Burns in thee, child? – What good can thee betide,

350

That thou shouldst smile again?’ The evening came,

And they had found Lorenzo’s earthy bed –

The flint was there, the berries at his head.

XLV

Who hath not loitered in a green church-yard,

And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,

Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,

To see skull, coffined bones, and funeral stole;

Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marred

And filling it once more with human soul?

Ah! this is holiday to what was felt

360

When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.

XLVI

She gazed into the fresh-thrown mould, as though

One glance did fully all its secrets tell;

Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know

Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;

Upon the murderous spot she seemed to grow,

Like to a native lily of the dell –

Then with her knife, all sudden, she began

To dig more fervently than misers can.

XLVII

Soon she turned up a soilèd glove, whereon

370

Her silk had played in purple phantasies,

She kissed it with a lip more chill than stone,

And put it in her bosom, where it dries

And freezes utterly unto the bone

Those dainties made to still an infant’s cries:

Then ’gan she work again, nor stayed her care,

But to throw back at times her veiling hair.

XLVIII

That old nurse stood beside her wondering,

Until her heart felt pity to the core

At sight of such a dismal labouring,

380

And so she kneelèd, with her locks all hoar,

And put her lean hands to the horrid thing.

Three hours they laboured at this travail sore –

At last they felt the kernel of the grave,

And Isabella did not stamp and rave.

XLIX

Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance?

Why linger at the yawning tomb so long?

O for the gentleness of old Romance,

The simple plaining of a minstrel’s song!

Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,

390

For here, in truth, it doth not well belong

To speak – O turn thee to the very tale,

And taste the music of that vision pale.

L

With duller steel than the Persèan sword

They cut away no formless monster’s head,

But one, whose gentleness did well accord

With death, as life. The ancient harps have said,

Love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord:

If Love impersonate was ever dead,

Pale Isabella kissed it, and low moaned.

400

’Twas Love – cold, dead indeed, but not dethroned.

LI

In anxious secrecy they took it home,

And then the prize was all for Isabel.

She calmed its wild hair with a golden comb,

And all around each eye’s sepulchral cell

Pointed each fringèd lash; the smearèd loam

With tears, as chilly as a dripping well,

She drenched away – and still she combed, and kept

Sighing all day – and still she kissed, and wept.

LII

Then in a silken scarf – sweet with the dews

410

Of precious flowers plucked in Araby,

And divine liquids come with odorous ooze

Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully –

She wrapped it up; and for its tomb did choose

A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,

And covered it with mould, and o’er it set

Sweet basil, which her tears kept ever wet.

LIII

And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun,

And she forgot the blue above the trees,

And she forgot the dells where waters run,

420

And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;

She had no knowledge when the day was done,

And the new morn she saw not, but in peace

Hung over her sweet basil evermore,

And moistened it with tears unto the core.

LIV

And so she ever fed it with thin tears,

Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,

So that it smelt more balmy than its peers

Of basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew

Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,

430

From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:

So that the jewel, safely casketed,

Came forth, and in perfumèd leafits spread.

LV

O Melancholy, linger here awhile!

O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!

O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle,

Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us – O sigh!

Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile.

Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily,

And make a pale light in your cypress glooms,

440

Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs.

LVI

Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe,

From the deep throat of sad Melpomene!

Through bronzèd lyre in tragic order go,

And touch the strings into a mystery;

Sound mournfully upon the winds and low;

For simple Isabel is soon to be

Among the dead. She withers, like a palm

Cut by an Indian for its juicy balm.

LVII

O leave the palm to wither by itself;

450

Let not quick Winter chill its dying hour! –

It may not be – those Baälites of pelf,

Her brethren, noted the continual shower

From her dead eyes; and many a curious elf,

Among her kindred, wondered that such dower

Of youth and beauty should be thrown aside

By one marked out to be a Noble’s bride.

LVIII

And, furthermore, her brethren wondered much

Why she sat drooping by the basil green,

And why it flourished, as by magic touch.

460

Greatly they wondered what the thing might mean:

They could not surely give belief, that such

A very nothing would have power to wean

Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay,

And even remembrance of her love’s delay.

LIX

Therefore they watched a time when they might sift

This hidden whim; and long they watched in vain:

For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,

And seldom felt she any hunger-pain;

And when she left, she hurried back, as swift

470

As bird on wing to breast its eggs again;

And, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there

Beside her basil, weeping through her hair.

LX

Yet they contrived to steal the basil-pot,

And to examine it in secret place.

The thing was vile with green and livid spot,

And yet they knew it was Lorenzo’s face:

The guerdon of their murder they had got,

And so left Florence in a moment’s space,

Never to turn again. Away they went,

480

With blood upon their heads, to banishment.

