Sibylline Leaves Read Online

But O! how oft,

How oft, at school, with most believing mind,

Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,

To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft

With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt

Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,

Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang

From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,

So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me

With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear

Most like articulate sounds of things to come!

So gazed I, till the soothing things I dreamt

Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!

And so I brooded all the following morn,

Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye

Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:

Save if the door half opened, and I snatched

A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,

For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,

Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,

My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,

Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,

Fill up the interspersed vacancies

And momentary pauses of the thought!

My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart

With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,

And think that thou shalt learn far other lore

And in far other scenes! For I was reared

In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,

And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.

But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze

By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags

Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,

Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores

And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear

The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible

Of that eternal language, which thy God

Utters, who from eternity doth teach

Himself in all, and all things in himself.

Great universal Teacher! he shall mould

Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eve-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

[February 1798]

The Three Graves

A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale

[The Author has published the following humble fragment, encouraged by the decisive recommendation of more than one of our most celebrated living Poets. The language was intended to be dramatic; that is suited to the narrator; and the metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is therefore presented as the fragment, not of a Poem, but of a common Ballad-tale. Whether this is sufficient to justify the adoption of such a style, in any metrical composition not professedly ludicrous, the Author is himself in some doubt. At all events, it is not presented as poetry, and it is in no way connected with the Author's judgment concerning poetic diction. Its merits, if any, are exclusively psychological. The story which must be supposed to have been narrated in the first and second parts is as follows.

Edward, a young farmer, meets at the house of Ellen her bosom-friend Mary, and commences an acquaintance, which ends in a mutual attachment. With her consent, and by the advice of their common friend Ellen, he announces his hopes and intentions to Mary's mother, a widow-woman bordering on her fortieth year, and from constant health, the possession of a competent property, and from having had no other children but Mary and another daughter (the father died in their infancy), retaining for the greater part, her personal attractions and comeliness of appearance; but a woman of low education and violent temper. The answer which she at once returned to Edward's application was remarkable – »Well, Edward! you are a handsome young fellow, and you shall have my daughter.« From this time all their wooing passed under the mother's eye; and, in fine, she became herself enamoured of her future son-in-law, and practised every art, both of endearment and of calumny, to transfer his affections from her daughter to herself. (The outlines of the Tale are positive facts, and of no very distant date, though the author has purposely altered the names and the scene of action, as well as invented the characters of the parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, however, though perplexed by her strange detractions from her daughter's good qualities, yet in the innocence of his own heart still mistaking her increasing fondness for motherly affection; she at length, overcome by her miserable passion, after much abuse of Mary's temper and moral tendencies, exclaimed with violent emotion – »O Edward! indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you – she has not a heart to love you as you deserve. It is I that love you! Marry me, Edward! and I will this very day settle all my property on you.« The Lover's eyes were now opened; and thus taken by surprise, whether from the effect of the horror which he felt, acting as it were hysterically on his nervous system, or that at the first moment he lost the sense of guilt of the proposal in the feeling of its strangeness and absurdity, he flung her from him and burst into a fit of laughter. Irritated by this almost to frenzy, the woman fell on her knees, and in a loud voice that approached to a scream, she prayed for a curse both on him and on her own child. Mary happened to be in the room directly above them, heard Edward's laugh, and her mother's blasphemous prayer, and fainted away. He, hearing the fall, ran up stairs, and taking her in his arms, carried her off to Ellen's home; and after some fruitless attempts on her part toward a reconciliation with her mother, she was married to him. – And here the third part of the Tale begins.

I was not led to choose this story from any partiality to tragic, much less to monstrous events (though at the time that I composed the verses, somewhat more than twelve years ago, I was less averse to such subjects than at present), but from finding in it a striking proof of the possible effect on the imagination, from an Idea violently and suddenly impressed on it. I had been reading Bryan Edwards's account of the effect of the Oby witchcraft on the Negroes in the West Indies, and Hearne's deeply interesting anecdotes of similar workings on the imagination of the Copper Indians (those of my readers who have it in their power will be well repaid for the trouble of referring to those works for the passages alluded to) and I conceived the design of showing that instances of this kind are not peculiar to savage or barbarous tribes, and of illustrating the mode in which the mind is affected in these cases, and the progress and symptoms of the morbid action on the fancy from the beginning.

The Tale is supposed to be narrated by an old Sexton, in a country church-yard, to a traveller whose curiosity had been awakened by the appearance of three graves, close by each other, to two only of which there were gravestones. On the first of these was the name, and dates, as usual: on the second, no name, but only a date, and the words, »The Mercy of God is infinite.«]

1809

Part III

The grapes upon the Vicar's wall

Were ripe as ripe could be;

And yellow leaves in sun and wind

Were falling from the tree.

On the hedge-elms in the narrow lane

Still swung the spikes of corn:

Dear Lord! it seems but yesterday –

Young Edward's marriage-morn.

