Sibylline Leaves Read Online

Sisters! I from Ireland came!

Hedge and corn-fields all on flame,

I triumphed o'er the setting sun!

And all the while the work was done,

On as I strode with my huge strides,

I flung back my head and I held my sides,

It was so rare a piece of fun

To see the sweltered cattle run

With uncouth gallop through the night,

Scared by the red and noisy light!

By the light of his own blazing cot

Was many a naked rebel shot:

The house-stream met the flame and hissed,

While crash! fell in the roof, I wist,

On some of those old bed-rid nurses,

That deal in discontent and curses.

Both. Who bade you do't?

Fire. The same! the same!

Letters four do form his name.

He let me loose, and cried Halloo!

To him alone the praise is due.

All. He let us loose, and cried Halloo!

How shall we yield him honour due?

Fam. Wisdom comes with lack of food.

I'll gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude,

Till the cup of rage o'erbrim:

They shall seize him and his brood –

Slau. They shall tear him limb from limb!

Fire. O thankless beldames and untrue!

And is this all that you can do

For him, who did so much for you?

Ninety months he, by my troth!

Hath richly catered for you both;

And in an hour would you repay

An eight years' work? – Away! away!

I alone am faithful! I

Cling to him everlastingly.

1796

II. Love Poems

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in ævo,

Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta

Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.

Omnia paulatim consumit longior ætas,

Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.

Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor:

Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,

Voxque aliud sonat –

Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes,

Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus

Mens horret, relegensque alium putat ista locutum.

Petrarch.

Love

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I

Live o'er again that happy hour,

When midway on the mount I lay,

Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene

Had blended with the lights of eve;

And she was there, my hope, my joy,

My own dear Genevieve!

She lean'd against the armed man,

The statue of the armed knight;

She stood and listened to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,

My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!

She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story –

An old rude song, that suited well

That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace;

For well she knew, I could not choose

But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore

Upon his shield a burning brand;

And that for ten long years he wooed

The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!

The deep, the low, the pleading tone

With which I sang another's love,

Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes, and modest grace;

And she forgave me, that I gazed

Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,

And that he crossed the mountain-woods,

Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade,

And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade, –

There came and looked him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright;

And that he knew it was a Fiend,

This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,

He leaped amid a murderous band,

And saved from outrage worse than death

The Lady of the Land; –

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;

And how she tended him in vain –

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain; –

And that she nursed him in a cave;

And how his madness went away,

When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay; –

His dying words – but when I reached

That tenderest strain of all the ditty,

My faltering voice and pausing harp

Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;

The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,

An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love, and virgin shame;

And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved – she stepped aside,

As conscious of my look she stept –

Then suddenly, with timorous eye

She fled to me and wept.

She half inclosed me with her arms,

She pressed me with a meek embrace;

And bending back her head, looked up,

And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,

And partly 'twas a bashful art,

That I might rather feel, than see,

The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,

And told her love with virgin pride;

And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

[1799]

The Ballad of the Dark Ladie

A Fragment

Beneath yon birch with silver bark,

And boughs so pendulous and fair,

The brook falls scatter'd down the rock:

And all is mossy there!

And there upon the moss she sits,

The Dark Ladie in silent pain;

The heavy tear is in her eye,

And drops and swells again.

Three times she sends her little page

Up the castled mountain's breast,

If he might find the Knight that wears

The Griffin for his crest.

The sun was sloping down the sky,

And she had lingered there all day,

Counting moments, dreaming fears –

O wherefore can he stay?

She hears a rustling o'er the brook,

She sees far off a swinging bough!

»'Tis He! 'Tis my betrothed Knight!

Lord Falkland, it is Thou!«

She springs, she clasps him round the neck,

She sobs a thousand hopes and fears,

Her kisses glowing on his cheeks

She quenches with her tears.

* * * * *

»My friends with rude ungentle words

They scoff and bid me fly to thee!

O give me shelter in thy breast!

O shield and shelter me!

My Henry, I have given thee much,

I gave what I can ne'er recall,

I gave my heart, I gave my peace,

O Heaven! I gave thee all.«

The Knight made answer to the Maid,

While to his heart he held her hand,

»Nine castles hath my noble sire,

None statelier in the land.

The fairest one shall be my love's,

The fairest castle of the nine!

Wait only till the stars peep out,

The fairest shall be thine:

Wait only till the hand of eve

Hath wholly closed yon western bars,

And through the dark we two will steal

Beneath the twinkling stars!« –

»The dark? the dark? No! not the dark?