LXI

O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!

O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!

O Echo, Echo, on some other day,

From isles Lethean, sigh to us – O sigh!

Spirits of grief, sing not your ‘Well-a-way!’

For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die –

Will die a death too lone and incomplete,

Now they have ta’en away her basil sweet.

LXII

Piteous she looked on dead and senseless things,

490

Asking for her lost basil amorously;

And with melodious chuckle in the strings

Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry

After the pilgrim in his wanderings,

To ask him where her basil was, and why

’Twas hid from her: ‘For cruel ’tis,’ said she,

To steal my basil-pot away from me.’

LXIII

And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,

Imploring for her basil to the last.

No heart was there in Florence but did mourn

500

In pity of her love, so overcast.

And a sad ditty on this story born

From mouth to mouth through all the country passed:

Still is the burthen sung – ‘O cruelty,

To steal my basil-pot away from me!’

Standing aloof in giant ignorance,

Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,

As one who sits ashore and longs perchance

To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.

So wast thou blind! – but then the veil was rent,

For Jove uncurtained Heaven to let thee live,

And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent,

And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive;

Ay, on the shores of darkness there is light,

10

And precipices show untrodden green;

There is a budding morrow in midnight;

There is a triple sight in blindness keen;

Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befell

To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.

Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!

May I sing to thee

As thou wast hymnèd on the shores of Baiae?

Or may I woo thee

In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles

Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,

By bards who died content in pleasant sward,

Leaving great verse unto a little clan?

O, give me their old vigour, and unheard

10

Save of the quiet primrose, and the span

Of Heaven and few ears,

Rounded by thee, my song should die away

Content as theirs,

Rich in the simple worship of a day.

Give me your patience, sister, while I frame

Exact in capitals your golden name,

Or sue the fair Apollo, and he will

Rouse from his heavy slumber and instill

Great love in me for thee and Poesy.

Imagine not that greatest mastery

And kingdom over all the realms of verse

Nears more to Heaven in aught than when we nurse,

And surety give, to love and brotherhood.

10

Anthropophagi in Othello’s mood,

Ulysses stormed, and his enchanted belt

Glow with the Muse, but they are never felt

Unbosomed so and so eternal made,

Such tender incense in their laurel shade,

To all the regent sisters of the Nine,

As this poor offering to you, sister mine.

Kind sister! ay, this third name says you are.

Enchanted has it been the Lord knows where.

And may it taste to you like good old wine,

20

Take you to real happiness and give

Sons, daughters and a home like honeyed hive.

Sweet, sweet is the greeting of eyes,

And sweet is the voice in its greeting,

When adieus have grown old and goodbyes

Fade away where old Time is retreating.

Warm the nerve of a welcoming hand,

And earnest a kiss on the brow,

When we meet over sea and o’er land

Where furrows are new to the plough.

The town, the churchyard, and the setting sun,

The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem,

Though beautiful, cold – strange – as in a dream

I dreamèd long ago. Now new begun

The short-lived, paly summer is but won

From winter’s ague, for one hour’s gleam;

Through sapphire-warm, their stars do never beam –

All is cold Beauty; pain is never done

For who has mind to relish, Minos-wise,

10

The real of Beauty, free from that dead hue

Fickly imagination and sick pride

Cast wan upon it! Burns! with honour due

I have oft honoured thee. Great shadow, hide

Thy face! I sin against thy native skies.

Old Meg she was a gipsy,

And lived upon the moors,

Her bed it was the brown heath turf,

And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,

Her currants pods o’ broom,

Her wine was dew o’ the wild white rose,

Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her brothers were the craggy hills,

10

Her sisters larchen trees –

Alone with her great family

She lived as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,

No dinner many a noon,

And ’stead of supper she would stare

Full hard against the moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh

She made her garlanding,

And every night the dark glen yew

20

She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown

She plaited mats o’ rushes,

And gave them to the cottagers

She met among the bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen

And tall as Amazon,

An old red blanket cloak she wore,

A chip-hat had she on.

God rest her agèd bones somewhere –

30

She died full long agone!

I

There was a naughty boy,

A naughty boy was he,

He would not stop at home,

He could not quiet be –

He took

In his knapsack

A book

Full of vowels

And a shirt

10

With some towels –

A slight cap

For night-cap –

A hair brush,

Comb ditto,

New stockings,

For old ones

Would split O!

This knapsack

Tight at’s back

20

He rivetted close

And followed his nose

To the North,

To the North,

And followed his nose

To the North.

II

There was a naughty boy

And a naughty boy was he,

For nothing would he do

But scribble poetry –

30

He took

An inkstand

In his hand

And a pen

Big as ten

In the other

And away

In a pother

He ran

To the mountains

40

And fountains

And ghostès

And postès

And witches

And ditches,

And wrote

In his coat

When the weather

Was cool –

Fear of gout –

50

And without

When the weather

Was warm.