Up through that wood behind the church,

There leads from Edward's door

A mossy track, all over boughed,

For half a mile or more.

And from their house-door by that track

The bride and bridegroom went;

Sweet Mary, though she was not gay,

Seemed cheerful and content.

But when they to the church-yard came,

I've heard poor Mary say,

As soon as she stepped into the sun,

Her heart it died away.

And when the Vicar joined their hands,

Her limbs did creep and freeze;

But when they prayed, she thought she saw

Her mother on her knees.

And o'er the church-path they returned –

I saw poor Mary's back,

Just as she stepped beneath the boughs

Into the mossy track.

Her feet upon the mossy track

The married maiden set:

That moment – I have heard her say –

She wished she could forget.

The shade o'er-flushed her limbs with heat –

Then came a chill like death:

And when the merry bells rang out,

They seemed to stop her breath.

Beneath the foulest mother's curse

No child could ever thrive:

A mother is a mother still,

The holiest thing alive.

So five months passed: the mother still

Would never heal the strife;

But Edward was a loving man,

And Mary a fond wife.

»My sister may not visit us,

My mother says her nay:

O Edward! you are all to me,

I wish for your sake I could be

More lifesome and more gay.

I'm dull and sad! indeed, indeed

I know I have no reason!

Perhaps I am not well in health,

And 'tis a gloomy season.«

'Twas a drizzly time – no ice, no snow!

And on the few fine days

She stirred not out, lest she might meet

Her mother in the ways.

But Ellen spite of miry ways

And weather dark and dreary,

Trudged every day to Edward's house,

And made them all more cheery.

Oh! Ellen was a faithful friend,

More dear than any sister!

As cheerful too as singing lark;

And she ne'er left them till 'twas dark,

And then they always missed her.

And now Ash-Wednesday came – that day

But few to church repair:

For on that day you know we read

The Commination prayer.

Our late old Vicar, a kind man,

Once, Sir, he said to me,

He wished that service was clean out

Of our good liturgy.

The mother walked into the church –

To Ellen's seat she went:

Though Ellen always kept her church

All church-days during Lent.

And gentle Ellen welcomed her

With courteous looks and mild:

Thought she »what if her heart should melt,

And all be reconciled!«

The day was scarcely like a day –

The clouds were black outright:

And many a night, with half a moon,

I've seen the church more light.

The wind was wild; against the glass

The rain did beat and bicker;

The church-tower swinging over head,

You scarce could hear the Vicar!

And then and there the mother knelt,

And audibly she cried –

»Oh! may a clinging curse consume

This woman by my side!

O hear me, hear me, Lord in Heaven,

Although you take my life –

O curse this woman, at whose house

Young Edward woo'd his wife.

By night and day, in bed and bower,

O let her cursed be!«

So having prayed, steady and slow,

She rose up from her knee,

And left the church, nor e'er again

The church-door entered she.

I saw poor Ellen kneeling still,

So pale, I guessed not why:

When she stood up, there plainly was

A trouble in her eye.

And when the prayers were done, we all

Came round and asked her why:

Giddy she seemed, and sure, there was

A trouble in her eye.

But ere she from the church-door stepped

She smiled and told us why:

»It was a wicked woman's curse,«

Quoth she, »and what care I?«

She smiled, and smiled, and passed it off

Ere from the door she stept –

But all agree it would have been

Much better had she wept.

And if her heart was not at ease,

This was her constant cry –

»It was a wicked woman's curse –

God's good, and what care I?«

There was a hurry in her looks,

Her struggles she redoubled:

»It was a wicked woman's curse

And why should I be troubled?«

These tears will come – I dandled her

When 'twas the merest fairy –

Good creature! and she hid it all:

She told it not to Mary.

But Mary heard the tale: her arms

Round Ellen's neck she threw;

»O Ellen, Ellen, she cursed me,

And now she hath cursed you!«

I saw young Edward by himself

Stalk fast adown the lee,

He snatched a stick from every fence,

A twig from every tree.

He snapped them still with hand or knee,

And then away they flew!

As if with his uneasy limbs

He knew not what to do!

You see, good sir! that single hill?

His farm lies underneath:

He heard it there, he heard it all,

And only gnashed his teeth.

Now Ellen was a darling love

In all his joys and cares:

And Ellen's name and Mary's name

Fast-linked they both together came,

Whene'er he said his prayers.

And in the moment of his prayers

He loved them both alike:

Yea, both sweet names with one sweet joy

Upon his heart did strike!

He reach'd his home, and by his looks

They saw his inward strife:

And they clung round him with their arms,

Both Ellen and his wife.

And Mary could not check her tears,

So on his breast she bowed;

Then frenzy melted into grief,

And Edward wept aloud.

Dear Ellen did not weep at all,

But closelier did she cling,

And turned her face and looked as if

She saw some frightful thing.

The Three Graves

Part IV

To see a man tread over graves

I hold it no good mark;

'Tis wicked in the sun and moon,

And bad luck in the dark!

