; 

 
 .-,:
 
 POEM. 
 
 LIBRARY' 
 SHELLEY 
 
 SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY 
 
 STOPFORD A. BROOKE 
 

 
 r /*+t4 
 
 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh.
 
 AH, DID YOU ONCE SEE SHELLEY PLAIN, 
 AND DID HE STOP AND SPEAK TO YOU, 
 
 AND DID YOU SPEAK TO HIM AGAIN? 
 HOW STRANGE IT SEEMS, AND NEW ! 
 
 BUT YOU WERE LIVING BEFORE THAT, 
 
 AND ALSO YOU ARB LIVING AFTER; 
 AND THE MEMORY I STARTED AT 
 
 MY STARTING MOVES YOUR LAUGHTER! 
 
 III. 
 
 I CROSSED A MOOR, WITH A NAME OF ITS OWN, 
 AND A CERTAIN USE IN THE WORLD, NO DOUBT, 
 
 YET A HAND'S-BREADTH OF IT SHINES ALONE 
 'MlD THE BLANK MILES ROUND ABOUT : 
 
 FOR THERE I PICKED UP ON THE HEATHER, 
 
 AND THERE I PUT INSIDE MY BREAST, 
 A MOULTED FEATHER, AN EAGLE FEATHER ! 
 
 WELL, I FORGET THE REST. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 SHELLEY, from whose poetry this book of Selections 
 is made, can only, like all other poets, be judged justly, 
 or fitly loved, when everything he wished to be pub- 
 lished has been carefully studied. We can no more 
 comprehend him in the right way by reading only 
 his finest poems, supposing we could choose them, 
 than we can receive a true impression of the character 
 of the scenery of a country by visiting a selection of 
 its most beautiful places. Through his weakness we 
 know part of his strength ; nor is it only for his power 
 we love him. This necessity of reading all a poet's 
 work, if we wish to know him truly, or to receive from 
 him his special gift of pleasure, is the main objection 
 to Selections; but its weight is lessened when the in- 
 tention of a book of this kind is not to represent 
 Shelley fully, but to present, in a brief compass, 
 enough of his poetry to induce those who are igno- 
 rant of it to read the whole. That is the only valid 
 reason and excuse for Selections from a poet, and it 
 is the object of this book. If the excuse be accepted, 
 we may say that Shelley is more open to selection
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 than many of the other poets. ' His ^ whole work is 
 short, and a great deal of it can be included in 
 a small book. It is especially lyrical, and lyrics 
 are the best material for selections. Some, too, of 
 the longer poems, such as Alastor and Adonais, in 
 which we can study his steadier and more ambitious 
 effort, are brief enough to be inserted entire, and they 
 break the lyrics _ pleasantly, and offer a more varied 
 enjoyment to the reader. There is also one spirit in 
 Shelley's work which fills and brings into unity all 
 his poems. It is the spirit of youth. We are not 
 troubled in reading these Selections, by such a 
 change in the whole nature of the poet as age made 
 in Wordsworth. Owing to this unity of spirit, I have 
 been able to place together, without fear of their jar- 
 ring with one another, poems written at different 
 periods of Shelley's life on the same or kindred themes. 
 To group such poems together is the method followed 
 in this book, and its fitness seems to be supported 
 by the fact that Shelley, being very fond of his ideas, 
 and also of the forms he gave them, repeated them 
 continually. The impression made by one poem is 
 therefore strengthened by another on the same subject. 
 Shelley is his own best illustrator. 
 
 When Selections from any poet appear rapidly, it 
 may be said that he has taken his place, that time 
 and its verdict have distinguished him in his own 
 country. And Shelley is now at home with us, and 
 his praise becomes greater day by day. Some of that
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 praise, especially when it exalts him, without distinc- 
 tiveness of criticism, above his brother poets, seems 
 undeserved, but there is no longer any doubt, among 
 those worthy to judge, that Shelley has assumed his own 
 separate throne among the greater poets of England. 
 It is then somewhat strange to look back nearly 
 sixty years, and to think that when Shelley died, 
 scarcely fifty people cared to read his poetry, and 
 even these did not understand it. Seven years after 
 his death opinion began to change. He had so far in- 
 fluenced the young men of Cambridge, that its Union 1 
 sent a deputation in November 1829 to the Oxford I 
 Union, to maintain Shelley's superiority over Byron. I 
 "At that time," said Lord Houghton speaking in 
 1866 "we, the Cambridge undergraduates, were all 
 very full of Mr. Shelley. We had printed his Adonais 
 for the first time in England, and a friend of ours sug- 
 gested that, as he had been expelled from Oxford, and 
 very badly treated in that University, it would be a 
 grand thing for us to defend him there." The young 
 men, Arthur Hallam, Monckton Milnes, and Sunder- 
 land, were received by Gladstone, Francis Doyle, 
 and Milnes Gaskell. Wilberforce of Oriel was in the 
 Chair. Sir Francis Doyle, (Christ Church) moved 
 that Shelley was a greater poet than Lord Byron. He 
 was supported by the three Cambridge men, and by 
 Mr. Oldham of Oriel. The negative was defended by . 
 Mr. Manning; and on division Byron was declared the V 
 greater poet by a majority of fifty-seven. This inter- I f
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 esting story proves that some young men at Oxford 
 and Cambridge were now awakened to Shelley's 
 genius. They felt and loved him as the most ideal of 
 the poets, and year by year he has increased the number 
 of those who give him that special place and honour. 
 
 About 1832 his power over the minds of men 
 increased. At that time fresh political and theo- 
 logical elements began to excite England, and then 
 the other side of Shelley's work began to tell. The 
 poems he had written as the prophet of liberty, 
 equality, fraternity, and a Golden Age, were eagerly 
 read by the more intelligent among the working 
 classes, and by many who felt that the ideas of the 
 French Revolution were again arising into activity 
 after their winter sleep. It is a part of his work 
 which still continues to do good. 
 
 Again, within the last few years, the sad, re- 
 gretful, unsatisfied, self-considering, indefinite ele- 
 ments in the mind of educated English society have 
 found food and expression in a certain number of 
 Shelley's poems, and this has increased the extent 
 of his influence. That which has been called the 
 " lyrical cry " belongs now to a whole section of 
 society, lincf " Shelley often echoes its regret and in- 
 i definiteness with great beauty. 
 
 Moreover, a great number of persons who care for 
 Nature as Art cares for her, that is, as alive and not 
 dead, being revolted by the materialistic aspect in 
 which some scientific theories now present her, have 

 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 turned with new pleasure to the spiritual representa- 
 tions given of her by such poets as Wordsworth and 
 Shelley. That also has added a fresh impulse to the 
 study of Shelley. 
 
 It may also be said that the forms, and especially 
 the ideal forms of passionate love, have been, of late, 
 more minutely dwelt on in poetry, and with greater 
 curiosity, than they have been since the Elizabethan 
 period. It is natural, then, that a poet like Shelley, 
 who made ideal love his study, and the subject of so 
 much of his work, should now receive and claim 
 greater attention. 
 
 Shelley, reflecting and embodying these various 
 phases, is then a much more comprehensive poet than 
 the common judgment supposes. And he is all the more 
 comprehensive because his nature and his work were 
 twofold. The first thing to say of him is, that he I 
 lived in two worlds, thought in two worlds, and in I 
 both of these did work which was atonfe" varied 
 and distinct. One was the world of Mankind and 
 its hopes, the other was the world of his own heart. 
 
 His poetic life was an alternate changing from 
 one of these worlds to the other. He passed from : 
 poetry written for the sake of mankind, to poetry 
 written for his own sake and to express himself; j 
 from the Shelley who was inspired by moral aims 
 and wrote in the hope of a regeneration of the 
 world, to that other Shelley who, inspired only by his 
 own ideas and regrets, wrote without any ethical end,
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 and absolutely apart from humanity. The passionate 
 lover of man crosses over the stage, singing of man- 
 kind, and disappears. The passionate poet succeeds, 
 singing of himself, and disappears in turn. The 
 interchange continues, but both the figures are the 
 same man. 
 
