Sometimes it fell

Among the moss with hollow harmony

Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones

It danced; like childhood laughing as it went:

Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,

Reflecting every herb and drooping bud

That overhung its quietness. – »O stream!

Whose source is inaccessibly profound,

Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?

Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,

Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,

Thy searchless fountain, and invisible course

Have each their type in me: and the wide sky,

And measureless ocean may declare as soon

What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud

Contains thy waters, as the universe

Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched

Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste

I' the passing wind!«

 

Beside the grassy shore

Of the small stream he went; he did impress

On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught

Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one

Roused by some joyous madness from the couch

Of fever, he did move; yet, not like him,

Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame

Of his frail exultation shall be spent,

He must descend. With rapid steps he went

Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow

Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now

The forest's solemn canopies were changed

For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.

Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed

The struggling brook: tall spires of windlestrae

Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,

And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pines2

Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots

The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,

Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,

The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin

And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes

Had shone, gleam stony orbs: – so from his steps

Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade

Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds

And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued

The stream, that with a larger volume now

Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there

Fretted a path through its descending curves

With its wintry speed. On every side now rose

Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,

Lifted their black and barren pinnacles

In the light of evening, and, its precipice

Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,

Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,

Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues

To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands

Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,

And seems, with its accumulated crags,

To overhang the world: for wide expand

Beneath the wan stars and descending moon

Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,

Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom

Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills

Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge

Of the remote horizon. The near scene,

In naked and severe simplicity,

Made contrast with the universe. A pine,

Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy

Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast

Yielding one only response, at each pause

In most familiar cadence, with the howl

The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams

Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river,

Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,

Fell into that immeasurable void

Scattering its waters to the passing winds.

 

Yet the grey precipice and solemn pine

And torrent, were not all; – one silent nook

Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,

Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,

It overlooked in its serenity

The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.

It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile

Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped

The fissured stones with its entwining arms,

And did embower with leaves for ever green,

And berries dark, the smooth and even space

Of its inviolated floor, and here

The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,

In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,

Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,

Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the haunt

Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach

The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,

One human step alone, has ever broken

The stillness of its solitude: – one voice

Alone inspired its echoes; – even that voice

Which hither came, floating among the winds,

And led the loveliest among human forms

To make their wild haunts the depository

Of all the grace and beauty that endued

Its motions, render up its majesty,

Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,

And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,

Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,

Commit the colours of that varying cheek,

That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.

 

The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured

A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge

That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist

Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank

Wan moonlight even to fulness: not a star

Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,

Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice

Slept, clasped in his embrace. – O, storm of death!

Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night:

And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still

Guiding its irresistible career

In thy devastating omnipotence,

Art king of this frail world, from the red field

Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,

The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed

Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,

A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls

His brother Death. A rare and regal prey

He hath prepared, prowling around the world;

Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men

Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,

Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine

The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.

 

When on the threshold of the green recess

The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death

Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,

Did he resign his high and holy soul

To images of the majestic past,

That paused within his passive being now,

Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe

Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place

His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk

Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone

Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest,

Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink

Of that obscurest chasm; – and thus he lay,

Surrendering to their final impulses

The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair,

The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear

Marred his repose, the influxes of sense,

And his own being unalloyed by pain,

Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed

The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there

At peace, and faintly smiling: – his last sight

Was the great moon, which o'er the western line

Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,

With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed

To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills

It rests, and still as the divided frame

Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,

That ever beat in mystic sympathy

With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still:

And when two lessening points of light alone

Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp

Of his faint respiration scarce did stir

The stagnate night: – till the minutest ray

Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.

It paused – it fluttered. But when heaven remained

Utterly black, the murky shades involved

An image, silent, cold, and motionless,

As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.

Even as a vapour fed with golden beams

That ministered on sunlight, ere the west

Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame –

No sense, no motion, no divinity –

A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings

The breath of heaven did wander – a bright stream

Once fed with many-voiced waves – a dream

Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever,

Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.

O, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,

Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam

With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale

From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God,

Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice

Which but one living man has drained, who now,

Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels

No proud exemption in the blighting curse

He bears, over the world wanders for ever,

Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dream

Of dark magician in his visioned cave,

Raking the cinders of a crucible

For life and power, even when his feeble hand

Shakes in its last decay, were the true law

Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled

Like some frail exhalation; which the dawn

Robes in its golden beams, – ah! thou hast fled!

The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,

The child of grace and genius. Heartless things

Are done and said i' the world, and many worms

And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth

From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,

In vesper low or joyous orison,

Lifts still its solemn voice: – but thou art fled –

Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes

Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee

Been purest ministers, who are, alas!

Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips

So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes

That image sleep in death, upon that form

Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear

Be shed – not even in thought. Nor, when those hues

Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,

Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone

In the frail pauses of this simple strain,

Let not high verse, mourning the memory

Of that which is no more, or painting's woe

Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery

Their own cold powers.