You see that grave? The Lord he gives,

The Lord he takes away:

O Sir! the child of my old age

Lies there as cold as clay.

Except that grave, you scarce see one

That was not dug by me;

I'd rather dance upon 'em all

Than tread upon these three!

»Ay, Sexton! 'tis a touching tale.«

You, Sir! are but a lad;

This month I'm in my seventieth year,

And still it makes me sad.

And Mary's sister told it me,

For three good hours and more;

Though I had heard it, in the main,

From Edward's self before.

Well! it passed off! the gentle Ellen

Did well nigh dote on Mary;

And she went oftener than before,

And Mary loved her more and more:

She managed all the dairy.

To market she on market-days,

To church on Sundays came;

All seemed the same: all seemed so, Sir!

But all was not the same!

Had Ellen lost her mirth? Oh! no!

But she was seldom cheerful;

And Edward looked as if he thought

That Ellen's mirth was fearful.

When by herself, she to herself

Must sing some merry rhyme;

She could not now be glad for hours,

Yet silent all the time.

And when she soothed her friend, through all

Her soothing words 'twas plain

She had a sore grief of her own,

A haunting in her brain.

And oft she said, I'm not grown thin!

And then her wrist she spanned;

And once when Mary was down-cast,

She took her by the hand,

And gazed upon her, and at first

She gently pressed her hand;

Then harder, till her grasp at length

Did gripe like a convulsion!

Alas! said she, we ne'er can be

Made happy by compulsion!

And once her both arms suddenly

Round Mary's neck she flung,

And her heart panted, and she felt

The words upon her tongue.

She felt them coming, but no power

Had she the words to smother;

And with a kind of shriek she cried,

»Oh Christ! you're like your mother!«

So gentle Ellen now no more

Could make this sad house cheery;

And Mary's melancholy ways

Drove Edward wild and weary.

Lingering he raised his latch at eve,

Though tired in heart and limb:

He loved no other place, and yet

Home was no home to him.

One evening he took up a book,

And nothing in it read;

Then flung it down, and groaning cried,

»Oh! Heaven! that I were dead.«

Mary looked up into his face,

And nothing to him said;

She tried to smile, and on his arm

Mournfully leaned her head.

And he burst into tears, and fell

Upon his knees in prayer:

»Her heart is broke! O God! my grief,

It is too great to bear!«

'Twas such a foggy time as makes

Old sextons, Sir! like me,

Rest on their spades to cough; the spring

Was late uncommonly.

And then the hot days, all at once,

They came, we knew not how:

You looked about for shade, when scarce

A leaf was on a bough.

It happened then ('twas in the bower

A furlong up the wood:

Perhaps you know the place, and yet

I scarce know how you should, –)

No path leads thither, 'tis not nigh

To any pasture-plot;

But clustered near the chattering brook,

Lone hollies marked the spot.

Those hollies of themselves a shape

As of an arbour took,

A close, round arbour; and it stands

Not three strides from a brook.

Within this arbour, which was still

With scarlet berries hung,

Were these three friends, one Sunday morn

Just as the first bell rung.

'Tis sweet to hear a brook, 'tis sweet

To hear the Sabbath-bell,

'Tis sweet to hear them both at once,

Deep in a woody dell.

His limbs along the moss, his head

Upon a mossy heap,

With shut-up senses, Edward lay:

That brook e'en on a working day

Might chatter one to sleep.

And he had passed a restless night,

And was not well in health;

The women sat down by his side,

And talked as 'twere by stealth.

»The sun peeps through the close thick leaves,

See, dearest Ellen! see!

'Tis in the leaves, a little sun,

No bigger than your ee;

A tiny sun, and it has got

A perfect glory too;

Ten thousand threads and hairs of light,

Make up a glory, gay and bright,

Round that small orb, so blue.«

And then they argued of those rays,

What colour they might be;

Says this, »they're mostly green;« says that,

»They're amber-like to me.«

So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts

Were troubling Edward's rest;

But soon they heard his hard quick pants,

And the thumping in his breast.

»A mother too!« these self-same words

Did Edward mutter plain;

His face was drawn back on itself,

With horror and huge pain.

Both groaned at once, for both knew well

What thoughts were in his mind;

When he waked up, and stared like one

That hath been just struck blind.

He sat upright; and ere the dream

Had had time to depart,

»O God, forgive me! (he exclaimed)

I have torn out her heart.«

Then Ellen shrieked, and forthwith burst

Into ungentle laughter;

And Mary shivered, where she sat,

And never she smiled after.

Carmen reliquum in futurum tempus relegatum.

To-morrow! and To-morrow! and To-morrow! –

[1798-1809]

Odes and Miscellaneous Poems

Dejection: an Ode

Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,

With the old Moon in her arms;

And I fear, I fear, my Master dear!

We shall have a deadly storm.

Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.

I

Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made

The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,

This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence

Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade

Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,

Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes

Upon the strings of this Eolian lute,

Which better far were mute.

