The Poetical Remains of the late Dr. John Leyden ::

Avaunt the lark's clear thrilling note
That warbles sweet through ether blue,
While on the sloping sun-beam float
Her waving pinions wet with dew!
Too dire the power whose sullen sway
My torpid nerves and breast obey.—

But, from the stump of withered oak,
Let me hear the raven croak,
And her sooty pinions flap
At the night thunder's startling clap,
As perch'd aloft she mutters hoarse
O'er an infant's mangled corse;
When, drunk with blood, her sharp short scream
Shall wake me from my wayward dream,
To see the blood spontaneous flow
Through the half-opened sod below.

II.

Avaunt the cheerful village throng,
With all the sprightly sports of youth,
The mazy dance, and maiden song!
Be mine to roam through wilds uncouth;
To talk by fits at dusky eve
With Echo in her rock-hewn cave,
And see the fairy people glide
Down the cavern's rugged side;
Or dive into the wood profound,
Where red leaves rustle strangely round;
Where through the leaf-embowered way,
The star-light sheds a sickly ray.—

And then the dead-man's lamp I spy,
As twinkling blue it passes by,
Soon followed by the sable pall,
And pomp of shadowy funeral.

III.

Beside yon hoary shapeless cairn,
That points the shepherd's lonely path,
Mantled with frizly withered fern,
And skirted by the blasted heath;—
By the slow muddy streams which lave
The suicide's unhallowed grave,
Where flaunts around in loose array,
The withered grass that looks so gray;
Whence aloof the travellers go,
And curse the wretch that lies below;—
I'll sit at midnight's fearful hour,
When the wan April moon has power,

Poring o'er a mossy skull,
Till my blue swollen eyes be dull;
While the unsheeted spectre loud
Bewails his interdicted shroud.

IV.

When wintry thaws impel the wave
Beyond the channel's pebbled bounds,
And hoarse the red-gorg'd rivers rave,
To mine their arching icy mounds;
Though they rush against the shore,
Waves successive tumbling o'er;
While clouds like low-brow'd mountains lower,
And pour the chilling sleety shower:—
Then let me by the torrent roam
At night to watch the churning foam.
And then a wailing voice I hear
By solemn pauses strike the ear
A river-wreck'd unhappy ghost
Shrieks doleful, “Lost, for ever lost!”

And the rocky banks around
Echo back the dreary sound.

V.

But on St. John's mysterious night,
Sacred to many a wizard spell,
The time when first to human sight
Confest the mystic fern-seed fell;
Beside the sloe's black knotted thorn,
What hour the Baptist stern was born—
That hour when heaven's breath is still,—
I'll seek the shaggy fern-clad hill,
Where time has delv'd a dreary dell,
Befitting best a hermit's cell;
And watch 'mid murmurs muttering stern,
The seed departing from the fern,
Ere wakeful demons can convey
The wonder-working charm away,
And tempt the blows from arm unseen,
Should thoughts unholy intervene.

VI.

Or let me watch the live-long night
By some dark murderer's bed of death,
Whose secret crimes his soul affright,
And clog his sighs and parting breath.
Pale-sheeted spectres seem to rise
Before his fix'd and glaring eyes,
That dimly glance with stone-set stare,
The rueful hue of black despair.
A death-head slowly to his view
Presents its withering grisly hue,
And grins a smile with aspect grim—
Cold horror thrills his every limb,
His half-form'd accents die away,
And scarce the glimmering sense convey:
He owns the justice of his doom,
And muttering sinks to endless gloom.

VII.

Or, in some haunted Gothic hall
Whose roof is moulder'd, damp, and hoar,
Where figur'd tapestry shrouds the wall,
And murder oft has dy'd the floor;

With frantic fancies sore opprest,
My weary eyes shall sink to rest—
When, sudden from my slumbers weak
Arous'd in wild affright I break;
A death-cold hand shall slowly sleek
With icy touch my shuddering cheek.
Soft as the whispers of the gale,
Forth steals an infant's feeble wail,
From some far corner of the dome,
Approaching still my haunted room;
A spirit then seems the floor to trace,
With hollow-sounding, measur'd pace.—

VIII.

I heard it! Yes; no earthly call!
Repeated thrice in dismal tone;
And still along the echoing wall
Resounds the deep continuous moan;
Responsive to my throbbing heart,
Stung with fear's incessant smart,
How creeps my blood in every vein,
While desperate works my maddening brain—
See there! where vibrates on my view
That visage grim of ashen hue;

Glaring eyes that roll so red,
Starting from the straining lid;
At each horrid death-set stare
He bristles up his hoary hair,
And shows his locks so thin and few,
Dropping wet with crimson dew.—

IX.

Hence fleets the form, while hush'd the sound—
'Tis past—till sleep resumes her reign.
But soon as wakeful sense is drown'd
Fantastic visions rise again.
Then borne on tempest wings I go
O'er the deep that foams below:
In whirling eddies raves the tide,
While piping winds its thunders chide.
The mass of waters heaves on high,
Till surging billows dash the sky;
White they burst around my ear,
Down the west they bear me far,
Far beyond the setting sun,
Where ever brood the shadows dun,
Where bends the welkin to the wave,
And ocean's utmost waters lave.

X.

The eddying winds along the shore
Clash rudely with opposing rage
Where never mortal touch'd before,
Save the far-wandering Grecian sage.
By ocean's hoar-fermenting foam,
Darkly lowers the airy dome;
By brown substantial darkness wall'd
Whence bold Ulysses shrunk appall'd;
Where ghosts, half seen by glances dim,
With shadowy feet the pavement skim.
But soon the feeble-shrieking dead
Are scatter'd by the Gorgon's head;
Whose withering look, so wan and cold,
No frame can bear of mortal mould;
While snaky wreaths of living hair,
With crests red-curling, writhe in air.

XI.

Anon, with sound confus'd and shrill,
The thin embodied forms decay;
And, like the gray mist of the hill,
The airy mansion fleets away.—

When Phantasy transports the scene,
Where glows the starry sky serene;
And then I seem in wild vagary,
Roving with the restless fairy;
Round and round the turning sphere,
To chase the moon-beam glancing clear.
Where ocean's oozy arms extend,
There our gliding course we bend;
Our right feet brush the billows hoar,
Our left imprint the sandy shore;
While mermaids comb their sea-green locks
By moonlight on the shelving rocks.

XII.

But while these scenes I pleas'd survey,
They vanish slow with giddy hum,
And visions rise, of dire dismay,
That Fancy's plastic power benumb.
The last dread trumpet stuns the ear
Which central nature groans to hear;
And seems to shrink with rueful throes,
To see her ancient offspring's woes.—
Quick start to life the astonish'd dead;
Old heroes heave the helmed head;

Again the sons of war return;
No more their red-flam'd eye-balls burn;
While scroll-shrunk skies around them blaze,
In mute despair around they gaze;
Then frightful shrieks the welkin rive—
As I, with rapture, wake alive.—

XIII.

Avaunt! ye empty notes of joy,
Ye vain delusive sounds of mirth;
No pleasure's here without alloy,
No room for happiness on earth.
To calm my breast's impatient glow,
Arise ye scenes of fancied woe!
That I may relish while they stay
Such joys as quickly fleet away.
And still let Phantasy renew
Her antic groups of sombre hue,
Where every unconnected scene
Combines to rouse emotions keen,
And far transcending judgment's law,
Astounds the wondering breast with awe:—
Till all this dream of life be o'er
And I awake to sleep no more.

University of Virginia Library

ODE TO PHANTASY.

WRITTEN IN 1796.

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