Och, the charm

When we choose

To follow one’s nose

To the North,

To the North,

To follow one’s nose

To the North!

III

60

There was a naughty boy

And a naughty bo was he

He kept little fishes

In washing tubs three

In spite

Of the might

Of the maid,

Nor afraid

Of his granny-good,

He often would

70

Hurly burly

Get up early

And go,

By hook or crook,

To the brook

And bring home

Miller’s thumb,

Tittlebat

Not over fat,

Minnows small

80

As the stall

Of a glove

Not above

The size

Of a nice

Little baby’s

Little finger –

O he made

(’Twas his trade)

Of fish a pretty kettle,

90

A kettle –

A kettle,

Of fish a pretty kettle,

A kettle!

IV

There was a naughty boy,

And a naughty boy was he,

He ran away to Scotland

The people for to see –

There he found

That the ground

100

Was as hard,

That a yard

Was as long,

That a song

Was as merry,

That a cherry

Was as red,

That lead

Was as weighty,

That fourscore

110

Was as eighty,

That a door

Was as wooden

As in England –

So he stood in his shoes

And he wondered,

He wondered,

He stood in his

Shoes and he wondered.

Ah! ken ye what I met the day

Out oure the mountains,

A-coming down by craggis grey

An mossie fountains?

Ah! goud-haired Marie yeve I pray

Ane minute’s guessing,

For that I met upon the way

Is past expressing.

As I stood where a rocky brig

10

A torrent crosses,

I spied upon a misty rig

A troup o’ horses –

And as they trotted down the glen

I sped to meet them

To see if I might know the men

To stop and greet them.

First Willie on his sleek mare came

At canting gallop –

His long hair rustled like a flame

20

On board a shallop.

Then came his brother Rab and then

Young Peggy’s mither

And Peggy too – adown the glen

They went togither.

I saw her wrappit in her hood

Fra wind and raining –

Her cheek was flush wi’ timid blood

Twixt growth and waning.

She turn’d her dazèd head full oft

30

For thence her brithers

Came riding with her bridegroom soft

An mony ithers.

Young Tam came up an’ eyed me quick

With reddened cheek.

Braw Tam was daffèd like a chick –

He could na speak.

Ah! Marie they are all gane hame

Through blustering weather,

An’ every heart is full on flame

40

An’ light as feather.

Ah! Marie they are all gone hame

Fra happy wedding,

Whilst I – Ah! is it not a shame? –

Sad tears am shedding.

Hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid!

Give answer by thy voice, the sea-fowls’ screams!

When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?

When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid?

How long is’t since the mighty power bid

Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams?

Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams,

Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid?

Thou answer’st not; for thou art dead asleep.

10

Thy life is but two dead eternities –

The last in air, the former in the deep,

First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies.

Drowned wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep,

Another cannot wake thy giant size!

This mortal body of a thousand days

Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room,

Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,

Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!

My pulse is warm with thine own barley-bree,

My head is light with pledging a great soul,

My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,

Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal:

Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,

10

Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find

The meadow thou hast trampèd o’er and o’er,

Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind,

Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name –

O smile among the shades, for this is fame!

All gentle folks who owe a grudge

To any living thing,

Open your ears and stay your trudge

Whilst I in dudgeon sing.

The gad-fly he hath stung me sore –

O may he ne’er sting you!

But we have many a horrid bore

He may sting black and blue.

Has any here an old grey mare

10

With three legs all her store?

O put it to her buttocks bare

And straight she’ll run on four.

Has any here a lawyer suit

Of 1743?

Take lawyer’s nose and put it to ’t

And you the end will see.

Is there a man in Parliament

Dumbfoundered in his speech?

O let his neighbour make a rent

20

And put one in his breech.

O Lowther, how much better thou

Hadst figured t’other day,

When to the folks thou mad’st a bow

And hadst no more to say,

If lucky gad-fly had but ta’en

His seat upon thine arse,

And put thee to a little pain

To save thee from a worse.

Better than Southey it had been,

30

Better than Mr D—,

Better than Wordsworth too, I ween,

Better than Mr V—.

Forgive me pray, good people all,

For deviating so.

In spirit sure I had a call –

And now I on will go.

Has any here a daughter fair

Too fond of reading novels,

Too apt to fall in love with care

40

And charming Mister Lovels?

0 put a gad-fly to that thing

She keeps so white and pert –

I mean the finger for the ring,

And it will breed a Wert.

Has any here a pious spouse

Who seven times a day

Scolds as King David prayed, to chouse

And have her holy way?