The twinkling stars? How, Henry? How?

O God! 'twas in the eye of noon

He pledged his sacred vow!

And in the eye of noon, my love,

Shall lead me from my mother's door,

Sweet boys and girls all clothed in white

Strewing flow'rs before:

But first the nodding minstrels go

With music meet for lordly bow'rs,

The children next in snow-white vests,

Strewing buds and flow'rs!

And then my love and I shall pace,

My jet black hair in pearly braids,

Between our comely bachelors

And blushing bridal maids.«

* * * * *

[1798]

Lewti,

Or the Circassian Love-Chaunt

At midnight by the stream I roved,

To forget the form I loved.

Image of Lewti! from my mind

Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

The Moon was high, the moonlight gleam

And the shadow of a star

Heaved upon Tamaha's stream;

But the rock shone brighter far,

The rock half sheltered from my view

By pendent boughs of tressy yew –

So shines my Lewti's forehead fair,

Gleaming through her sable hair.

Image of Lewti! from my mind

Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

I saw a cloud of palest hue,

Onward to the moon it passed;

Still brighter and more bright it grew,

With floating colours not a few,

Till it reached the moon at last:

Then the cloud was wholly bright,

With a rich and amber light!

And so with many a hope I seek,

And with such joy I find my Lewti;

And even so my pale wan cheek

Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty!

Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind,

If Lewti never will be kind.

The little cloud – it floats away,

Away it goes; away so soon?

Alas! it has no power to stay:

Its hues are dim, its hues are grey –

Away it passes from the moon!

How mournfully it seems to fly,

Ever fading more and more,

To joyless regions of the sky –

And now 'tis whiter than before!

As white as my poor cheek will be,

When, Lewti! on my couch I lie,

A dying man for love of thee.

Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind –

And yet, thou did'st not look unkind.

I saw a vapour in the sky,

Thin, and white, and very high;

I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud:

Perhaps the breezes that can fly

Now below and now above,

Have snatched aloft the lawny shroud

Of Lady fair – that died for love.

For maids, as well as youths, have perished

From fruitless love too fondly cherished.

Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind –

For Lewti never will be kind.

Hush! my heedless feet from under

Slip the crumbling banks for ever:

Like echoes to a distant thunder,

They plunge into the gentle river.

The river-swans have heard my tread,

And startle from their reedy bed.

O beauteous birds! methinks ye measure

Your movements to some heavenly tune!

O beauteous birds! 'tis such a pleasure

To see you move beneath the moon,

I would it were your true delight

To sleep by day and wake all night.

I know the place where Lewti lies,

When silent night has closed her eyes:

It is a breezy jasmine-bower,

The nightingale sings o'er her head:

Voice of the night! had I the power

That leafy labyrinth to thread,

And creep, like thee, with soundless tread,

I then might view her bosom white

Heaving lovely to my sight,

As these two swans together heave

On the gently swelling wave.

Oh! that she saw me in a dream,

And dreamt that I had died for care;

All pale and wasted I would seem,

Yet fair withal, as spirits are!

I'd die indeed, if I might see

Her bosom heave, and heave for me!

Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind!

To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

1795

The Picture,

Or the Lover's Resolution

Through weeds and thorns, and matted underwood

I force my way; now climb, and now descend

O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot

Crushing the purple whorts; while oft unseen,

Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves,

The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil

I know not, ask not whither! A new joy,

Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust,

And gladsome as the first-born of the spring,

Beckons me on, or follows from behind,

Playmate, or guide! The master-passion quelled,

I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark

The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak,

Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake

Soar up, and form a melancholy vault

High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.

Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse;

Here too the love-lorn man, who, sick in soul,

And of this busy human heart aweary,

Worships the spirit of unconscious life

In tree or wild-flower. – Gentle lunatic!

If so he might not wholly cease to be,

He would far rather not be that, he is;

But would be something, that he knows not of,

In winds or waters, or among the rocks!

But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagion here!

No myrtle-walks are these: these are no groves

Where Love dare loiter! If in sullen mood

He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore

His dainty feet, the brier and the thorn

Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird

Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs,

Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades!

And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make at morn

The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs!

You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep between

The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze,

Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon,

The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed –

Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp,

Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.

Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes!

With prickles sharper than his darts bemock

His little Godship, making him perforce

Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back.

This is my hour of triumph! I can now

With my own fancies play the merry fool,

And laugh away worse folly, being free.