For lo! the New-moon winter-bright!

And overspread with phantom light,

(With swimming phantom light o'erspread

But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)

I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling

The coming on of rain and squally blast.

And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,

And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast!

Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,

And sent my soul abroad,

Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,

Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!

II

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,

Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,

In word, or sigh, or tear –

O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,

To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,

All this long eve, so balmy and serene,

Have I been gazing on the western sky,

And its peculiar tint of yellow green:

And still I gaze – and with how blank an eye!

And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,

That give away their motion to the stars;

Those stars, that glide behind them or between,

Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:

Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew

In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;

I see them all so excellently fair,

I see, not feel how beautiful they are!

III

My genial spirits fail;

And what can these avail

To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?

It were a vain endeavour,

Though I should gaze for ever

On that green light that lingers in the west:

I may not hope from outward forms to win

The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

IV

O Lady! we receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does nature live:

Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud!

And would we aught behold, of higher worth,

Than that inanimate cold world allowed

To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,

Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth,

A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud

Enveloping the Earth –

And from the soul itself must there be sent

A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,

Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

V

O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me

What this strong music in the soul may be!

What, and wherein it doth exist,

This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,

This beautiful and beauty-making power.

Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,

Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,

Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,

Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,

Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower,

A new Earth and new Heaven,

Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud –

Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud –

We in ourselves rejoice!

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,

All melodies the echoes of that voice,

All colours a suffusion from that light.

VI

There was a time when, though my path was rough,

This joy within me dallied with distress,

And all misfortunes were but as the stuff

Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:

For hope grew round me, like the twining vine,

And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth:

Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth,

But oh! each visitation

Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,

My shaping spirit of Imagination.

For not to think of what I needs must feel,

But to be still and patient, all I can;

And haply by abstruse research to steal

From my own nature all the natural man –

This was my sole resource, my only plan:

Till that which suits a part infects the whole,

And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

VII

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,

Reality's dark dream!

I turn from you, and listen to the wind,

Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream

Of agony by torture lengthened out

That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that ravest without,

Bare craig, or mountain-tairn,33 or blasted tree,

Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,

Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,

Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,

Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,

Of dark brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,

Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,

The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.

Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!

Thou mighty Poet, e'en to frenzy bold!

What tell'st thou now about?

'Tis of the rushing of a host in rout,

With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds –

At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!

But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,

With groans, and tremulous shudderings – all is over –

It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!

A tale of less affright,

And tempered with delight,

As Otway's self had framed the tender lay,

'Tis of a little child

Upon a lonesome wild,

Not far from home, but she hath lost her way:

And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,

And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

VIII

'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep:

Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep!

Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,

And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,

May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,

Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth!

With light heart may she rise,

Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,

Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;

To her may all things live, from pole to pole,

Their life the eddying of her living soul!

O simple spirit, guided from above,

Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,

Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

[1802]

Ode to Georgiana,

Duchess of Devonshire, on the Twenty-fourth Stanza in her »Passage over Mount Gothard«

»And hail the chapel! hail the platform wild!

Where Tell directed the avenging dart,

With well strung arm, that first preserved his child,

Then aimed the arrow at the tyrant's heart.«

Splendour's fondly fostered child!

And did you hail the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!

Whence learn'd you that heroic measure?

Light as a dream your days their circlets ran,

From all that teaches brotherhood to Man

Far, far removed! from want, from hope, from fear!

Enchanting music lulled your infant ear,

Obeisance, praises soothed your infant heart:

Emblasonments and old ancestral crests,

With many a bright obtrusive form of art,

Detained your eye from nature: stately vests,

That veiling strove to deck your charms divine,

Rich viands and the pleasurable wine,

Were yours unearned by toil; nor could you see

The unenjoying toiler's misery.

And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child,

You hailed the chapel and the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!

Whence learn'd you that heroic measure?

There crowd your finely-fibred frame,

All living faculties of bliss;

And Genius to your cradle came,

His forehead wreathed with lambent flame,

And bending low, with godlike kiss

Breath'd in a more celestial life;

But boasts not many a fair compeer,

A heart as sensitive to joy and fear?

And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife,

Some few, to nobler being wrought,

Corrivals in the nobler gift of thought.

Yet these delight to celebrate

Laurelled war and plumy state;

Or in verse and music dress

Tales of rustic happiness –

Pernicious tales! insidious strains!

That steel the rich man's breast,

And mock the lot unblest,

The sordid vices and the abject pains,

Which evermore must be

The doom of ignorance and penury!

But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child,

You hailed the chapel and the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!

Whence learn'd you that heroic measure?

You were a mother! That most holy name,

Which Heaven and Nature bless,

I may not vilely prostitute to those

Whose infants owe them less

Than the poor caterpillar owes

Its gaudy parent fly.

You were a mother! at your bosom fed

The babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye,

Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read,

Which you yourself created. Oh! delight!

A second time to be a mother,

Without the mother's bitter groans:

Another thought, and yet another,

By touch, or taste, by looks or tones

O'er the growing sense to roll,

The mother of your infant's soul!