 Shelley began as the prophet of the ideas of the 
 French Revolution. Queen Mab, written with the 
 enthusiasm of a youth for the overthrow of the evils 
 that he thought oppressed mankind, and in hope of 
 its deliverance into a world of love and peace, is not, 
 as a poem, so " absolutely worthless " as he imagined 
 it to be. The verse is musical ; there are two direct 
 pictures of nature, both of the sky ; the journey 
 through the stars has some of the imaginative power 
 which realised the flight of Asia and the Hours in 
 the Prometheus, but all the polemical part is very 
 prosaic. It is like a sermon in verse, and it has just 
 the poetical quality we expect in a sermon. The latter 
 portion is naturally the best. The most remarkable 
 element Queen Mab possesses is didactic force. But, 
 owing to its uncultivated rhetoric, that force is likely 
 to tell most on very young persons, and on uneducated 
 but intelligent working men, who may sympathise 
 with its opinions. The poem had such an influence, 
 and that influence was widely extended. 
 
 Two years later, in 1815, all was changed. The 
 circumstances of his life, illness, expectation of death, 
 made him lose, in losing all vigour and joy, his in-
 
 PREFACE. xiii 
 
 terest in man, and Alastor, his next long poem, is 
 entirely occupied with his own solitary thought and 
 life. The preface he wrote explains the meaning of 
 the poem, and, contrasted with the poem, reveals that 
 double nature in Shelley of which I write. He repu- 
 diates in it, with all the sternness of a moralist, yet 
 with self-pity, the life described in Alastor; and the 
 lines with which he closes the poem itself " It is a 
 woe too deep for tears," etc., are a cry of sorrow and 
 reproach against one who desired to work for man, 
 but who wasted life in pursuit of that unattainable 
 beauty his soul could dream of, but not realize. 
 
 Of all Shelley's longer poems, Alastor leaves on 
 the general reader the easiest impression of an artis- 
 tic whole. The subject is one, and never varies from 
 itself: it is closely clung to from beginning to end, 
 and is deeply felt throughout. The poetry and 
 its art, both imaginative and technical, are of course 
 less great than they became in after work, but so_far 
 as unity of conception and steadiness of expression 
 ancTTorm are concerned, even Adonais is less artistic 
 than Alastor. Shelley's personality absorbs the poem. 
 The extreme ideality of the treatment alone relieves the 
 intensity of this personal revelation, and makes it not 
 too overwhelming to give pleasure. The natural de- 
 scriptions prove how deeply Shelley had felt some of 
 the larger aspects of Nature, and the melody of their 
 verse is at times like the harmonies we seem to hear 
 among waters and woods ; but Nature in this poem
 
 xiv PREFACE. 
 
 is never described for herself alone, never for pure 
 joy in her. She is made to reflect the thoughts and 
 passion of the wandering poet until the very last, 
 when his life and that of the moon ebb away to- 
 gether. This is deliberately done, and nowhere in a 
 finer way than in the description of the long walk 
 down the glen. We follow step by step the inter- 
 penetration of the poet's dying soul and of the vari- 
 ous changes of the scene. As the brook flows to the 
 precipice, so does his life ; as the valley alters its 
 landscape, so does the landscape in his heart. The 
 skill and intensity with which this is wrought out is 
 the cause of the fascination that passage has for all 
 who read it. 
 
 In the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and to Mont 
 Blanc, written &Kef'~%7ast0r, Shelley, though writing 
 orfly^as the artist of his own thought, has recovered 
 
 some of his hopes for Man. He tries to connect his 
 
 ( ,,_, ,, I,- 
 
 worship of Beauty with the redemption of the race ; 
 he spealcs of the PoweFliidden in the great mountain 
 to "repeal large codes of fraud and woe." His Con- 
 tinental journey had brought him new health, and his 
 life, new happiness, and with them came back the old 
 longing and the old interest to play his part in the 
 movement of the world. The result was the Revolt 
 of Islam. Its genesis and its aim are explained in 
 tfie preface with which he accompanied the poem. 
 It seemed to Shelley that the age of despair that 
 followed the end of the French Revolution was over,
 
 PREFACE. xv 
 
 and that now, when the reaction from that trance of 
 failure had begun, the time had arrived for him to 
 speak. In that belief he composed this poem. It 
 strove to kindle afresh the flame of liberty, but it had 
 no effect on the exhausted Englishmen of 1 8 1 8. Nor, 
 as poefry7"did ifTlesefve to have a great effect. It is 
 the most unbalanced of all his works. The interest 
 is human, but it is too frequently taken out of the 
 world of actual human life to awaken practical emotion. 
 Were the scenery of the poem all ideal, or all real, we 
 should not be so troubled while we read. Were the 
 poem supremely ethical or supremely emotional, had 
 it any unity at all, it might keep its power over us. 
 But it has no unity, not even in feeling. Its emotion 
 is unequal ; we are continually changing the atmo- 
 sphere, and are overchilled or overheated. There is no 
 artistic fusion of the poetry which aims at giving a 
 hi^li pUTisure with that which aims at awakening- TiTaYi 
 to his duties. That fusion was made in the Prome- 
 theus' Unbound, but here it was not made. 
 
 And now another of these changes took place. 
 Shelley fell ill again, the threatened loss of his 
 children preyed upon him, and n ^jftE,ngland for 
 ever in 1 8 1 8. He lost again for a time his enthusiasm 
 for man,' and the characteristic of the work of this 
 year is sadness deepening into misery. With very 
 few exceptions the poems are personal. One, how- 
 ever, differs from all that preceded it. Julian and 
 Maddalo, composed at the end of the year, is personal,
 
 xvi PREFACE. 
 
 but still not so much so as to prevent Shelley from 
 painting, with a firm hand, another character than 
 
 I his own. It is the first instance of that power of 
 losing himself in the creation of distinct personages 
 which enabled him to write the drama of the Cen& } . 
 Julian and Maddalo has unity, and the materials are 
 carefully woven together. The style is subdued to a 
 quiet level, and the imagination, which ran riot in 
 the Revolt of Islam, is curbed to do its work, and only 
 its special work, by the will of the poet. Reading it, 
 we should predict that if again the enthusiasm for 
 man should awaken in Shelley's heart, the work he 
 would do on the subject would be more worthy of 
 his power. It did awaken, and in how different a form 
 it came ! It was no longer hampered by his notion 
 that he must directly attack evil. It rose at once 
 and easily, taking with it all the subjects of the Revolt 
 of Islam, into the region of pure art, and there, in the 
 world of passion and beauty and fire, he wrote the 
 Prometheus Unbound. That poem is the marriage of 
 Shelley's double nature, the fusion for creative work of 
 trreTover of man and the poet. He reaches in it that 
 culminating point at which the thinker on man gives 
 
 I his best-loved materials to the artist, and the artist 
 breathes into them life and beauty. 
 
 The same vivid interest in humanity was then made 
 1 special in the Cenci, a tragedy wrought out with so 
 much temperance of imagination, directness of emo- 
 tion, and closeness of thought, that it is the strangest
 
 PREFACE. xvii 
 
 contrast to the Prometheus. The range of power 
 implied in the production of these two dramas | 
 within twelve months, each so great, and so unlike, 
 is rarely to be paralleled among the poets below 
 those of the highest order. It is all the more 
 wonderful when we think that about the same time 
 such poems were also created as the Sensitive Plant, ( 
 the Skylark, the Cloud, Arethusa, and the Ode to the 
 West Wind. The last alone is enough to place ; 
 Shelley apart from the other lyrical poets of England. 
 In it, as in the Prometheus, and still more splendidly, 
 all his powers and his poetic subjects are wrought into 
 a whole. The emotion awakened by the approaching 
 storm sets on fire other sleeping emotions in his 
 heart, and the whole of his being bursts into flame 
 around the first emotion. This is the manner of the 
 genesis of all the noblest lyrics. He passes from 
 magnificent union of himself with Nature and mag- 
 nificent realisation of her storm arid peace, to equally 
 great self-description, and then mingles all nature 
 and all himself together, that he may sing of the resto- 
 ration of mankind. There is no song in the whole 
 of our literature more passionate, more penetrative, 
 more full of the force by which the idea and its form 
 are united into one creation. 
 
 This time, during which Shelley's twofold being 
 was married for creative work, did not last long. The 
 two elements always tended to separate, and now the 
 special Shelley element, which fled from man into
 
 xviii PREFACE. 
 
 the recesses of his own heart, or communed with the 
 ideal Nature which he made for himself out of the 
 apparent world, began to absorb him, and finally 
 drove out the other. 
 