0 let a gad-fly’s little sting

50

Persuade her sacred tongue

That noises are a common thing,

But that her bell has rung.

And as this is the summum bo-

num of all conquering,

I leave withouten wordès mo

The gad-fly’s little sting.

Of late two dainties were before me placed,

Sweet, holy, pure, sacred and innocent,

From the ninth sphere benignly sent

That Gods might know my own particular taste.

First the soft bagpipe mourned with zealous haste,

The Stranger next, with head on bosom bent,

Sighed; rueful again the piteous bagpipe went,

Again the Stranger sighings fresh did waste.

O Bagpipe, thou didst steal my heart away –

10

O Stranger, thou my nerves from pipe didst charm –

O Bagpipe, thou didst re-assert thy sway –

Again, thou Stranger gav’st me fresh alarm!

Alas! I could not choose. Ah! my poor heart,

Mumchance art thou with both obliged to part.

There is a joy in footing slow across a silent plain,

Where patriot battle has been fought when glory had the gain;

There is a pleasure on the heath where Druids old have been,

Where mantles grey have rustled by and swept the nettles green;

There is a joy in every spot made known by times of old,

New to the feet, although the tale a hundred times be told;

There is a deeper joy than all, more solemn in the heart,

More parching to the tongue than all, of more divine a smart,

When weary steps forget themselves upon a pleasant turf,

10

Upon hot sand, or flinty road, or sea-shore iron scurf,

Toward the castle or the cot, where long ago was born

One who was great through mortal days, and died of fame unshorn.

Light heather-bells may tremble then, but they are far away;

Wood-lark may sing from sandy fern, the sun may hear his lay;

Runnels may kiss the grass on shelves and shallows clear,

But their low voices are not heard, though come on travels drear;

Blood-red the sun may set behind black mountain peaks;

Blue tides may sluice and drench their time in caves and weedy creeks;

Eagles may seem to sleep wing-wide upon the air;

20

Ring-doves may fly convulsed across to some high-cedared lair;

But the forgotten eye is still fast wedded to the ground,

As palmer’s that, with weariness, mid-desert shrine hath found.

At such a time the soul’s a child, in childhood is the brain;

Forgotten is the worldly heart – alone, it beats in vain.

Ay, if a madman could have leave to pass a healthful day

To tell his forehead’s swoon and faint when first began decay,

He might make tremble many a man whose spirit had gone forth

To find a bard’s low cradle-place about the silent North!

Scanty the hour and few the steps beyond the bourn of care,

30

Beyond the sweet and bitter world – beyond it unaware;

Scanty the hour and few the steps, because a longer stay

Would bar return, and make a man forget his mortal way.

O horrible! to lose the sight of well-remembered face,

Of brother’s eyes, of sister’s brow, constant to every place,

Filling the air, as on we move, with portraiture intense,

More warm than those heroic tints that fill a painter’s sense,

When shapes of old come striding by, and visages of old,

Locks shining black, hair scanty grey, and passions manifold.

No, no, that horror cannot be, for at the cable’s length

40

Man feels the gentle anchor pull and gladdens in its strength –

One hour, half-idiot, he stands by mossy waterfall,

But in the very next he reads his soul’s memorial.

He reads it on the mountain’s height, where chance he may sit down

Upon rough marble diadem, that hill’s eternal crown.

Yet be the anchor e’er so fast, room is there for a prayer.

That man may never lose his mind on mountains bleak and bare;

That he may stray league after league some great birth-place to find,

And keep his vision clear from speck, his inward sight unblind.

Not Aladdin magian

Ever such a work began;

Not the wizard of the Dee

Ever such a dream could see;

Not St John, in Patmos’ Isle,

In the passion of his toil,

When he saw the churches seven,

Golden aisled, built up in heaven,

Gazed at such a rugged wonder.

10

As I stood its roofing under,

Lo! I saw one sleeping there,

On the marble cold and bare

While the surges wash’d his feet,

And his garments white did beat

Drenched about the sombre rocks.

On his neck his well-grown locks,

Lifted dry above the main

Were upon the curl again.

‘What is this? and what art thou?’

20

Whispered I, and touched his brow.

‘What art thou? and what is this?’

Whispered I, and strove to kiss

The spirit’s hand, to wake his eyes.

Up he started in a trice:

‘I am Lycidas,’ said he,

‘Famed in funeral minstrelsy!

This was architected thus

By the great Oceanus! –

Here his mighty waters play

30

Hollow organs all the day;

Here by turns his dolphins all,

Finny palmers great and small,

Come to pay devotion due –

Each a mouth of pearls must strew.

Many a mortal of these days,

Dares to pass our sacred ways,

Dares to touch audaciously

This Cathedral of the Sea!