The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides

His chariot-planet round the goal of day,

All trembling gazes on the eye of God,

A moment turned his awful face away;

And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet

New influences in your being rose,

Blest intuitions and communions fleet

With living Nature, in her joys and woes!

Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to see

The shrine of social Liberty!

O beautiful! O Nature's child!

'Twas thence you hailed the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!

Thence learn'd you that heroic measure.

[1799]

Ode to Tranquillity

Tranquillity! thou better name

Than all the family of Fame!

Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age

To low intrigue, or factious rage;

For oh! dear child of thoughtful Truth,

To thee I gave my early youth,

And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore,

Ere yet the tempest rose and scared me with its roar.

Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine,

On him but seldom, Power divine,

Thy spirit rests! Satiety

And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee,

Mock the tired worldling. Idle hope

And dire remembrance interlope,

To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind:

The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind.

But me thy gentle hand will lead

At morning through the accustomed mead;

And in the sultry summer's heat

Will build me up a mossy seat;

And when the gust of Autumn crowds,

And breaks the busy moonlight clouds,

Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune,

Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding moon.

The feeling heart, the searching soul,

To thee I dedicate the whole!

And while within myself I trace

The greatness of some future race,

Aloof with hermit-eye I scan

The present works of present man –

A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile,

Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile!

[1801]

To a Young Friend,

On His Proposing to Domesticate with the Author. Composed in 1796

A mount, not wearisome and bare and steep,

But a green mountain variously up-piled,

Where o'er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep,

Or coloured lichens with slow oosing weep;

Where cypress and the darker yew start wild;

And 'mid the summer torrent's gentle dash

Dance brightened the red clusters of the ash;

Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds beguiled,

Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep;

Till haply startled by some fleecy dam,

That rustling on the bushy cliff above,

With melancholy bleat of anxious love,

Made meek enquiry for her wandering lamb:

Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to climb,

E'en while the bosom ached with loneliness –

How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless

The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime

Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round,

Wide and more wide, increasing without bound!

O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark

The berries of the half-uprooted ash

Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash, –

Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,

Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;

In social silence now, and now to unlock

The treasured heart; arm linked in friendly arm,

Save if the one, his muse's witching charm

Muttering brow-bent, at unwatched distance lag;

Till high o'er head his beckoning friend appears,

And from the forehead of the topmost crag

Shouts eagerly: for haply there uprears

That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs,

Which latest shall detain the enamoured sight

Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,

Tinged yellow with the rich departing light;

And haply, basoned in some unsunned cleft,

A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears,

Sleeps sheltered there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!

Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left,

Stretched on the crag, and shadowed by the pine,

And bending o'er the clear delicious fount,

Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divines

To cheat our noons in moralizing mood,

While west-winds fanned our temples toil-bedewed:

Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount,

To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,

Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss

Gives this the husband's, that the brother's kiss!

Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore,

The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace;

That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,

And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour

To glad and fertilize the subject plains;

That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,

And many a fancy-blest and holy sod

Where Inspiration, his diviner strains

Low murmuring, lay; and starting from the rocks

Stiff evergreens, whose spreading foliage mocks

Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,

And bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage!

O meek retiring spirit! we will climb,

Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublime;

And from the stirring world up-lifted high,

(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,

To quiet musings shall attune the mind,

And oft the melancholy theme supply)

There, while the prospect through the gazing eye

Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul,

We'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame,

Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same,

As neighbouring fountains image, each the whole:

Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth

We'll discipline the heart to pure delight,

Rekindling sober joy's domestic flame.

They whom I love shall love thee, honoured youth!

Now may Heaven realize this vision bright!

Lines to W. L.

While He Sang a Song to Purcell's Music

While my young cheek retains its healthful hues,

And I have many friends who hold me dear;

L––! methinks, I would not often hear

Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose

All memory of the wrongs and sore distress,

For which my miserable brethren weep!

But should uncomforted misfortunes steep

My daily bread in tears and bitterness;

And if at death's dread moment I should lie

With no beloved face at my bed-side,

To fix the last glance of my closing eye,

Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angel-guide,

Would make me pass the cup of anguish by,

Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died!

[1797]

Addressed to a Young Man of Fortune

Who Abandoned Himself to an Indolent and Causeless Melancholy

Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,

O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!

To plundered want's half-sheltered hovel go,

Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear

Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:

Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood

O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strewed,

Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part

Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffined limbs

The flocking flesh-birds screamed! Then, while thy heart

Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,

Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)

What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!

O abject! if, to sickly dreams resigned,

All effortless thou leave life's common-weal

A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.

[1796]

Sonnet to the River Otter

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West!

How many various-fated years have past,

What happy, and what mournful hours, since last

I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,

Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest

Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes

I never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,

Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,

And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,

Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled

Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:

Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

[1793?]