 At the beginning of this reaction he was still gay, 
 often bright ; and the Letter to Maria Gisborne is 
 one of the rare poems in which Shelley is at peace. 
 An air of home and happiness flows through its 
 familiar and melodious verse. The Witch of Atlas 
 also belongs to this time ; a poem m which he sent 
 his imagination out, like a child into a meadow, with- 
 out any aim save to enjoy itself. Now and again 
 Shelley himself, as it were from a distance, alters or 
 arranges the manner of the sport, as if with some in- 
 tention, but never so much as to spoil the natural 
 wildness of the Imagination's play. Enough is done 
 to suggest that there may be a meaning in it all, but 
 not enough to tell that meaning. " I mean nothing," 
 Shelley would have said ; " I did not write the poem. 
 My imagination made it of her own accord." Nor was 
 he so self-absorbed at first as wholly to neglect the 
 cause of man. The Ode to Liberty, the Odt to Xaples, 
 belong to this summer and autumn of 1820. 
 
 We pass into the isolated poet with the Sensitive 
 Plant, the companionless flower ; and from this time 
 forth the old Shelley, who loved Mankind, is dead. 
 The only exception is the choral drama of Hellas, 
 written in a transient enthusiasm for the cause of 
 Greece. " I try to be what I might have been,"
 
 PREFACE. xix 
 
 he says, "but am not successful. It was written 
 without much care, and in one of those few moments 
 of enthusiasm which now seldom visit me, and which 
 make me pay dear for their visits." Two poems, how- 
 ever, preceded Hellas ; Epipsychidion and Adonais. 
 Both are written by the lonely arYisTT^'ot'Ts^ereany 
 trace in them of the Shelley who prophesied for Man. 
 Of Epipsychidion I have spoken in the notes of 
 this book. The ideal passion, in which it originated, 
 hid him in the light of thought, far away from 
 humanity, and he never quite got back again. 
 
 Adonais, awakened in him not only by his sym- 
 pathy with Keats, but also by the resemblance of the 
 fate of Keats to his own, is almost as much concerned 
 with Shelley as with its subject. There is nothing 
 in English poetry so steeped in passionate personality 
 as the description of himself in stanzas xxxi-iv. It 
 is almost too~"clOse, too unveiled,^i6lo^irrr?nse to have 
 been written. The only other poet for Byron's self- 
 description is written with a view to effect who has 
 approached the wild self-sorrow of it, is Cowper, 
 and he uses the same simile of the stricken stag. 
 The poem is, as Shelley said, "a highly wrought 
 piece of art." Its abstract spirituality, and its philo- 
 sophy, remove it from the ordinary apprehension, 
 and are the cause why it is less read than Alastor, 
 But, in truth, Shelley himself, and the scenery and 
 personages he creates in this abstract realm, are 
 more real in this poem than in others which have to
 
 xx PREFACE. 
 
 do with the actual world. It suited him to write 
 about a spirit, and he wrote as he were himself a 
 spirit. The Dreams which hover round Adonais, the 
 Splendours and Glooms, Morning with the tears 
 in her hair, Spring wild with grief, Echo singing in 
 the hills, Urania flying to mourn beside the bier 
 Shelley has succeeded in giving them all being. 
 While we read, we believe in the" reality of this 
 world as we believe in our dreams while we dream. 
 The power of doing this is unique, and is due not 
 only to imagination at its height, but also to keenness 
 of abstract intellect. His grip of these impalpable 
 personages is quite certain. He creates them, and 
 then he sees and hears them. Owing to this the 
 conduct of the poem is clear. The unremitting 
 beauty of the lines so engages attention as at first to 
 forbid an analysis of the arrangement, but when that 
 analysis is made, the pleasure Adonais gives is not 
 disturbed, but doubled. And how passionate it is 
 throughout, more passionate than most of his love 
 poems ! It is unceasingly strange, and the strange- 
 ness adds, from outside, to the charm of Shelley's 
 poetry, to find him writing with a far greater in- 
 tensity of feeling about the sorrow of Urania and 
 the Dreams, about the Spirit of Love in the Universe, 
 about Keats in the spiritual world, and about his 
 own wearied and solitary heart, than he ever writes 
 about men or women, about human love, or about the 
 personal suffering of others.
 
 PREFACE. xxi 
 
 A new element of isolation, that created by a 
 passion which circumstances forbade him to pursue, 
 separated him now, at the close of his life, still more 
 from Mankind, and in that temper he died. But 
 there are some proofs, to which I shall afterwards 
 draw attention, that he would, as before, have passed 
 out of this lonely inner life, and found himself again 
 in sympathy with the external. Had he lived, he 
 would have once more appeared as the Singer of 
 Man, and in the cause of men. But the swift wind 
 and the mysterious sea, the things he loved, slew 
 their lover a common fate and we hear no more 
 his singing. His work was done, and its twofold 
 nature may well be imaged by the Sea that received 
 into its uninhabited breast his uncompanioned spirit ; 
 for, while its central depths know only solitude, over 
 its surface are always passing to and fro the life and 
 fortunes of humanity. 
 
 But the sea gave up its dead, and all of Shelley's ' 
 body that was rescued from flood and fire lies now j 
 where the rise of the ground ends, in a dark nook / 
 of the Aurelian wall. So deep is that resting-place 
 in shadow that the violets blossom later there than 
 on " the slope of green access " where, seen from 
 ShelleyT'grave, the flowers grow over the dust of 
 Adonais. We may be glad that both were buried 
 in Italy rather than in England, for, though no 
 Italian could have written their poetry, yet it was, 
 in all things else different, of that spirit which 
 c
 
 xxii PREFACE. 
 
 Italy awakens in Englishmen who love her, rather 
 than of the purely English spirit. The Italian air, 
 the sentiment of Italy, fled and dreamed through 
 their poems, but most through those of Shelley. It 
 was but fitting, then, that Shelley, whose fame was 
 England's, should be buried in the city which is the 
 heart of Italy. But he was born far away from this 
 peaceful and melancholy spot, and grew up to man- 
 hood under the grey skies of England, until its 
 Universities, its Church, its Society, its Law and its 
 dominant policy became inhospitable to him, nay, even 
 his own father cast him out. They all had, in the 
 opinion of sober men of that time, good cause to make 
 him a stranger, for he attacked them all, and it would 
 be neither wise or true, nor grateful to Shelley himself, 
 were he to be put forward as a genius unjustly treated, 
 or as one who deserved or asked for pity. Those who 
 separate themselves from society, and war against its 
 dearest maxims, if they are as resolute in their choice, 
 and as firm in their beliefs as Shelley, count the cost, 
 and do not or rarely complain when the penalty is 
 exacted. He was exiled, and it was no wonder. The 
 opinion of the world did not trouble him, nor was that 
 a wonder. But as this exile is the most prominent fact 
 of his life, its influence is sure to underlie his work. 
 The second question that any one who writes of Shelley 
 has to ask, is, How did this exile from the Education, 
 Law, Religion, and Society of his country, and from 
 the soil of his country itself, affect his poetry ?
 
 PREFACE. xxiii 
 
 It had a very great influence, partly for good and 
 partly for evil. The good it did is clear. It deepened 
 his individuality and the power which issued from 
 that source. It set him free from the poetic con- 
 ventions to which his art might have yielded too 
 much obedience in England a good which the obs- 
 curity of Keats also procured for him it prevented 
 him from being worried too much by the blind worms 
 of criticism, it enabled him to develop himself more 
 freely, and it placed him in contact with a natural 
 scenery, fuller and sunnier than he could ever have 
 had in England, in which his love of beauty found so 
 happy and healthy a food that it came to perfect 
 flower. In Italy also, where impulse even more than 
 reason urges intelligence and inspires genius, lyrical 
 poetry, which is born of impulse, is more natural 
 and easy, though not better, than elsewhere, and the 
 very inmost spirit of Shelley, deeper than his meta- 
 physics or his love of Man and inspiring both, 
 deeper even than any personal passion, was the lyri- 
 cal longing of his whole body, soul, and spirit " O 
 that I had wings like a dove ; then would I flee away, 
 and be at rest." 
 
 But the good this exile did his art was largely 
 counterbalanced by its harm. Shelley's individuality, 
 unchecked by that of others, grew too great, and 
 tended not only to isolate him from men, but to pre- 
 vent his art from becoming conversant enough with 
 human life. The absence of critical sympathy of a
 
 XXIT PREFACE. 
 
 good kind, such as that which flows from one poet 
 to another in a large society, left some of his work, 
 as it left some of Keats', more formless, more intem- 
 perate, more impalpable, more careless, more apart 
 from the realities of life, than it ought to have been 
 in the most poetical of poets since the days of 
 Elizabeth. Even in his lyric work, the impassioned 
 impulse would have failed less often to fulfil its form 
 perfectly ; there would not have been so many frag- 
 ments thrown aside for want of patience or power to 
 complete them, had he been less personal, less sub- 
 ject to individual freakishness, more subject to the 
 unexpressed criticism which floats, as it were, in the 
 air of a large literary society, and constrains the art 
 of the poet into measured act and power. And as to 
 Nature, we should perhaps have had, with his genius, 
 a much wider and less ideal representation of her, had 
 he not been so enthralled by the vastness and home- 
 lessness of Swiss, and by the ideality of Italian 
 scenery. Even when he did write in England itself, 
 the recollected love of Switzerland and the Rhine 
 mingled with the impressions he received from the 
 Thames, and produced a scenery, as in certain pass- 
 ages in Alastor and the Revolt of Is/am, which is not 
 directly studied from anything in heaven or earth. 
 
