Poems Read Online

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III

First our pleasures die – and then

Our hopes, and then our fears – and when

These are dead, the debt is due,

Dust claims dust – and we die too.

IV

All things that we love and cherish,

Like ourselves must fade and perish;

Such is our rude mortal lot –

Love itself would, did they not.

Liberty

I

The fiery mountains answer each other;

Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;

The tempestuous oceans awake one another,

And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter's throne,

When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown.

II

From a single cloud the lightening flashes,

Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around,

Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,

An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound

Is bellowing underground.

III

But keener thy gaze than the lightening's glare,

And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp;

Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare

Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp

To thine is a fen-fire damp.

IV

From billow and mountain and exhalation

The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;

From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,

From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast, –

And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night

In the van of the morning light.

Summer and Winter

It was a bright and cheerful afternoon,

Towards the end of the sunny month of June,

When the north wind congregates in crowds

The floating mountains of the silver clouds

From the horizon – and the stainless sky

Opens beyond them like eternity.

All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds,

The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds;

The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,

And the firm foliage of the larger trees.

It was a winter such as when birds die

In the deep forests; and the fishes lie

Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes

Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes

A wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when,

Among their children, comfortable men

Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold:

Alas, then, for the homeless beggar old!

The Tower of Famine

Amid the desolation of a city,

Which was the cradle, and is now the grave

Of an extinguished people, – so that Pity

Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of Oblivion's wave,

There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built

Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave

For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt,

Agitates the light flame of their hours,

Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.

There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers

And sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof,

The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers

Of solitary wealth, – the tempest-proof

Pavilions of the dark Italian air, –

Are by its presence dimmed – they stand aloof,

And are withdrawn – so that the world is bare;

As if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terror

Amid a company of ladies fair

Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror

Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue,

The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error,

Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew.

An Allegory

I

A portal as of shadowy adamant

Stands yawning on the highway of the life

Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;

Around it rages an unceasing strife

Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt

The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high

Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.

II

And many pass it by with careless tread,

Not knowing that a shadowy ...

Tracks every traveller even to where the dead

Wait peacefully for their companion new;

But others, by more curious humour led,

Pause to examine; – these are very few,

And they learn little there, except to know

That shadows follow them where'er they go.

The World's Wanderers

I

Tell me, thou Star, whose wings of light

Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now?

II

Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray

Pilgrim of Heaven's homeless way,

In what depth of night or day

Seekest thou repose now?

III

Weary Wind, who wanderest

Like the world's rejected guest,

Hast thou still some secret nest

On the tree or billow?

Sonnet

Ye hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,

Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes

Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?

O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess

All that pale Expectation feigneth fair!

Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess

Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go,

And all that never yet was known would know –

Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press,

With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path,

Seeking, alike from happiness and woe,

A refuge in the cavern of gray death?

O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you

Hope to inherit in the grave below?

Lines to a Reviewer

Alas, good friend, what profit can you see

In hating such a hateless thing as me?

There is no sport in hate where all the rage

Is on one side: in vain would you assuage

Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,

In which not even contempt lurks to beguile

Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.

Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!

For to your passion I am far more coy

Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy

In winter noon. Of your antipathy

If I am the Narcissus, you are free

To pine into a sound with hating me.

Fragment of a Satire on Satire

If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,

And racks of subtle torture, if the pains

Of shame, of fiery Hell's tempestuous wave,

Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,

Hurling the damned into the murky air

While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair

And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror

Hunts through the world the homeless steps of Error,

Are the true secrets of the commonweal

To make men wise and just; ...

And not the sophisms of revenge and fear,

Bloodier than is revenge ...

Then send the priests to every hearth and home

To preach the burning wrath which is to come,

In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw

The frozen tears ...

If Satire's scourge could wake the slumbering hounds

Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds,

The leprous scars of callous Infamy;

If it could make the present not to be,

Or charm the dark past never to have been,

Or turn regret to hope; who that has seen

What Southey is and was, would not exclaim,

»Lash on!« be the keen verse dipped in flame;

Follow his flight with winged words, and urge

The strokes of the inexorable scourge

Until the heart be naked, till his soul

See the contagion's spots foul;

And from the mirror of Truth's sunlike shield,

From which his Parthian arrow ...