Here will I seat myself, beside this old,

Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine

Clothes as with net-work: here will I couch my limbs,

Close by this river, in this silent shade,

As safe and sacred from the step of man

As an invisible world – unheard, unseen,

And listening only to the pebbly brook

That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound;

Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk

Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me,

Was never Love's accomplice, never raised

The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow,

And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek;

Ne'er played the wanton – never half disclosed

The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence

Eye-poisons for some love-distempered youth,

Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove

Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart

Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright,

Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast,

That swells its little breast, so full of song,

Singing above me, on the mountain-ash.

And thou too, desert stream! no pool of thine,

Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve,

Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe,

The face, the form divine, the downcast look

Contemplative! Behold! her open palm

Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests

On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree,

That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile

Had from her countenance turned, or looked by stealth,

(For fear is true love's cruel nurse), he now

With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye,

Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes

Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain,

E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed,

But not unheeded gazed: for see, ah! see,

The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks

The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,

Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells:

And suddenly, as one that toys with time,

Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm

Is broken – all that phantom-world so fair

Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,

And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile,

Poor youth, who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes!

The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon

The visions will return! And lo! he stays:

And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms

Come trembling back, unite, and now once more

The pool becomes a mirror; and behold

Each wild-flower on the marge inverted there,

And there the half-uprooted tree – but where,

O where the virgin's snowy arm, that leaned

On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone!

Homeward she steals through many a woodland maze

Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth!

Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime

In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook,

Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou

Behold'st her shadow still abiding there,

The Naiad of the mirror!

Not to thee,

O wild and desert stream! belongs this tale:

Gloomy and dark art thou – the crowded firs

Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed,

Making thee doleful as a cavern-well:

Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest

On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!

This be my chosen haunt – emancipate

From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone,

I rise and trace its devious course. O lead,

Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms.

Lo! stealing through the canopy of firs,

How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock,

Isle of the river, whose disparted waves

Dart off asunder with an angry sound,

How soon to re-unite! And see! they meet,

Each in the other lost and found: and see

Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun

Throbbing within them, heart at once and eye!

With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds,

The stains and shadings of forgotten tears,

Dimness o'erswum with lustre! Such the hour

Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds;

And hark, the noise of a near waterfall!

I pass forth into light – I find myself

Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful

Of forest-trees, the lady of the woods,)

Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock

That overbrows the cataract. How bursts

The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills

Fold in behind each other, and so make

A circular vale, and land-locked, as might seem,

With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages,

Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet,

The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray,

Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall.

How solemnly the pendent ivy-mass

Swings in its winnow; all the air is calm.

The smoke from cottage chimneys, tinged with light,

Rises in columns; from this house alone,

Close by the waterfall, the column slants,

And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this?

That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke,

And close beside its porch a sleeping child,

His dear head pillowed on a sleeping dog –

One arm between its fore legs, and the hand

Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers,

Unfilletted, and of unequal lengths.

A curious picture, with a master's haste

Sketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin,

Peeled from the birchen bark! Divinest maid!

Yon bark her canvass, and those purple berries

Her pencil! See, the juice is scarcely dried

On the fine skin! She has been newly here;

And lo! yon patch of heath has been her couch –

The pressure still remains! O blessed couch!

For this mayst thou flower early, and the sun,

Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long

Upon thy purple bells! O Isabel!

Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids!

More beautiful than whom Alcæus wooed

The Lesbian woman of immortal song!

O child of genius! stately, beautiful,

And full of love to all, save only me,

And not ungentle e'en to me! My heart,

Why beats it thus? Through yonder coppice-wood

Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straightway

On to her father's house. She is alone!

The night draws on – such ways are hard to hit –

And fit it is I should restore this sketch,

Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I yearn

To keep the relique? 'twill but idly feed

The passion that consumes me. Let me haste!

The picture in my hand which she has left;

She cannot blame me that I followed her:

And I may be her guide the long wood through.

[1802]

The Night-Scene:

A Dramatic Fragment

Sandoval. You loved the daughter of Don Manrique?

Earl Henry. Loved?

Sandoval. Did you not say you wooed her?

Earl Henry. Once I loved

Her whom I dared not woo!

Sandoval. And wooed, perchance,

One whom you loved not!

Earl Henry. Oh! I were most base,

Not loving Oropeza. True, I wooed her,

Hoping to heal a deeper wound; but she

Met my advances with impassioned pride,

That kindled love with love.