 I It is none the worse for that, but it is not Nature, it 
 
 1 is Art. 
 
 These are general considerations, but there were 
 some more particular results, partly good and partly
 
 PREFACE. xxv 
 
 evil, of this separation of Shelley from the ordinary 
 religious and political views of English society. 
 
 A good deal of his poetry became polemical, and 
 polemical, like satiric poetry, is apart from pure art. 
 It attacks evil directly, and the poet, his mind being 
 then fixed not on the beautiful but on the base, writes 
 prosaically. Or it embodies a creed in verse, and, 
 being concerned with doctrine, becomes dull. In both 
 cases the poet misses, as Shelley did, that inspiration 
 of the beautiful which arises from the seeing of truth, 
 not from the seeing of a lie ; from the love of true ideas, 
 not from their intellectual perception. The verses, for 
 example, in the Ode to Liberty, which directly attack 
 kingcraft and priestcraft, however gladly one would 
 see their sentiments in prose, are inferior as poetry 
 to all the rest ; and it is the same throughout all 
 Shelley's poetry of direct attack on evil. This polemi- 
 cal element in the Revolt of Islam, and the endeavour 
 to lay down in it his revolutionary creed, are addi- 
 tional causes of the wastes of prosaic poetry which 
 make it so unreadable. The very splendour and 
 passion of the passages devoted to Nature and Love 
 contrast so sharply, like burning spaces of sunlight 
 on a grey sea, with the wearisome whole, that they 
 lose half their value, and disturb, like so much else, 
 the unity of the poem. The same things seem true 
 of Rosalind and Helen, and of those political poems 
 which are direct attacks on abuses in England. On 
 the other hand, when Shelley wrote on these evils in-
 
 xxvi PREFACE. 
 
 directly, inspired by the opposing truths, concerned 
 with their beauty, and borne upwards by delight in 
 them, his work entered the realm of art, and his 
 poetry became magnificent. There is no finer ex- 
 ample of this than Prometheus Unbound. The subject 
 is at root the same~as~tnat ot tne Revolt of Islam, 
 the things opposed are the same, the doctrine is the 
 same, but the whole method of approaching his idea 
 and fulfilling its form is changed, and all the ques- 
 tions are brought into that artistic representation 
 which stirs around them inspiring and enduring 
 emotion. 
 
 The good Shelley did in this way was very great. 
 At a time when England, still influenced by its ab- 
 horrence of the Reign of Terror, by its fear of France 
 and Napoleon, was most dead to the political ideas 
 that had taken form in 1789, Shelley gave voice, 
 through art, to these ideas, and encouraged that hope 
 of a golden age which, however VSgtte, does so much 
 fortuman progress. He threw around these things 
 imaginative emotion, and added all its power to the 
 struggle for freedom. 
 
 Still greater is the unrecognised work he did in 
 the same way for theology in England. That theology 
 was no better than air theology had become under 
 the influence of the imperial and feudal ideas of 
 Europe. Its notion of God, and of man in relation 
 to God, partly Hebraic, and therefore sacerdotal and 
 sacrificial, partly deeply dyed with asceticism and
 
 PREFACE. xxvii 
 
 other elements derived from the Oriental notion of 
 the evil of matter, was further modified by the politi- 
 cal views of the Roman Empire, transferred to God 
 by the Roman Church. And when the universal .' 
 ideas regarding mankind, and a return to nature, 
 were put forth by France, they clashed instantly with 
 this limited, sacerdotal, ascetic, aristocratic, and feudal 
 theology. The sovereign right of God, because He 
 was omnipotent, to destroy the greater part of His 
 subjects, the right of a caste of priests to impose their 
 doctrines on all, and to exile from religion all who did 
 not agree with them ; the view that whatever God was 
 represented to do was right, though it might directly 
 contradict the nature, the conscience, and the heart of 
 Man ; these, and other related views had been brought 
 to the bar of humanity, and condemned from the 
 intellectual point of view by a whole tribe of thinkers. . 
 But if a veteran theology is to be disarmed and slain, ; 
 it needs to be brought not only into the arena of \ 
 thought and argument, but into the arena of poetic J 
 emotion. A great part of that latter work was done 
 in England by Shelley. He indirectly made, as time 
 went on, an ever-increasing number of men feel that 
 the will of God could not be in antagonism to the 
 universal ideas concerning Man, that His character 
 could not be in contradiction to the moralities of the - 
 heart, and that the destiny He willed for mankind | 
 must be as universal and as just and loving as Himself. | 
 There are more clergymen, and more religious lay-
 
 xxviii PREFACE. 
 
 men than we imagine, who trace to the emotion 
 Shelley awakened in them when they were young, 
 their wider and better views of God. Many men, 
 also, who were quite careless of religion, yet cared 
 for poetry, were led, and are still led, to think con- 
 
 Icerning the grounds of a true worship, by the moral 
 enthusiasm which Shelley applied to theology. He 
 
 ' made emotion burn around it, and we owe to him 
 a great deal of its nearer advance to the teaching 
 
 j of Christ. But we owe it, not to those portions 
 of his poetry which denounced what was false and 
 evil, but to those which represented and revealed, 
 in delight in its beauty, what was good and true. 
 Had he remained in England, I do not think he 
 would have worked on this matter in the ideal way of 
 Prometheus Unbound, because continual contact with 
 the reigning theology would have driven his easily 
 wrought anger into direct violence. In Italy, in 
 exile, it was different. The polemical temper in 
 which he wrote the Revolt of Islam changed into the 
 poetical temper in which he wrote Prometheus Un- 
 bound. 
 
 Connected with this, but not with his exile, is the 
 question, in what way his belief as to a Source of 
 
 I Nature influenced his art. He was not an atheist or 
 a materialist. If he may be said to have occupied any 
 theoretical position, it was that of an Ideal Pantheist ; 
 the position which, with regard to Nature, a modern 
 poet who cares for the subject, naturally whatever 
 
 -
 
 PREFACE. xxix 
 
 may be his personal view adopts in the realm of his 
 art. Wordsworth, a plain Christian at home, wrote 
 about Nature as a Pantheist : the artist, as I said, 
 loves to conceive of the Universe, not as dead, but 
 as alive. Into that belief Shelley, in hours of inspira- 
 tion, continually rose, and his work is seldom more 
 impassioned and beautiful than in the passages where 
 he feels and believes in this manner. The finest 
 example is towards the close of the Adonais. In 
 his mind However^ n?e^TrvTng~~spTrrt" wTTicK, in its 
 living, made the Universe, was not conceived of as 
 Thought, as Wordsworth conceived it, but as Love 
 operating into Beauty ; and there is a passage on 
 this idea in the fragment of the Coliseum, which 
 is as beautiful in prose as that in Adonais is in 
 verse. But it is only in higher poetic hours that 
 Shelley seems or cares to realise this belief. In the 
 quieter realms of poetry, in daily life, he confessed 
 no such creed plainly ; he had little or no belief in 
 a thinking or loving existence behind the phenomenal 
 universe. It is infinitely improbable, he says, that the 
 cause of mind is similar to mind. Nothing can be 
 more characteristic of him and he has the same 
 temper in other matters than that he should have a 
 faith with regard to a Source of Nature, into which 
 he could soar when he pleased, in which he could live 
 for a time, but which he did not choose to live in, 
 to define, or to realise, continuously. When, in the 
 Prometheus Unbound, he is forced, as it were, to
 
 xxx PREFACE. 
 
 realise a central cause, he creates Demogorgon, the 
 dullest of all his impersonations. ft"Is scarcely an 
 impersonation. Once he calls it a " living spirit," but 
 it has neither form nor outline in his mind. He 
 keeps it before him as an " awful Shape." 
 