Sonnet

Composed on a Journey Homeward; the Author Having Received Intelligence of the Birth of a Son, Sept. 20, 1796

Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll

Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)

Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,

Mixed with such feelings, as perplex the soul

Self-questioned in her sleep; and some have said34

We lived, ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.

O my sweet baby! when I reach my door,

If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead,

(As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear)

I think that I should struggle to believe

Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere

Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve;

Did'st scream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick reprieve,

While we wept idly o'er thy little bier!

Sonnet

To a Friend Who Asked, How I Felt when the Nurse First Presented My Infant to Me

Charles! my slow heart was only sad, when first

I scanned that face of feeble infancy:

For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst

All I had been, and all my child might be!

But when I saw it on its mother's arm,

And hanging at her bosom (she the while

Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile)

Then I was thrilled and melted, and most warm

Impressed a father's kiss: and all beguiled

Of dark remembrance and presageful fear,

I seemed to see an angel-form appear –

'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild!

So for the mother's sake the child was dear,

And dearer was the mother for the child.

[1796]

The Virgin's Cradle-Hymn

Copied from a Print of the Virgin, in a Roman Catholic Village in Germany

Dormi, Jesu! Mater ridet

Quæ tam dulcem somnum videt,

Dormi, Jesu! blandule!

Si non dormis, Mater plorat,

Inter fila cantans orat,

Blande, veni, somnule.

English

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:

Mother sits beside thee smiling;

Sleep, my darling, tenderly!

If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,

Singing as her wheel she turneth:

Come, soft slumber, balmily!

[1811]

Epitaph on an Infant

Its balmy lips the infant blest

Relaxing from its mother's breast,

How sweet it heaves the happy sigh

Of innocent satiety!

And such my infant's latest sigh!

O tell, rude stone! the passer by,

That here the pretty babe doth lie,

Death sang to sleep with Lullaby.

[1811]

Melancholy

A Fragment

Stretch'd on a mouldered Abbey's broadest wall,

Where ruining ivies propped the ruins steep –

Her folded arms wrapping her tattered pall,

Had melancholy mus'd herself to sleep.

The fern was press'd beneath her hair,

The dark green adder's tongue was there;

And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak,

The long lank leaf bowed fluttering o'er her cheek.

That pallid cheek was flushed: her eager look

Beamed eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought,

Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook,

And her bent forehead worked with troubled thought.

Strange was the dream –

[1794?]

Tell's Birth-Place

Imitated from Stolberg

I

Mark this holy chapel well!

The birth-place, this, of William Tell.

Here, where stands God's altar dread,

Stood his parents' marriage-bed.

II

Here, first, an infant to her breast,

Him his loving mother prest;

And kissed the babe, and blessed the day,

And prayed as mothers use to pray.

III

»Vouchsafe him health, O God! and give

The child thy servant still to live!«

But God had destined to do more

Through him, than through an armed power.

IV

God gave him reverence of laws,

Yet stirring blood in Freedom's cause –

A spirit to his rocks akin,

The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein!

V

To Nature and to Holy Writ

Alone did God the boy commit:

Where flashed and roared the torrent, oft

His soul found wings, and soared aloft!

VI

The straining oar and chamois chase

Had formed his limbs to strength and grace:

On wave and wind the boy would toss,

Was great, nor knew how great he was!

VII

He knew not that his chosen hand,

Made strong by God, his native land

Would rescue from the shameful yoke

Of Slavery – the which he broke!

[1799?]

A Christmas Carol

I

The shepherds went their hasty way,

And found the lowly stable-shed

Where the Virgin-Mother lay:

And now they checked their eager tread,

For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,

A mother's song the Virgin-Mother sung.

II

They told her how a glorious light,

Streaming from a heavenly throng,

Around them shone, suspending night!

While sweeter than a mother's song,

Blest Angels heralded the Saviour's birth,

Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

III

She listened to the tale divine,

And closer still the Babe she prest;

And while she cried, the Babe is mine!

The milk rushed faster to her breast:

Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn;

Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.

IV

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,

Poor, simple, and of low estate!

That strife should vanish, battle cease,

O why should this thy soul elate?

Sweet music's loudest note, the poet's story, –

Did'st thou ne'er love to hear of fame and glory?

V

And is not War a youthful king,

A stately hero clad in mail?

Beneath his footsteps laurels spring;

Him Earth's majestic monarchs hail

Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye

Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh.

VI

»Tell this in some more courtly scene,

To maids and youths in robes of state!

I am a woman poor and mean,

And therefore is my soul elate.

War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,

That from the aged father tears his child!

VII

A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,

He kills the sire and starves the son;

The husband kills, and from her board

Steals all his widow's toil had won;

Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away

All safety from the night, all comfort from the day.

VIII

Then wisely is my soul elate,

That strife should vanish, battle cease:

I'm poor and of a low estate,

The Mother of the Prince of Peace.

Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn:

Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.«

[1799]

Human Life,

On the Denial of Immortality

If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom

Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare

As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,

Whose sound and motion not alone declare,

But are their whole of being! If the breath

Be life itself, and not its task and tent,

If even a soul like Milton's can know death;

O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,

Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!