I have been the pontiff-priest

40

Where the waters never rest,

Where a fledgy sea-bird choir

Soars for ever; holy fire

I have hid from mortal man;

Proteus is my sacristan.

But the dulled eye of mortal

Hath passed beyond the rocky portal;

So for ever will I leave

Such a taint, and soon unweave

All the magic of the place.

50

’Tis now free to stupid face,

To cutters and to fashion boats,

To cravats and to petticoats.

The great sea shall war it down,

For its fame shall not be blown

At every farthing quadrille dance.’

So saying, with a Spirit’s glance

He dived…

Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud

Upon the top of Nevis, blind in mist!

I look into the chasms, and a shroud

Vapourous doth hide them; just so much I wist

Mankind do know of Hell. I look o’erhead,

And there is sullen mist; even so much

Mankind can tell of Heaven. Mist is spread

Before the earth, beneath me – even such,

Even so vague is man’s sight of himself.

10

Here are the craggy stones beneath my feet –

Thus much I know, that, a poor witless elf,

I tread on them, that all my eye doth meet

Is mist and crag, not only on this height,

But in the world of thought and mental might.

MRS C.

(Here the lady took some more whiskey and was putting even more to her lips when she dashed [it] to the ground for the mountain began to grumble – which continued for a few minutes, before he thus began,)

BEN NEVIS

MRS C.

BEN NEVIS.

O Muses weep the rest –

I

In silent barren Synod met,

Within those roofless walls where yet

The shafted arch and carvèd fret

Cling to the ruin,

The brethren’s skulls mourn, dewy wet,

Their creed’s undoing.

II

The mitred ones of Nice and Trent

Were not so tongue-tied – no, they went

Hot to their Councils, scarce content

10

With orthodoxy;

But ye, poor tongueless things, were meant

To speak by proxy.

III

Your chronicles no more exist,

Since Knox, the revolutionist,

Destroyed the work of every fist

That scrawled black letter.

Well! I’m a craniologist

And may do better.

IV

This skull-cap wore the cowl from sloth

20

Or discontent, perhaps from both,

And yet one day, against his oath,

He tried escaping,

For men, though idle, may be loth

To live on gaping.

V

A toper this! he plied his glass

More strictly than he said the Mass,

And loved to see a tempting lass

Come to confession,

Letting her absolution pass

30

O’er fresh transgression.

VI

This crawled through life in feebleness,

Boasting he never knew excess,

Cursing those crimes he scarce could guess,

Or feel but faintly,

With prayers that Heaven would come to bless

Men so unsaintly.

VII

Here’s a true Churchman! he’d affect

Much charity, and ne’er neglect

To pray for mercy on th’ elect,

40

But thought no evil

In sending heathen, Turk and sect

All to the Devil!

VIII

Poor skull, thy fingers set ablaze,

With silver Saint in golden rays,

The holy missal. Thou didst craze

‘Mid bead and spangle,

While others passed their idle days

In coil and wrangle.

IX

Long time this sconce a helmet wore,

50

But sickness smites the conscience sore;

He broke his sword, and hither bore

His gear and plunder,

Took to the cowl – then raved and swore

At his damned blunder!

Χ

This lily-coloured skull, with all

The teeth complete, so white and small,

Belonged to one whose early pall

A lover shaded;

He died ere superstition’s gall

60

His heart invaded.

XI

Ha! here is ‘undivulgèd crime!’

Despair forbade his soul to climb

Beyond this world, this mortal time

Of fevered sadness,

Until their monkish pantomime

Dazzled his madness!

XII

A younger brother this! A man

Aspiring as a Tartar Khan,

But, curbed and baffled, he began

70

The trade of frightening.

It smacked of power! – and here he ran

To deal Heaven’s lightning.

XIII

This idiot-skull belonged to one,

A buried miser’s only son,

Who, penitent, ere he’d begun

To taste of pleasure,

And hoping Heaven’s dread wrath to shun,

Gave Hell his treasure.

XIV

Here is the forehead of an ape,

80

A robber’s mark – and near the nape

That bone, fie on’t, bears just the shape

Of carnal passion;

Ah! he was one for theft and rape,

In monkish fashion!

XV

This was the Porter! – he could sing,

Or dance, or play, do anything,

And what the friars bade him bring,

They ne’er were balked of

(Matters not worth remembering

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And seldom talked of).

XVI

Enough! why need I further pore?

This corner holds at least a score,

And yonder twice as many more

Of Reverend Brothers;

’Tis the same story o’er and o’er –

They’re like the others!

Nature withheld Cassandra in the skies,

For more adornment, a full thousand years;

She took their cream of Beauty, fairest dyes,

And shaped and tinted her above all peers:

Meanwhile Love kept her dearly with his wings,

And underneath their shadow filled her eyes

With such a richness that the cloudy Kings

Of high Olympus uttered slavish sighs.