Flash on his sight the spectres of the past,

Until his mind's eye paint thereon –

Let scorn like yawn below,

And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.

This cannot be, it ought not, evil still –

Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill.

Rough words beget sad thoughts, and, beside,

Men take a sullen and a stupid pride

In being all they hate in others' shame,

By a perverse antipathy of fame.

'Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how

From the sweet fountains of our Nature flow

These bitter-waters; I will only say,

If any friend would take Southey some day,

And tell him, in a country walk alone,

Softening harsh words with friendship's gentle tone,

How incorrect his public conduct is,

And what men think of it, 'twere not amiss.

Far better than to make innocent ink –

Good-Night

I

Good-Night? ah! no; the hour is ill

Which severs those it should unite;

Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.

II

How can I call the lone night good,

Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?

Be it not said, thought, understood –

Then it will be – good night.

III

To hearts which near each other move

From evening close to morning light,

The night is good; because, my love,

They never say good-night.

Buona Notte

I

»Buona notte, buona notte!« – Come mai

La notte sarà buona senza te?

Non dirmi buona notte, – che tu sai,

La notte sà star buona da per se.

II

Solinga, scura, cupa, senza speme,

La notte quando Lilla m'abbandona;

Pei cuori chi si batton insieme

Ogni notte, senza dirla, sarà buona.

III

Come male buona notte si suona

Con sospiri e parole interrotte! –

Il modo di aver la notte buona

E mai non di dir la buona notte.

Orpheus

A. Not far from hence. From yonder pointed hill,

Crowned with a ring of oaks, you may behold

A dark and barren field, through which there flows,

Sluggish and black, a deep but narrow stream,

Which the wind ripples not, and the fair moon

Gazes in vain, and finds no mirror there.

Follow the herbless banks of that strange brook

Until you pause beside a darksome pond,

The fountain of this rivulet, whose gush

Cannot be seen, hid by a rayless night

That lives beneath the overhanging rock

That shades the pool – an endless spring of gloom,

Upon whose edge hovers the tender light,

Trembling to mingle with its paramour, –

But, as Syrinx fled Pan, so night flies day,

Or, with most sullen and regardless hate,

Refuses stern her heaven-born embrace.

On one side of this jagged and shapeless hill

There is a cave, from which there eddies up

A pale mist, like aëreal gossamer,

Whose breath destroys all life – awhile it veils

The rock – then, scattered by the wind, it flies

Along the stream, or lingers on the clefts,

Killing the sleepy worms, if aught bide there.

Upon the beetling edge of that dark rock

There stands a group of cypresses; not such

As, with a graceful spire and stirring life,

Pierce the pure heaven of your native vale,

Whose branches the air plays among, but not

Disturbs, fearing to spoil their solemn grace;

But blasted and all wearily they stand,

One to another clinging; their weak boughs

Sigh as the wind buffets them, and they shake

Beneath its blasts – a weatherbeaten crew!

Chorus. What wondrous sound is that, mournful and faint,

But more melodious than the murmuring wind

Which through the columns of a temple glides?

A. It is the wandering voice of Orpheus' lyre,

Borne by the winds, who sigh that their rude king

Hurries them fast from these air-feeding notes;

But in their speed they bear along with them

The waning sound, scattering it like dew

Upon the startled sense.

Chorus. Does he still sing?

Methought he rashly cast away his harp

When he had lost Eurydice.

A. Ah, no!

Awhile he paused. As a poor hunted stag

A moment shudders on the fearful brink

Of a swift stream – the cruel hounds press on

With deafening yell, the arrows glance and wound, –

He plunges in: so Orpheus, seized and torn

By the sharp fangs of an insatiate grief,

Maenad-like waved his lyre in the bright air,

And wildly shrieked »Where she is, it is dark!«

And then he struck from forth the strings a sound

Of deep and fearful melody. Alas!

In times long past, when fair Eurydice

With her bright eyes sat listening by his side,

He gently sang of high and heavenly themes.

As in a brook, fretted with little waves

By the light airs of spring – each riplet makes

A many-sided mirror for the sun,

While it flows musically through green banks,

Ceaseless and pauseless, ever clear and fresh,

So flowed his song, reflecting the deep joy

And tender love that fed those sweetest notes,

The heavenly offspring of ambrosial food.