Surplus of nature's dread activity,

Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,

Retreating slow, with meditative pause,

She formed with restless hands unconsciously!

Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,

Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,

The counter-weights! – Thy laughter and thy tears

Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,

And to repay the other! Why rejoices

Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good?

Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood,

Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,

Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf,

That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold?

Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold

These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?

Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!

Thou hast no reason why! Thou can'st have none;

Thy being's being is contradiction.

[1815?]

Moles

– They shrink in, as Moles

(Nature's mute monks, live mandrakes of the ground)

Creep back from Light – then listen for its sound; –

See but to dread, and dread they know not why –

The natural alien of their negative eye.

[1817]

The Visit of the Gods

Imitated from Schiller

Never, believe me,

Appear the Immortals,

Never alone:

Scarce had I welcomed the sorrow-beguiler,

Iacchus! but in came boy Cupid the smiler;

Lo! Phœbus the glorious descends from his throne!

They advance, they float in, the Olympians all!

With divinities fills my

Terrestrial hall!

How shall I yield you

Due entertainment,

Celestial quire?

Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance

Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance,

That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre!

Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul!

O give me the nectar!

O fill me the bowl!

Give him the nectar!

Pour out for the poet,

Hebe! pour free!

Quicken his eyes with celestial dew,

That Styx the detested no more he may view,

And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be!

Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Pæan, I cry!

The wine of the Immortals

Forbids me to die!

[1799?]

Elegy,

Imitated from One of Akenside's Blank-Verse Inscriptions

Near the lone pile with ivy overspread,

Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound,

Where ›sleeps the moonlight‹ on yon verdant bed –

O humbly press that consecrated ground!

For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain!

And there his spirit most delights to rove:

Young Edmund! famed for each harmonious strain,

And the sore wounds of ill-requited love.

Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide,

And loads the west-wind with its soft perfume,

His manhood blossomed: till the faithless pride

Of fair Matilda sank him to the tomb.

But soon did righteous Heaven her guilt pursue!

Where'er with wildered step she wandered pale,

Still Edmund's image rose to blast her view,

Still Edmund's voice accused her in each gale.

With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms,

Amid the pomp of affluence she pined;

Nor all that lured her faith from Edmund's arms

Could lull the wakeful horror of her mind.

Go, Traveller! tell the tale with sorrow fraught:

Some tearful maid perchance, or blooming youth,

May hold it in remembrance; and be taught

That riches cannot pay for Love or Truth.

[1794?]

Separation

A sworded man whose trade is blood,

In grief, in anger, and in fear,

Thro' jungle, swamp, and torrent flood,

I seek the wealth you hold so dear!

The dazzling charm of outward form,

The power of gold, the pride of birth,

Have taken Woman's heart by storm –

Usurp'd the place of inward worth.

Is not true Love of higher price

Than outward Form, tho' fair to see,

Wealth's glittering fairy-dome of ice,

Or echo of proud ancestry? –

O! Asra, Asra! couldst thou see

Into the bottom of my heart,

There's such a mine of Love for thee,

As almost might supply desert!

(This separation is, alas!

Too great a punishment to bear;

O! take my life, or let me pass

That life, that happy life, with her!)

The perils, erst with steadfast eye

Encounter'd, now I shrink to see –

Oh! I have heart enough to die –

Not half enough to part from Thee!

[1805?]

On Taking Leave of ––, 1817

To know, to esteem, to love – and then to part,

Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!

O for some dear abiding-place of Love,

O'er which my spirit, like the mother dove,

Might brood with warming wings! – O fair as kind,

Were but one sisterhood with you combined,

(Your very image they in shape and mind)

Far rather would I sit in solitude,

The forms of memory all my mental food,

And dream of you, sweet sisters, (ah, not mine!)

And only dream of you (ah dream and pine!)

Than have the presence, and partake the pride,

And shine in the eye of all the world beside!

The Pang More Sharp Than All

An Allegory

I

He too has flitted from his secret nest,

Hope's last and dearest Child without a name! –

Has flitted from me, like the warmthless flame,

That makes false promise of a place of rest

To the tir'd Pilgrim's still believing mind; –

Or like some Elfin Knight in kingly court,

Who having won all guerdons in his sport,

Glides out of view, and whither none can find!

II

Yes! He hath flitted from me – with what aim,

Or why, I know not! 'Twas a home of bliss,

And He was innocent, as the pretty shame

Of babe, that tempts and shuns the menaced kiss,

From its twy-cluster'd hiding place of snow!

Pure as the babe, I ween, and all aglow

As the dear hopes, that swell the mother's breast –

Her eyes down gazing o'er her clasped charge; –

Yet gay as that twice happy father's kiss,

That well might glance aside, yet never miss,

Where the sweet mark emboss'd so sweet a targe –

Twice wretched he who hath been doubly blest!