 The truth is, the indefinite was a beloved element of 
 his life. " Lift not the painted veil," he cries, " which 
 tKosJTwho live call Life." His worst pain was when 
 he thought he had lifted it, and seemed to know the 
 reality. But he did not always believe that he had 
 done so, or he preferred to deny his conclusion. 
 Not as a thinker in prose, but as a poet, he fre- 
 quently loved the vague with an intensity which 
 raised it almost into an object of worship. The 
 speech of the Third Spirit, in the Ode to Heaven, 
 \ is a wonderful instance of what I may call the rapture 
 ( in indefiniteness. But this rapture had its other side, 
 and when he was depressed by ill-health, the sense 
 of a voiceless, boundless abyss, which for ever held 
 its secret, and in which he floated, deepened his de- 
 pression. The horror of a homeless and centreless 
 heart which then beset him, is passionately expressed 
 in the Cenci. Beatrice is speaking 
 
 I" Sweet Heaven, forgive weak thoughts, if there should be 
 No God, no Heaven, no Earth, in the void world ; 
 The wide, grey, lampless, deep, unpeopled world." 
 
 But, on the whole, whether it brought him pain or 
 joy, he preferred to be without a fixed belief with regard
 
 PREFACE. xxxi 
 
 to a source of Nature. Could he have done otherwise, 
 could he have given continuous substance in his 
 thoughts to the great conception of ideal Pantheism 
 in which Wordsworth rested, Shelley's whole work on 
 Nature and his description of her would have been 
 more direct, palpable, and homely. He would have 
 loved Nature more, and made us love it more. 
 
 The result of all this is that a great deal of his 
 poetry of Nature has no ground in thought, and con- 
 sequently wants power. It is not that he could not 
 have had this foundation and its strength. Both are 
 his when he chooses. But, for the most part, he did 
 not choose. Such was his temperament that he liked 
 better to live with Nature and be without a centre for 
 her. He would be 
 
 Dizzy, lost but unbe wail ing. 
 
 But I am not sure whether the love of the un- 
 defined did not, in the first instance, arise out of his 
 love of the constantly changing, and that itself out ot 
 the very character of his intellect, and the temper of 
 his heart. His intellect, incessantly shaken into 
 movement by his Imagination, continually threw into 
 new shapes the constant ideas he possessed. His 
 heart, out of which are the issues of imagination, 
 loved deeply a few great conceptions, but wearied 
 almost immediately of any special form in which he 
 embodied them, and changed it for another. In the 
 matter of human love, he was uncontent with all the
 
 xxxii PREFACE. 
 
 earthly images he formed of the ideal he had loved 
 and continued to love in his own soul, and he could 
 not but tend to change the images. In the ordinary 
 life of feeling, the moment any emotion arose in his 
 heart, a hundred others came rushing from every 
 quarter into the original feeling, and mingled with it, 
 and changed its outward expression. Sometimes 
 they all clamoured for expression, and we see that 
 Shelley often tried to answer their call. It is when 
 he does this that he is most obscure obscure through 
 abundance of feelings and their forms. HisTntellect, 
 heart, and imagination were in a kind of Heraclitean 
 flux, perpetually evolving fresh images, and the new, 
 in swift succession, clouding the old ; and then, impa- 
 tient weariness of rest or of any one thing whatever, 
 driving forward within him this incessant movement, 
 he sank, at last and for the time, exhausted " As 
 summer clouds disburdened of their rain." 
 
 There is no need to illustrate this from his poetry. 
 The huddling rush of images, the changeful crowd of 
 thoughts are found on almost every page. It is often 
 onlythe oneness of the larger underlying emotion or 
 idea which makes the work clear. We strive to 
 grasp a Proteus as we read. In an instant the 
 tKought or the feeling Shelley is expressing becomes 
 impalpable, vanishes, reappears in another form, and 
 then in a multitude of other forms, each in turn elud- 
 ing the grasp of the intellect, until at last we seize 
 the god himself, and know what Shelley meant, or
 
 PREFACE. xxxiii 
 
 Shelley felt. In all this he resembles, at a great dis- 
 tance, Shakspere ; and has, at that distance, and in 
 this aspect of his art, a strength and a weakness 
 similar to, but not identical with, that which Shak- 
 spere possessed, the strength of changeful activity 
 of imagination, the weakness of being unable, through 
 eagerness, to omit, to select, to co-ordinate his images. 
 Yet, at his highest, when the full force of genius is 
 urged by full and dominant emotion, what poetry it is ! 
 How magnificent is the impassioned unity of the whole 
 in~spite~of the diversity of the parts ! But this lofty 
 height is reached in only a few of Shelley's lyrics, and 
 in a few passages in his longer poems. 
 
 At almost every point, the scenery of the sky he 
 
 *> 
 
 drew so fondly images this temper of Shelley's mind, 
 this incessant building and unbuilding, this cloud- 
 changefulness of his imagination. 
 
 I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 
 
 And out of the caverns of rain, 
 Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb 
 
 I arise and unbuild it again. 
 
 That is a picture of Shelley himself at work on a 
 feeling or on a thought. " I change, but I cannot 
 die." 
 
 I might illustrate this love of the changing from 
 the history of his life, of his affections, of his theories ; 
 from his varied nature, and way of work, as the prose 
 thinker and the poet ; from the variety of the sub-
 
 xxxiv PREFACE. 
 
 jects on which he wrote, and which he half at- 
 tempted for he naturally fell into the fragmentary 
 from the eagerness with which he searched for new 
 thought, new experiences of feeling, new literatures, 
 even from his love of the strange and sometimes of 
 the horrible ; from that uncontent he had in the 
 doctrines of others, until he had added to them, as 
 he did to Plato's doctrine of Love, something of his 
 own in order to make them new, were there any 
 necessity to enlarge on that which stands so clear. 
 In all these things, what was said of Shelley's move- 
 ments to and fro in the house at Lerici is true of his 
 . movement through the house of thought or of feeling. 
 " Oh, he comes and goes like a spirit, no one knows 
 when or where." But it remains to be said, that all 
 through this secondary changefulness, he held fast to 
 certain primary ideas of life, of morality, and of his 
 art, which no one who cares for him can fail to dis- 
 cover. 
 
 There was, then, in Shelley this love of indefinite- 
 ness, and this love of changefulness. Which of the 
 two was the cause of the other I cannot tell, but I 
 am inclined to think that the latter was the first. It 
 is better, however, to keep them both equally in view 
 in the study of Shelley's art, and they are both well 
 illustrated in his poetry of Nature. 
 
 II have said that his love of the indefinite with 
 regard to a source of Nature weakened his work on 
 Nature. His love of changefulness also weakened it
 
 , y 
 
 PREFACE. xxxv 
 
 by luring the imagination away from a direct sight of 
 the thing into the sight of a multitude of images 
 suggested by the thing. 
 
 But in the case of those who have great genius, that 
 which enfeebles one part of their work often gives 
 strength to another, and in three several ways these 
 elements in Shelley's mind made his work on Nature 
 of great value. 
 
 i. His love of that which is indefinite and changeful / 
 made him enjoy and describe better than any other 
 English poet that scenery of the clouds and sky 
 which is indefinite owing to infinite change of ap- 
 pearance. The incessant forming and unforming of 
 the vapours which he describes in the last verse of 
 The Cloud, is that which he most cared to paint. 
 Wordsworth often draws, and with great force, the j 
 aspect of the sky, and twice with great elaboration in 
 the Excursion; but it is only a momentary aspect, 
 and it is mixed up with illustrations taken from the 
 works of men, with the landscape of the earth below 
 where men are moving, with his own feelings about 
 the scene, and with moral or imaginative lessons. 
 Shelley, when he is at work on the sky, troubles it 
 with none of these human matters, and he describes 
 not only the momentary aspect, but also the change 
 and progress of the sunset or the storm. And he 
 does this with the greatest care, and with a charac- 
 teristic attention to those delicate tones and half- 
 tones of colour which resemble the subtle imagina-
 
 xxxvi PREFACE. 
 
 tions and feelings he liked to discover in human 
 Nature, and to which he gave form in poetry. 
 j In his very first poem, in Queen Mab (Part II.), 
 there is one of these studies of Sunset. It is splendidly 
 eclipsed by that in the beginning of Julian and Mad- 
 dalo, where the Euganean Hills are lifted away from 
 the earth and made a portion of the scenery of the sky. 
 A special moment of sunset, with the moon and the 
 evening-star in a sky reddened with tempest, is given 
 in Hellas, but here, being in a drama, it is mingled with 
 the fate of an empire. The Dawns are drawn with 
 the same care as the sunsets, but with less passion. 
 There are many of them, but the most beautiful per- 
 
 Ihaps is that in the beginning of the second Act of the 
 Prometheus. The changes of colour, as the light in- 
 creases in the spaces of pure sky and in the clouds, 
 are watched and described with precise truth ; the 
 . slow progress of the dawn, during a long time, 
 i is noted down line by line, and all the movement 
 I of the mists and of the clouds " shepherded by 
 the slow unwilling wind." Nor is that minuteness 
 of observation wanting which is the proof of careful 
 love. Shelley's imaginative study of beauty is re- 
 vealed in the way the growth of the dawn is set 
 before us by the waxing and waning of the light of 
 the star, as the vapours rise and melt before the morn. 
 The Storms are even better than the sunsets and 
 , dawnsTTKave drawn attention in the notes to the 
 finest of these in the first canto of the Revolt of Islam.
 