But that is past. Returning from drear Hell,

He chose a lonely seat of unhewn stone,

Blackened with lichens, on a herbless plain.

Then from the deep and overflowing spring

Of his eternal ever-moving grief

There rose to Heaven a sound of angry song.

'Tis as a mighty cataract that parts

Two sister rocks with waters swift and strong,

And casts itself with horrid roar and din

Adown a steep; from a perennial source

It ever flows and falls, and breaks the air

With loud and fierce, but most harmonious roar,

And as it falls casts up a vaporous spray

Which the sun clothes in hues of Iris light.

Thus the tempestuous torrent of his grief

Is clothed in sweetest sounds and varying words

Of poesy. Unlike all human works,

It never slackens, and through every change

Wisdom and beauty and the power divine

Of mighty poesy together dwell,

Mingling in sweet accord. As I have seen

A fierce south blast tear through the darkened sky,

Driving along a rack of winged clouds,

Which may not pause, but ever hurry on,

As their wild shepherd wills them, while the stars,

Twinkling and dim, peep from between the plumes.

Anon the sky is cleared, and the high dome

Of serene Heaven, starred with fiery flowers,

Shuts in the shaken earth; or the still moon

Swiftly, yet gracefully, begins her walk,

Rising all bright behind the eastern hills.

I talk of moon, and wind, and stars, and not

Of song; but, would I echo his high song,

Nature must lend me words ne'er used before,

Or I must borrow from her perfect works,

To picture forth his perfect attributes.

He does no longer sit upon his throne

Of rock upon a desert herbless plain,

For the evergreen and knotted ilexes,

And cypresses that seldom wave their boughs,

And sea-green olives with their grateful fruit,

And elms dragging along the twisted vines,

Which drop their berries as they follow fast,

And blackthorn bushes with their infant race

Of blushing rose-blooms; beeches, to lovers dear,

And weeping willow trees; all swift or slow,

As their huge boughs or lighter dress permit,

Have circled in his throne, and Earth herself

Has sent from her maternal breast a growth

Of starlike flowers and herbs of odour sweet,

To pave the temple that his poesy

Has framed, while near his feet grim lions couch,

And kids, fearless from love, creep near his lair.

Even the blind worms seem to feel the sound.

The birds are silent, hanging down their heads,

Perched on the lowest branches of the trees;

Not even the nightingale intrudes a note

In rivalry, but all entranced she listens.

Fiordispina

The season was the childhood of sweet June,

Whose sunny hours from morning until noon

Went creeping through the day with silent feet,

Each with its load of pleasure; slow yet sweet;

Like the long years of blest Eternity

Never to be developed. Joy to thee,

Fiordispina and thy Cosimo,

For thou the wonders of the depth canst know

Of this unfathomable flood of hours,

Sparkling beneath the heaven which embowers –

They were two cousins, almost like to twins,

Except that from the catalogue of sins

Nature had rased their love – which could not be

But by dissevering their nativity.

And so they grew together like two flowers

Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers

Lull or awaken in their purple prime,

Which the same hand will gather – the same clime

Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see

All those who love – and who e'er loved like thee,

Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,

Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow

The ardours of a vision which obscure

The very idol of its portraiture.

He faints, dissolved into a sea of love;

But thou art as a planet sphered above;

But thou art Love itself – ruling the motion

Of his subjected spirit: such emotion

Must end in sin and sorrow, if sweet May

Had not brought forth this morn – your wedding-day.

. . . . . .

»Lie there; sleep awhile in your own dew,

Ye faint-eyed children of the Hours,«

Fiordispina said, and threw the flowers

Which she had from the breathing –

. . . . . .

A table near of polished porphyry.

They seemed to wear a beauty from the eye

That looked on them – a fragrance from the touch

Whose warmth checked their life; a light such

As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they love, which did reprove

The childish pity that she felt for them,

And a remorse that from their stem

She had divided such fair shapes made

A feeling in the which was a shade

Of gentle beauty on the flowers: there lay

All gems that make the earth's dark bosom gay.

rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms,

And that leaf tinted lightly which assumes

The livery of unremembered snow –

Violets whose eyes have drunk –

. . .