III

Like a loose blossom on a gusty night

He flitted from me – and has left behind

(As if to them his faith he ne'er did plight)

Of either sex and answerable mind

Two playmates, twin-births of his foster-dame: –

The one a steady lad (Esteem he hight)

And Kindness is the gentler sister's name.

Dim likeness now, tho' fair she be and good

Of that bright Boy who hath us all forsook; –

But in his full-eyed aspect when she stood,

And while her face reflected every look,

And in reflection kindled – she became

So like Him, that almost she seem'd the same!

IV

Ah! He is gone, and yet will not depart! –

Is with me still, yet I from Him exil'd!

For still there lives within my secret heart

The magic image of the magic Child,

Which there He made up-grow by his strong art,

As in that crystal35 orb – wise Merlin's feat, –

The wondrous »World of Glass,« wherein inisl'd

All long'd for things their beings did repeat; –

And there He left it, like a Sylph beguiled,

To live and yearn and languish incomplete!

V

Can wit of man a heavier grief reveal?

Can sharper pang from hate or scorn arise? –

Yes! one more sharp there is that deeper lies,

Which fond Esteem but mocks when he would heal.

Yet neither scorn nor hate did it devise,

But sad compassion and atoning zeal!

One pang more blighting-keen than hope betray'd!

And this it is my woful hap to feel,

When at her Brother's hest, the twin-born Maid

With face averted and unsteady eyes,

Her truant playmate's faded robe puts on;

And inly shrinking from her own disguise

Enacts the faery Boy that's lost and gone.

O worse than all! O pang all pangs above

Is Kindness counterfeiting absent Love!

[1825-6?]

Kubla Khan: or, a Vision in a Dream

A Fragment

In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effect of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in »Purchas's Pilgrimage:« »Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto: and thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.« The author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter:

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.

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had been originally, as it were, given to him. Ayrion adion aso: but the to-morrow is yet to come.

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease. – 1816.

Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

[1798]

The Pains of Sleep

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,

It hath not been my use to pray

With moving lips or bended knees;

But silently, by slow degrees,

My spirit I to Love compose,

In humble trust mine eye-lids close,

With reverential resignation,

No wish conceived, no thought exprest,

Only a sense of supplication;

A sense o'er all my soul imprest

That I am weak, yet not unblest,

Since in me, round me, every where

Eternal strength and wisdom are.

But yester-night I prayed aloud

In anguish and in agony,

Up-starting from the fiendish crowd

Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me:

A lurid light, a trampling throng,

Sense of intolerable wrong,

And whom I scorned, those only strong!

Thirst of revenge, the powerless will

Still baffled, and yet burning still!

Desire with loathing strangely mixed

On wild or hateful objects fixed.

Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!

And shame and terror over all!

Deeds to be hid which were not hid,

Which all confused I could not know,

Whether I suffered, or I did:

For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,

My own or others still the same

Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.

So two nights passed: the night's dismay

Saddened and stunned the coming day.

Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me

Distemper's worst calamity.

The third night, when my own loud scream

Had waked me from the fiendish dream,

O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,

I wept as I had been a child;

And having thus by tears subdued

My anguish to a milder mood,

Such punishments, I said, were due

To natures deepliest stained with sin, –

For aye entempesting anew

The unfathomable hell within

The horror of their deeds to view,

To know and loathe, yet wish and do!

Such griefs with such men well agree,

But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?

To be beloved is all I need,

And whom I love, I love indeed.

[1803]

Limbo

'Tis a strange place, this Limbo! – not a Place,

Yet name it so; – where Time and weary Space

Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing,

Strive for their last crepuscular half-being; –

Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands

Barren and soundless as the measuring sands,

Not mark'd by flit of Shades, – unmeaning they

As moonlight on the dial of the day!

But that is lovely – looks like human Time, –

An old man with a steady look sublime,

That stops his earthly task to watch the skies;

But he is blind – a statue hath such eyes; –

Yet having moonward turn'd his face by chance,

Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance,

With scant white hairs, with foretop bald and high,

He gazes still, – his eyeless face all eye; –

As 'twere an organ full of silent sight,

His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light! –

Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb –

He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him!

No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure,

Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure,

By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all,

Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral.

A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation,

Yet that is but a Purgatory curse;

Hell knows a fear far worse,

A fear – a future state; – 'tis positive Negation!

[1817]

Ne Plus Ultra

Sole Positive of Night!

Antipathist of Light!

Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod –

The one permitted opposite of God! –

Condensed blackness and abysmal storm

Compacted to one sceptre

Arms the Grasp enorm –

The Intercepter –

The Substance that still casts the shadow Death! –

The Dragon foul and fell –

The unrevealable,

And hidden one, whose breath

Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell! –

Ah! sole despair

Of both th' eternities in Heaven!

Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer,

The all-compassionate!

Save to the Lampads Seven

Reveal'd to none of all th' Angelic State,

Save to the Lampads Seven,

That watch the throne of Heaven!

[1826?]