 PREFACE. xxxvii 
 
 There is another description at the beginning of the 
 eleventh canto of the same poem (p. 82 of this book), 
 in which the vast wall of blue cloud before which grey 
 mists are flying is cloven by the wind, and the sun- 
 beams, like a river of fire flowing between lofty banks, 
 pour through the chasm across the sea, while the shat- 
 tered vapours which the coming storm has driven forth 
 to make the opening, are tossed, all crimson, into the 
 sky. This is a favourite picture of Shelley's. In the 
 Vision of the Sea it is transferred from sunset to sun- 
 rise. The fierce wind comin'g" from the west rushes 
 like a flooded river upon the dense clouds which are 
 piled in the east, and rends them asunder, and through 
 the gorge thus cleft 
 
 the beams of the sunrise flow in, 
 
 Unimpeded, keen, golden and crystalline, 
 
 Banded armies of light and air. 
 
 The description is a little over-wrought, but criticism 
 has no voice when it thinks that no other poet has > 
 ever attempted to render, with the same absolute ) 
 loss of himself, the successive changes, minute by 
 minute, of such an hour of tempest and of sunrise. 
 We are alone with Nature ; I might even say, We 
 see Nature alone with herself. Still greater, more 
 poetic, less sensational, is the approach of the gale in 
 the Ode to the West Wind, where the wind itself is the 
 river on which the forest of the sky shakes down its 
 foliage of clouds, and these are tossed upwards like a 
 Maenad's " uplifted hair," or trail downwards, like 
 d
 
 xxxviii PREFACE. 
 
 the " locks" of Typhon, 1 the vanguard of the tempest. 
 In gathered mass behind, the congregated might of 
 vapours is rising to vault the heaven like a sepulchral 
 dome. Nothing can be closer than the absolute truth 
 to the working of the clouds that fly before the main 
 body of a storm, which is here kept in the midst ot 
 these daring comparisons of the imagination. 
 
 The same delight in the indefinite and changeful 
 aspects of Nature appears in Shelley's power of de- 
 scribing vast landscapes, such as that seen at noon- 
 tide from the Euganean Hills, or that which the poet 
 in Alastor looks upon from the edge of the mountain 
 precipice. Both swim in the kind of light that makes 
 all objects undefined, deep noon, and sunset light. 
 
 Kindred to this is Shelley's pleasure in the in- 
 tricate, changeful, and incessant weaving and un- 
 weaving of nature's life in a great forest. In the 
 Recollection it is the Pisan Pineta he describes, and 
 that is a painting directly after Nature. But he 
 has his own ideal forest, of which he tells in Alastor, 
 in Rosalind ^antTffelen, in the Triumph of Life, 
 and again and again in the Prometheus. It is 
 no narrow wood, but a universe of forest ; full of all 
 trees and flowers, in which are streams, and pools, and 
 lakes, and lawny glades, and hills, and caverns ; and 
 in whose multitudinous scenery Shelley's imagination 
 
 1 I wonder that Mr. Ruskin has not quoted this verse in 
 the " Angel of the Sea" (Modern Painters, vol. v.) Shelley's 
 lines might well form a text for that chapter.
 
 PREFACE. xxxix 
 
 could lose and find itself without an end. The special 
 love of caverns, with their dim recesses, adds an- 
 other characteristic touch. These then, The scenery 
 of the sky, of the forest, of the vast plaiiv are tlie 
 aspects of nature Shelley loved the most, and out of 
 the weakness that elsewhere made him too indefinite, 
 and too uncertain through desire of change, for 
 Wordsworth's special kind of descriptive power, arose 
 the force with which he realised them. 
 
 2. Again, just because Shelley had no wish to 
 conceive of Nature as involved in one definite thought, 
 he had the power of conceiving the life of separate 
 things in Nature with astonishing individuality. When 
 he wrote of the Cloud, or of Arethusa, or of the Moon, 
 or of the Earth, as distinct existences, he was not led 
 away from their solitary personality by any universal 
 existence in which they were merged, or by the 
 necessity of adding to these any tinge of humanity, 
 any elements of thought or love, such as the Pantheist 
 is almost sure to add. His^ imagination was free to 
 realise pure Nature, and the power by which he does 
 this, as well as the work done, are quite unique in 
 modern poetry. Theology, with its one Creator of 
 the Universe ; Pantheism, with its " one spirit's 
 plastic stress ;" Science with its one Energy, forbid 
 the modern poet, whose mind is settled into any one of 
 these three views, to see anything in Nature as having 
 a separate life of its own. He cannot, as a Greek 
 could do, divide the life of the Air from that of the
 
 xl PREFACE. 
 
 Earth, of the cloud from that of the stream. But 
 Shelley, able to loosen himself from all these modern 
 conceptions which unite the various universe, could 
 and did, when he pleased, divide and subdivide the 
 life of Nature in the same way as a Greek and this 
 is the cause why even in the midst of wholly modern 
 imagery and a modern manner, one is conscious of a 
 
 (Greek note in many passages of his poetry of Nature. 
 The little poem on the Dawn might be conceived by 
 a primitive Aryan. It is l a Nature myth. But 
 Shelley's conceptions of the life of these natural 
 things are less human than even the Homeric 
 Greek or early Indian poet would have made them. 
 They described the work of Nature in terms of 
 human act. Shelley's spirits of the Earth and 
 Moon are utterly apart from our world of thought 
 and from our life. Of this class of poems The Cloud 
 is the most perfect example. It describesTthe life 
 of the Cloud as it might have been a million years 
 before man came on earth. The " sanguine Sunrise " 
 and the " orbed Maiden," the moon, who are the play- 
 mates of the cloud, are pure elemental beings. 
 
 The same observation is true if we take a poem on 
 
 I a living thing in Nature, like The Skylark, into which 
 human sentiment is introduced. The sentiment be- 
 longs to Shelley, not to the lark. The bird has joy, 
 but it is not our joy. It is " unbodied joy," nor " can 
 we come near it." Wordsworth's Skylark is truer, 
 1
 
 PREFACE. xli 
 
 perhaps, to the everyday life of the bird, and the poet 
 reTnembers, because he loves his own home, that the 
 singer will return to its nest ; but Shelley sees and hears 
 the bird who, in its hour of inspired singing, will not 
 recollect that it has a home. Wordsworth humanises 
 the whole spirit of " the pilgrim of the sky " " True 
 to the kindred points of heaven and home." Shelley 
 never brings the bird into contact with us at all. It 
 is left in the sky, singing ; it will never leave the sky. 
 It is the archetype of the lark we seem to listen to, 
 and yet we cannot conceive it, we have no power 
 " What thou art we know not." The flowers in the 
 Sensitive Plant have the same apartness from human- 
 ity, and are wholly different beings and in a different 
 world from the Daisy or the Celandine of Wordsworth. 
 
 It is only the Sensitive Plant, and that is Shelley him- 
 
 self, which has an inner sympathy with the Lady of 
 the garden. 
 
 Shelley, then, could isolate and perceive distinct 
 existences in Nature as if he were himself one of these 
 existences. It was a strange power, and we naturally 
 cannot love with a human love things so represented. 
 In Wordsworth's poems we touch the human heart of 
 flowers and birds. In Shelley's we touch "Shapes 
 that haunt Thought's wildernesses." Yet it is quite 
 possible, though we cannot feel affection for Shelley's 
 Cloud or Bird, that they are both truer to the actual 
 fact of things than Wordsworth made his birds and 
 clouds. Strip off the imaginative clothing from The
 
 xlii PREFACE. 
 