When from the Heavens I saw her first descend,

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My heart took fire, and only burning pains…

They were my pleasures – they my Life’s sad end;

Love poured her beauty into my warm veins….

’Tis ‘the witching time of night’,

Orbed is the moon and bright,

And the stars they glisten, glisten,

Seeming with bright eyes to listen –

For what listen they?

For a song and for a charm,

See they glisten in alarm,

And the moon is waxing warm

To hear what I shall say.

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Moon! keep wide thy golden ears –

Hearken, stars! and hearken, spheres!

Hearken, thou eternal sky!

I sing an infant’s lullaby,

A pretty lullaby.

Listen, listen, listen, listen,

Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,

And hear my lullaby!

Though the rushes that will make

Its cradle still are in the lake;

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Though the linen then that will be

Its swathe, is on the cotton tree;

Though the woollen that will keep

It warm is on the silly sheep –

Listen, stars’ light, listen, listen,

Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,

And hear my lullaby!

Child, I see thee! Child, I’ve found thee

Midst of the quiet all around thee!

Child, I see thee! Child, I spy thee!

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And thy mother sweet is nigh thee!

Child, I know thee! Child no more,

But a Poet evermore!

See, see, the lyre, the lyre,

In a flame of fire,

Upon the little cradle’s top

Flaring, flaring, flaring,

Past the eyesight’s bearing.

Awake it from its sleep,

And see if it can keep

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Its eyes upon the blaze –

Amaze, amaze!

It stares, it stares, it stares,

It dares what no one dares!

It lifts its little hand into the flame

Unharmed, and on the strings

Paddles a little tune, and sings,

With dumb endeavour sweetly –

Bard art thou completely!

Little child

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O’ th’ western wild,

Bard art thou completely!

Sweetly with dumb endeavour,

A Poet now or never,

Little child

O’ the western wild,

A Poet now or never!

Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,

Lethe’s weed and Hermes’ feather;

Come today, and come tomorrow,

I do love you both together!

I love to mark sad faces in fair weather,

And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder.

Fair and foul I love together:

Meadows sweet where flames burn under,

And a giggle at a wonder;

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Visage sage at pantomime;

Funeral, and steeple-chime;

Infant playing with a skull;

Morning fair, and stormwrecked hull;

Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;

Serpents in red roses hissing;

Cleopatra regal-dressed

With the aspics at her breast

Dancing music, music sad,

Both together, sane and mad;

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Muses bright and Muses pale;

Sombre Saturn, Momus hale.

Laugh and sigh, and laugh again –

O the sweetness of the pain!

Muses bright, and Muses pale,

Bare your faces of the veil!

Let me see! and let me write

Of the day and of the night –

Both together. Let me slake

All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!

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Let my bower be of yew,

Interwreathed with myrtles new,

Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,

And my couch a low grass tomb.

I

Spirit here that reignest!

Spirit here that painest!

Spirit here that burnest!

Spirit here that mournest!

Spirit! I bow

My forehead low,

Enshaded with thy pinions!

Spirit! I look

All passion-struck

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Into thy pale dominions!

II

Spirit here that laughest!

Spirit there that quaffest!

Spirit here that dancest!

Noble soul that prancest!

Spirit! with thee

I join in the glee,

A-nudging the elbow of Momus!

Spirit! I flush

With a Bacchanal blush

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Just fresh from the banquet of Comus.

Where’s the Poet? Show him! show him,

Muses nine, that I may know him!

’Tis the man who with a man

Is an equal, be he king,

Or poorest of the beggar-clan,

Or any other wondrous thing

A man may be ’twixt ape and Plato.

’Tis the man who with a bird,

Wren or eagle, finds his way to

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All its instincts. He hath heard

The lion’s roaring, and can tell

What his horny throat expresseth,

And to him the tiger’s yell

Comes articulate and presseth

On his ear like mother-tongue…

CASTLE BUILDER

BERNARDINE

CASTLE BUILDER

And what is love? It is a doll dressed up

For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;

A thing of soft misnomers, so divine

That silly youth doth think to make itself

Divine by loving, and so goes on

Yawning and doting a whole summer long,

Till Miss’s comb is made a pearl tiara,

And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;

Till Cleopatra lives at Number Seven,

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And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.

Fools! if some passions high have warmed the world,

If queens and soldiers have played deep for hearts,

It is no reason why such agonies

Should be more common than the growth of weeds.

Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl

The queen of Egypt melted, and I’ll say

That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

BOOK I

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,

Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star,

Sat grey-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone,

Still as the silence round about his lair;

Forest on forest hung above his head

Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,

Not so much life as on a summer’s day

Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass,

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But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.

