair;
But Hope's bright dreams arise,
With future-wooing eyes—
And, lo! thy re-apparent wings burn in the visible air!
11.
The theme that's inexhaustible must cease
All unaccomplish'd, or for ever flow:
I dedicate my transient being
To thy great altars, thou All-seeing!
Lead me in tumult to thy sovereign peace;
And print thy kiss of love on my soul's brow!
Suffer my footsteps in thy Places Holy;
And sanctify me with the melancholy
Born of that exaltation !—Lo! I droop;
And from thine ether to dim silence stoop—
Yet musing of thee: as the lark, descending,
Stills in the lower airs his gushing song;
And on the quiet mead his voyage ending,
Sits hush'd, as his deep thought did the same strain prolong.