 Cloud, and Science will support every word of it. Let 
 the Skylark sing, let the flowers grow, for their own 
 joy alone. In truth, what sympathy have they, what 
 sympathy has Nature with Man ? We may not like 
 to think of Nature in this way ; we are left quite cold 
 by The Cloud, and by the spirits of the Earth and 
 Moon in the Prometheus; and if we are not left as 
 cold by The Skylark, it is because we are made to 
 think of our own sorrow, not because we care for the 
 bird. But whether we like or no to see Nature in 
 this fashion, we should be grateful for these unique 
 representations, and to the poet who was able to 
 make them. In this matter also Shelley's want of 
 a central and uniting Thought in Nature made his 
 strength. 
 
 The other side of Shelley's relation to Nature is a 
 remarkable contrast to this statement. When he was 
 absorbed in his own being, and writing poems which 
 concerned himself alone, he makes Nature the mere 
 image of his own feelings, the creature of his mood. 
 In his "life alone doth Nature live." This was 
 the natural result, at these times, of his intellectual 
 rejection of such Pantheism as enabled Wordsworth 
 always to distinguish between himself and the Nature 
 he perceived. The Nature Wordsworth saw we can 
 love well, because it is not ourselves never a reflec- 
 
 ition of ourselves. The Nature such as Shelley saw 
 in Alastor is not easy to love, because it is ourselves 
 in other form. For this reason also we are not able
 
 PREFACE. xliii 
 
 to love Nature, when thus represented by Shelley, so 
 well as we love her in Wordsworth. 1 
 
 3. Lastly, on this subject, the vagueness and change- 
 fulness of Shelley's feeling and view of Nature, except 
 in the instances mentioned, the dreams and shadows of 
 it in his poetry that incessantly form and dissolve like 
 the upper clouds of the sky, each fleeting while its 
 successor is being born, and few living long enough 
 to be outlined, are the only images we possess in art, 
 save perhaps in music, of the many hours we ourselves 
 pass with Nature when we neither think nor feel, but 
 drift and dream incessantly from one impression to 
 another, enjoying, but never defining our enjoyment, 
 receiving moment by moment, but never caring to say 
 to any single impression, " Stay and keep me com- 
 pany." In this thing also, Shelley's weakness made 
 his power. 
 
 This want of definite belief and of its force belongs 
 also to his conception of the ideal state of mankind. He 
 does not see quite clearly what he desires for man, and 
 describes the golden age chiefly by negatives of wrong. 
 At times he rises into a passionate realisation of his 
 
 1 Shelley's love of the undefined and changing is still 
 further illustrated by the fact that we see Nature in his 
 poetry in these three ways on all of which I have dwelt. 
 We sometimes look on her as the ideal Pantheist beholds 
 her ; we look on her again as the mere reflection of the 
 poet's moods ; we look on her often as she may be in her- 
 self, apart from theories about her, apart from man.
 
 xliv PREFACE. 
 
 Utopia, as he rises into Pantheism, but he cannot long 
 remain in it. The high-wrought prophecy, too weak to 
 keep the height it has gained, sinks down again and 
 again into an abyss of seeming hopelessness. The 
 last stanza of the Ode to Liberty is the type of many 
 an hour of his life, and of the close of many a poem. 
 
 ^But he never let hopelessness or depression master 
 him. Shelley is full of resurrection power, and the 
 fall from the peak of prophecy is more the result of 
 reaction after impassioned excitement, than the 
 result of any unbelief in his hopes for men, or in that 
 on which they were grounded. 
 
 These hopes, that belief, had their strong foundation. 
 There was one thing at least that Shelley grasped 
 and realised with force in poetry the moralities of the 
 heart in their relation to the progress of Mankind. 
 Love and its eternity ; mercy, forgiveness, and en- 
 durance, as forms of love ; joy and freedom, justice 
 and truth as the results of love ; the sovereign right of 
 Love to be the ruler of the Universe, and the cer- 
 tainty of its victory, these were the deepest realities, 
 the only absolute certainty, the only centre in Shelley's 
 mind ; and \vhene\er. in hehaif of the \\hule Race, he 
 speaks of them, and of the duties and hopes that follow 
 from them, strength is then instinctive and vital in 
 his imagination. Neither now nor hereafter can 
 
 (men lose this powerful and profound impression. It 
 is Shelley's great contribution to the progress of 
 humanity.
 
 PREFACE. xlv 
 
 But he could not combine with this large view 
 and this large sympathy with the interests of Man, 
 personal sympathy with personal human life. That 
 is absent from his poetry, and his want of it was 
 confirmed by his exile. Confined to a small circle 
 of which he was the centre, among foreigners, feel- 
 ing himself repudiated by the society of his own 
 country, and incapable of such quiet association with 
 the lives of men and women as Wordsworth loved 
 and enjoyed, it is no wonder that large spaces of 
 human life are entirejv unreflected ancTunidealisedin 
 his poetry. Thejcommon human Tieart was not his , 
 theme, n<>r did he care to write of it. And, so far, he / 
 is less universal than Wordsworth, and less the great 
 poet. But on the other hand he did t\vo things, in 
 his work on human nature, that Wordsworth could not 
 do. First, he realised in song, so far as it was pos- 
 sible, the impalpable dreams of the poetic tempera- 
 ment, those which, when they arise in happiness, he 
 expresses in the little poem, On a poefs lips I slept, 
 and others also less joyous the lonely wanderings of 
 regretful thought, the imagination in its hours of child- 
 like play with images, the moments when we are on 
 the edge where emotion and thought incessantly 
 change into one another, the visions of Nature which 
 we compose but which are not Nature, the sorrows 
 and depressions which have no name and to which we 
 allot no cause, the depths of passionate fancy when 
 we have not only no relation to mankind, but hate
 
 xlvi PREFACE. 
 
 to feel that relation. Of all this Wordsworth gives 
 us nothing ; and though what he does give us is of 
 more use and worth to us as men who have to do 
 with men, yet Shelley's work in this is dear to our 
 personal life, and has in fact as much to do with 
 one realm of humanity as the sorrow of Michael, or 
 the daily life of the dalesmen have with another. 
 English poetry needed the expression of these things ; 
 Shelley's expression of them is unique, but I doubt 
 whether he would ever have expressed them in so 
 complete a way had he not been thrown into isola- 
 tion. 
 
 Secondly, there is an element almost altogether 
 wanting in Wordsworth, the absence of which forbids 
 us to class him as a poet who has touched all the 
 ' important sides of human life the element of passion- 
 i ate love. A few of his poems, such as Barbara, 
 or in another kind, Laodameia, solemnly glide into it 
 and retreat, but on the whole, this, the most univer- 
 sal subject of lyric poetry, was not felt by Words- 
 worth. It was felt by Shelley, but not quite naturally, 
 not as Burns, or even Byron felt it. Love, in his 
 poetry, sometimes dies into dreams, sometimes likes 
 
 I its imagery better than itself. It is troubled with a 
 philosophy ; it seems now and again to be even 
 bored, if I may be allowed the word, by its own 
 ideality. As Shelley soared but rarely into definite 
 Pantheism, so he rose but rarely into definite passion, 
 nor does he often care to realise it. It was frequently
 
 PREFACE. xlvii 
 
 his deliberate choice to celebrate the love which did 
 not "deal with flesh and blood," and as frequently, when 
 he writes directly of love, he prefers to touch the lip 
 of the cup, but not to drink, lest in the reality he 
 should lose the charm of indefiniteness, of ignorance, 
 of pursuit. Of course he was therefore fickle. 
 
 For this very reason, however, two realms in this 
 aspect of his art belong to him. Neither of them 
 is the realm of joyous passion, but one is the realm 
 of its ideal approaches, and the other the realm of 
 its ideal regret. No one has expressed so well the 
 hopes, and fears, and fancies, and dreams, which the 
 heart creates for its own pleasure and sorrow, when 
 it plays with love which it realises within itself, but 
 which it never means to realise without ; and this is 
 a realm which is so much lived in by many that they 
 ought to be grateful to Shelley for his expression of 
 it. No one else has done it, and it is perfectly done. 
 
 But still more perfect, and perhaps more beautiful 
 than any other work of his, are the poems written in 
 the realm of ideal Regret. Whenever he came close 
 to c-urthly love, touched it, and then of his own will 
 passed it by, it became, as he looked back upon it, 
 ideal, and a part of that indefinite world he loved. 
 The ineffable regret of having lost that which one did 
 not choose to take, is most marvellously, most pas- 
 sionately expressed by Shelley. Song after song 
 records it. The music changes from air to air, but 
 the theme is the same, and so is the character of the
 
 xlviii PREFACE. 
 
 music. And, like all the rest of his work, it is 
 unique. 
 