A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more

By reason of his fallen divinity

Spreading a shade: the Naiad ’mid her reeds

Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went,

No further than to where his feet had strayed,

And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,

Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;

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While his bowed head seemed listening to the Earth,

His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

It seemed no force could wake him from his place;

But there came one, who with a kindred hand

Touched his wide shoulders, after bending low

With reverence, though to one who knew it not.

She was a Goddess of the infant world;

By her in stature the tall Amazon

Had stood a pigmy’s height: she would have ta’en

Achilles by the hair and bent his neck;

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Or with a finger stayed Ixion’s wheel.

Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,

Pedestalled haply in a palace court,

When sages looked to Egypt for their lore.

But O! how unlike marble was that face,

How beautiful, if sorrow had not made

Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty’s self.

There was a listening fear in her regard,

As if calamity had but begun;

As if the vanward clouds of evil days

40

Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear

Was with its storèd thunder labouring up.

One hand she pressed upon that aching spot

Where beats the human heart, as if just there,

Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain;

The other upon Saturn’s bended neck

She laid, and to the level of his ear

Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake

In solemn tenor and deep organ tone –

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue

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Would come in these like accents (O how frail

To that large utterance of the early Gods!):

‘Saturn, look up! – though wherefore, poor old King?

I have no comfort for thee, no, not one:

I cannot say, “O wherefore sleepest thou?”

For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth

Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a God;

And ocean too, with all its solemn noise,

Has from thy sceptre passed; and all the air

Is emptied of thine hoary majesty.

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Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,

Rumbles reluctant o’er our fallen house;

And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands

Scorches and burns our once serene domain.

O aching time! O moments big as years!

All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth,

And press it so upon our weary griefs

That unbelief has not a space to breathe.

Saturn, sleep on – O thoughtless, why did I

Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?

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Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?

Saturn, sleep on, while at thy feet I weep!’

As when, upon a trancèd summer-night,

Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,

Tall oaks, branch-charmèd by the earnest stars,

Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,

Save from one gradual solitary gust

Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,

As if the ebbing air had but one wave;

So came these words and went; the while in tears

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She touched her fair large forehead to the ground,

Just where her falling hair might be outspread

A soft and silken mat for Saturn’s feet.

One moon, with alteration slow, had shed

Her silver seasons four upon the night,

And still these two were postured motionless,

Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern;

The frozen God still couchant on the earth,

And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet:

Until at length old Saturn lifted up

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His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone,

And all the gloom and sorrow of the place,

And that fair kneeling Goddess; and then spake,

As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard

hook horrid with such aspen-maady:

‘O tender spouse of gold Hyperion,

Thea, I feel thee ere I see thy face;

Look up, and let me see our doom in it;

Look up, and tell me if this feeble shape

Is Saturn’s; tell me, if thou hear’st the voice

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Of Saturn; tell me, if this wrinkling brow,

Naked and bare of its great diadem,

Peers like the front of Saturn. Who had power

To make me desolate? whence came the strength?

How was it nurtured to such bursting forth,

While Fate seemed strangled in my nervous grasp?

But it is so; and I am smothered up,

And buried from all godlike exercise

Of influence benign on planets pale,

Of admonitions to the winds and seas,

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Of peaceful sway above man’s harvesting,

And all those acts which Deity supreme

Doth ease its heart of love in. – I am gone

Away from my own bosom; I have left

My strong identity, my real self,

Somewhere between the throne and where I sit

Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search!

Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round

Upon all space – space starred, and lorn of light;

Space regioned with life-air; and barren void;

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Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.

Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou seest

A certain shape or shadow, making way

With wings or chariot fierce to repossess

A heaven he lost erewhile: it must – it must

Be of ripe progress: Saturn must be King.

Yes, there must be a golden victory;

There must be Gods thrown down, and trumpets blown

Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival

Upon the gold clouds metropolitan,

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Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir

Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be

Beautiful things made new, for the surprise

Of the sky-children. I will give command:

Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?’

This passion lifted him upon his feet,

And made his hands to struggle in the air,

His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat,

His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease.

He stood, and heard not Thea’s sobbing deep;

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A little time, and then again he snatched

Utterance thus: ‘But cannot I create?

Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth

Another world, another universe,

To overbear and crumble this to naught?

Where is another Chaos? Where?’ – That word

Found way unto Olympus, and made quake

The rebel three. Thea was startled up,

And in her bearing was a sort of hope,

As thus she quick-voiced spake, yet full of awe.

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‘This cheers our fallen house: come to our friends,

O Saturn! come away, and give them heart.

I know the covert, for thence came I hither.’

Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went

With backward footing through the shade a space:

He followed, and she turned to lead the way

Through agèd boughs, that yielded like the mist

Which eagles cleave up-mounting from their nest.

Meanwhile in other realms big tears were shed,

More sorrow like to this, and such like woe,

160

Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe.

The Titans fierce, self-hid, or prison-bound,

Groaned for the old allegiance once more,

And listened in sharp pain for Saturn’s voice.

But one of the whole mammoth-brood still kept

His sovereignty, and rule, and majesty –

Blazing Hyperion on his orbèd fire

Still sat, still snuffed the incense, teeming up

From man to the sun’s God – yet unsecure:

For as among us mortals omens drear

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Fright and perplex, so also shuddered he –

Not at dog’s howl, or gloom-bird’s hated screech,

Or the familiar visiting of one

Upon the first toll of his passing-bell,

Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;

But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,

Oft made Hyperion ache. His palace bright

Bastioned with pyramids of glowing gold,

And touched with shade of bronzèd obelisks,

Glared a blood-red through all its thousand courts,

180

Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;

And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds

Flushed angerly, while sometimes eagle’s wings,

Unseen before by Gods or wondering men,

Darkened the place, and neighing steeds were heard,

Not heard before by Gods or wondering men.

Also, when he would taste the spicy wreaths

Of incense, breathed aloft from sacred hills,

Instead of sweets, his ample palate took

Savour of poisonous brass and metal sick:

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And so, when harboured in the sleepy west,

After the full completion of fair day,

For rest divine upon exalted couch

And slumber in the arms of melody,

He paced away the pleasant hours of ease

With stride colossal, on from hall to hall;

While far within each aisle and deep recess,

His wingèd minions in close clusters stood,

Amazed and full of fear; like anxious men

Who on wide plains gather in panting troops,

200

When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.

Even now, while Saturn, roused from icy trance,

Went step for step with Thea through the woods,

Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,

Came slope upon the threshold of the west;

Then, as was wont, his palace-door flew ope

In smoothest silence, save what solemn tubes,

Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of sweet

And wandering sounds, slow-breathèd melodies –

And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape,

210

In fragrance soft, and coolness to the eye,

That inlet to severe magnificence

Stood full blown, for the God to enter in.

He entered, but he entered full of wrath;

His flaming robes streamed out beyond his heels,

And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,

That scared away the meek ethereal Hours

And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared,

From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,

Through bowers of fragrant and enwreathèd light,

220

And diamond-pavèd lustrous long arcades,

Until he reached the great main cupola.

There standing fierce beneath, he stamped his foot,

And from the basement deep to the high towers

Jarred his own golden region; and before

The quavering thunder thereupon had ceased,

His voice leapt out, despite of god-like curb,

To this result: ‘O dreams of day and night!

O monstrous forms! O effigies of pain!

O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom!

230

O lank-eared Phantoms of black-weeded pools!

Why do I know ye? Why have I seen ye? Why

Is my eternal essence thus distraught

To see and to behold these horrors new?

Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?

Am I to leave this haven of my rest,

This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,

This calm luxuriance of blissful light,

These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,

Of all my lucent empire? It is left

240

Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.

The blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry,

I cannot see – but darkness, death and darkness.

Even here, into my centre of repose,

The shady visions come to domineer,

Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp. –

Fall! – No, by Tellus and her briny robes!

Over the fiery frontier of my realms

I will advance a terrible right arm

Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,

250

And bid old Saturn take his throne again.’ –

He spake, and ceased, the while a heavier threat

Held struggle with his throat but came not forth;

For as in theatres of crowded men

Hubbub increases more they call out ‘Hush!’,

So at Hyperion’s words the Phantoms pale

Bestirred themselves, thrice horrible and cold;

And from the mirrored level where he stood

A mist arose, as from a scummy marsh.

At this, through all his bulk an agony

260

Crept gradual, from the feet unto the crown,

Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular

Making slow way, with head and neck convulsed

From over-strainèd might. Released, he fled

To the eastern gates, and full six dewy hours

Before the dawn in season due should blush,

He breathed fierce breath against the sleepy portals,

Cleared them of heavy vapours, burst them wide

Suddenly on the ocean’s chilly streams.

The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode

270

Each day from east to west the heavens through,

Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds;

Not therefore veilèd quite, blindfold, and hid,

But ever and anon the glancing spheres,

Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure,

Glowed through, and wrought upon the muffling dark

Sweet-shapèd lightnings from the nadir deep

Up to the zenith – hieroglyphics old

Which sages and keen-eyed astrologers

Then living on the earth, with labouring thought

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Won from the gaze of many centuries –

Now lost, save what we find on remnants huge

Of stone, or marble swart, their import gone,

Their wisdom long since fled.