University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
The poems posthumous and collected of Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Beddoes, Thomas Lovell (1803-1849)

collapse sectionI. 
VOL. I.
collapse section 
THE SECOND BROTHER;
collapse sectionI. 
ACT I.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
collapse sectionII. 
ACT II.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
collapse sectionIII. 
ACT III.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
collapse sectionIV. 
ACT IV.
 I. 
Scene I.
collapse section 
TORRISMOND;
collapse sectionI. 
ACT I.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.
collapse section 
DRAMATIC SCENES AND FRAGMENTS.
 I. 
I. ERMINIA ABBANDONATA.
 II. 
II. AN APOTHEOSIS.
 III. 
III. The Israelite amid Philistines.
 IV. 
IV. Lovers' Identity.
 V. 
V. Prison Thoughts.
 VI. 
VI. Man's petty Universe contrasted with the True.
 VII. 
VII. Recognition.
 VIII. 
VIII. Reception of Evil Tidings.
 IX. 
IX. A Ruffian.
 X. 
X. Recollection of Early Life.
 XI. 
XI. A Crocodile.
 XII. 
XII. “Bona de Mortuis.”
 XIII. 
XIII. Rosily dying.
 XIV. 
XIV. Speaker's Meaning dimly descried.
 XV. 
XV. Anticipation of Evil Tidings.
 XVI. 
XVI. Midnight Hymn.
 XVII. 
XVII. Concealed Joy.
 XVIII. 
XVIII. Life a Glass Window.
 XIX. 
XIX. A Dream.
 XX. 
XX. Metaphor of Rain.
 XXI. 
XXI. Meditation.
 XXII. 
XXII. Sweet to Die.
 XXIII. 
XXIII. Extreme Acclivity.
 XXIV. 
XXIV. Rain.
 XXV. 
XXV. Life's Uncertainty.
 XXVI. 
XXVI. Kisses.
 XXVII. 
XXVII. Subterranean City.
 XXVIII. 
XXVIII. Dream of Dying.
 XXIX. 
XXIX. Insignificance of the World.
 XXX. 
XXX. Sleeper's Countenance contemplated.
 XXXI. 
XXXI. A beautiful Night.
 XXXII. 
XXXII. Humble Beginnings.
 XXXIII. 
XXXIII. A Countenance foreboding Evil.
 XXXIV. 
XXXIV. A lofty Mind.
 XXXV. 
XXXV. Sorrow.
 XXXVI. 
XXXVI. Sad and cheerful Songs contrasted.
 XXXVII. 
XXXVII. A subterranean City.
 XXXVIII. 
XXXVIII. Man's anxious, but ineffectual, Guard against Death.
 XXXIX. 
XXXIX. A Day of surpassing Beauty.
 XL. 
XL. The slight and degenerate Nature of Man.
 XLI. 
XLI. A Night-Scene.
 XLII. 
XLII. Dirge.
 XLIII. 
XLIII. Mourners consoled.
 XLIV. 
XLIV. A great Sacrifice self-compensated.
 XLV. 
XLV. “Love is wiser than Ambition.”
 XLVI. 
XLVI. The Murderer's haunted Couch.
 XLVII. 
XLVII. Human Life: its value.
collapse section 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
  
ALFARABI; THE WORLD-MAKER.
  
THE ROMANCE OF THE LILY.
  
PYGMALION.
  
LINES WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF THE ‘PROMETHEUS UNBOUND.’
  
SONNET:
  
LETTER TO B. W. PROCTER, ESQ.
  
ANOTHER LETTER TO THE SAME.
  
THE BODING DREAMS.
  
LOVE'S LAST MESSAGES.
  
THE GHOSTS' MOONSHINE.
  
FROM THE GERMAN.
  
THE PHANTOM-WOOER.
  
A DIRGE.
  
ANOTHER DIRGE.
  
BRIDAL SERENADE.
  
DIRGE.
  
DIRGE AND HYMENEAL:
  
DIAL-THOUGHTS.
  
DREAM-PEDLARY.
  
BALLAD OF HUMAN LIFE.
  
SONG, ON THE WATER.
  
LOVE-IN-IDLENESS.
  
THE REASON WHY.
  
THE TWO ARCHERS.
  
THE RUNAWAY.
  
SONG ON THE WATER.
  
ALPINE SPIRIT'S SONG.
  
SONG: TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE.
  
SONG OF THE STYGIAN NAIADES.
  
THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.
  
A LAMENT.
  
DIRGE.
  
EPITAPH.
collapse section 
POETIC FRAGMENTS.
  
THE TREE OF LIFE.
  
THE NEW-BORN STAR.
  
THRENODY.
  
LINES, WRITTEN AT GENEVA; JULY, 1824.
  
STANZAS. (FROM THE IVORY GATE.)
  
LINES WRITTEN IN SWITZERLAND.
  
DOOMSDAY.
  
THRENODY.
collapse sectionII. 
VOL. II.
collapse section 
Death's Jest-book:
collapse sectionI. 
ACT I.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.
collapse sectionII. 
ACT II.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
collapse sectionIII. 
ACT III.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
collapse sectionIV. 
ACT IV.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.
collapse sectionV. 
ACT V.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.
  
L'ENVOI.
collapse section 
THE BRIDES' TRAGEDY
collapse sectionI. 
ACT I.
 I. 
Scene I. A garden.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
collapse sectionII. 
ACT II.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.
 V. 
Scene V.
 VI. 
Scene VI.
collapse sectionIII. 
ACT III.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.
 V. 
Scene V.
collapse sectionIV. 
ACT IV.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.
collapse sectionV. 
ACT V.
 I. 
Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.

collapse section Collapse All | Expand All expand section
previous section The poems posthumous and collected of Thomas Lovell Beddoes
next section

XXXVII. A subterranean City.

I followed once a fleet and mighty serpent
Into a cavern in a mountain's side;
And, wading many lakes, descending gulphs,
At last I reached the ruins of a city,
Built not like ours but of another world,
As if the aged earth had loved in youth
The mightiest city of a perished planet,
And kept the image of it in her heart,
So dream-like, shadowy, and spectral was it.
Nought seemed alive there, and the bony dead
Were of another world the skeletons.
The mammoth, ribbed like to an arched cathedral,
120

Lay there, and ruins of great creatures else
More like a shipwrecked fleet, too vast they seemed
For all the life that is to animate:
And vegetable rocks, tall sculptured palms,
Pines grown, not hewn, in stone; and giant ferns,
Whose earthquake-shaken leaves bore graves for nests.
D. I. B.
previous section The poems posthumous and collected of Thomas Lovell Beddoes
next section