 But in this matter, a change passed over Shelley 
 before he died. It is impossible not to feel that 
 the poems written for Mrs. Williams, a whole chain 
 of which exist, are different from the other love 
 poems. They have the same imaginative qualities 
 as the previous songs, and they belong also to the 
 two realms of which I have written above, but there 
 is a new note in them, the beginning of the unmis- 
 takable directness of passion. It is, of course, 
 modified by the circumstances, but there it is. And 
 it is from the threshold of this actual world that he 
 looks back on Epipsychidion and feels that it belonged 
 to " a part of him that was already dead." The 
 philosophy which made Emilia the shadow of a 
 spiritual Beauty is conspicuous by its total absence 
 from all these later love poems. Moreover, they are 
 not, like the others, all written in the same atmo- 
 sphere. The atmosphere of ideal love, however 
 varied its cloud-imagery, is always the same thin ether. 
 But these poems breathe in the changing atmo- 
 sphere of the Earth, and they one and all possess 
 reality. Every one feels that Ariel to Miranda, 
 The Invitation, The Recollection^ have the variety of 
 true passion. But none of them reach the natural 
 joy of Burns in passionate love. Two exceptions, 
 however, exist, both dating from this time, and both 
 written away from his own life the Bridal Song,
 
 PREFACE. xlix 
 
 and the song To Night. These seem to prove that, 
 had Shelley lived, we might have had from him 
 vivid, fresh, and natural songs of passion. 
 
 Had he lived ! Had not the sea been too envious, 
 what might we not have possessed and loved ! It 
 were too curious perhaps to speculate, but Shelley 
 seems to have been recovering the power of working 
 on subjects beyond himself, in the quiet of those last 
 days at Lerici. He was always capable of rising 
 again, and the extreme clearness and positive ele- 
 ment of his intellect acted, like a sharp physician, 
 on his passion-haunted heart and freed it, when it 
 was out-wearied with its own feeling, from self-slavery. 
 
 While still at Pisa, at the beginning of 1822, 
 Shelley set to work on a Drama, Charles /., the 
 motive of which was to be the ruin of the king through 
 pride and its weakness, the same motive as Coriolatms. 
 It Vas to be ""tne birth of severe and high feelings," 
 and to transcend the Cenci as a work of art. But 
 severe feeling was not then the temper of his mind, 
 nor could he at that time lose himself enough to create 
 an external world. He laid the play aside, saying that 
 he had not sufficient interest in English history to 
 continue it. Yet it is plain, even from the fragments 
 we possess, how great was the effort Shelley then made 
 to realise, even more than in the Cend, other charac- 
 ters than his own. There is not a trace in it of his 
 own self. It is full of steady power, power more at its 
 ease than in the Cetici. The characters stand clear,
 
 1 PREFACE. 
 
 and are carefully distinguished, so as not only to repre- 
 sent the various elements in England which brought 
 about, in their clashing together, the ruin of mon- 
 archy, but also to show the forces and weaknesses in 
 each of the greater personages which led to their 
 personal ruin or success. The unconscious move- 
 ment of Shelley's imagination within the speeches 
 set to each character in vivid illustration, in quick 
 invention of changes of feeling, and in its harmonis- 
 ing of the whole and the parts, is, like the excellence 
 just mentioned, in the manner of Shakspere's art, and 
 approaches his strength. Archy, the fool, is made per- 
 haps too imaginative in phrase, yet he is much nearer 
 than any other poet's creation of the same kind to the 
 fools of Shakspere, so wise because they are half mad. 
 Yet neither in this, nor in the rest, does Shelley 
 directly imitate Shakspere here, as he sometimes does 
 in the Cenci. The principles of Shakspere's art are 
 followed ; the work itself is quite original. The same 
 thing is true of the blank verse. It is built on the 
 model of Shakspere's, but it is Shelley's own, and its 
 movement, sure to be beautiful in the hands of this 
 master of all melody in all kinds of verse, is more free, 
 more fitted to the changing moods of the speakers, 
 and more delightful than it is in the Cenci. The 
 noble speech of Hampden, with which this fragment 
 concludes, illustrates and confirms all I have said. It 
 is quite plain that it cannot be said of the artist who 
 did this piece of work that he had exhausted his vein.
 
 PREFACE. li 
 
 It becomes still more clear that Shelley would have 
 done far more for us when we consider the Triumph 
 of Life, to write which he threw aside Charles I. I 
 have excluded it from these Selections, only because 
 it is unfinished. It is difficult to comprehend, for it 
 is but an introduction, the bearing of which could 
 only have been explained by the rest of the poem. 
 The terza rima, the broken condition in which we 
 have what was written, and the visionary', allegorical 
 element, make it still more difficult. But it was the 
 last thing he wrote, and he may have been composing 
 it when he was overwhelmed. Over it gathers, then, 
 all the tenderness which belongs to last words, and 
 all their interest. What were his thoughts, we ask, 
 about life now ? Can we understand anything from 
 this fragment of what he was at Lerici ? 
 
 I will close this Preface with an analysis of this 
 remarkable poem, nor can I close it better. The 
 Triumph of Life is the gravest thing Shelley ever 
 wrote, and it has a deep interest for this generation. 
 Its personal interest as a revelation of his view of 
 life, of the change of some of his views on moral 
 matters, of his retention of youthful theories, can ^ 
 scarcely be over-estimated. 
 
 It opens with a noble picture of sunrise] filled with 
 solemn and stately images, and more disengaged 
 from self than any of Shelley's previous work. He 
 then describes himself passing into a waking trance, 
 in which he is conscious that in some previous exist-
 
 lii PREFACE. 
 
 ence he has been in the same place, and heard and 
 seen the same things. And in that trance he sees a 
 Vision. 
 
 He finds himself on a dusty and flowerless road, 
 on either side of which is a forest full of sweet streams 
 and flowers and lawns, and on the road a multitude 
 of folk, old age and youth, and manhood and infancy, 
 all hastening onward like a torrent. This represents, 
 under the common allegory, the ordinary life of men. 
 What kind of life that now seemed to Shelley is de- 
 scribed in the lines which begin 
 
 " Some flying from the thing they feared," 
 
 but of all this crowd, none, so hurried and so serious 
 was their folly, could hear the sweetness of the stream or 
 know the beauty of the wood. Nor did any understand 
 and this was the universal condition, "whither 
 he went or whence he came, or why he made one of 
 the multitude." Life is an inexplicable secret, and in 
 the terrible attraction this secret has for men and in 
 their failure to solve it, lies the reason of the victory 
 Life wins over its victims. In the midst of this crowd 
 the Triumph passes by. As the throng grew wilder, a 
 cold glare, that obscured the sun with a false light, 
 came, and in the glare a chariot, and in the chariot, 
 Life, the Conqueror. None could see its incommuni- 
 cable face, double-hooded, double-caped, over its head 
 a cloud-like crape ; nor its form, crouching like age 
 within the car, as one who sat in the shadow of a
 
 PREFACE. lili 
 
 tomb ; while the etherial gloom that poured forth from 
 this dread Shape tempered the fierce light in which the 
 chariot moved. Every image in this allegorical repre- 
 sentation tells of the mystery of life, the unfathomable 
 riddle that none could penetrate, but which conquered 
 and led all captive. It is this thought which is the 
 foundation of the Poem. The deep concealment is 
 doubled by the further imagery. The Charioteer is a 
 four-faced Shadow Time itself, perhaps, with its three 
 faces that look into the present, the past, and the future ; 
 but its eyes are banded so that it cannot see while in 
 the service of Life. The winged shapes that draw 
 the car are lost to sight in thick lightnings. And 
 the Charioteer guides the car blindly, so that its course 
 is aimless. Life itself knows not where it is conducted. 
 Before the car is tfie wild" 6!alrice 'cT^outn*, seeking in 
 tempestuous pleasure to find the secret of Life, and out- 
 speeding Life ; behind it, the foul and impotent dance 
 of age, still cleaving to Life, still limping to reach the 
 glare of Life's light ; and the youths and maidens are 
 overtaken and trampled by the car of Life into foam 
 like the barren sea-foam, and the old sink into cor- 
 rupted dust. 1 These are the common crew who have 
 only sought to live according to impulse and desires. 
 There are others, however, who do not belong to 
 the two bands before and behind, but are dragged, 
 chained captives, along with the triumphal car. These 
 
 1 The whole of this may be compared with Tennyson's 
 Vision of Sin. 
 
 e
 
 ,iv PREFACE. 
 
 are they who tried to know what Life was, or to con- 
 quer it ; who laboured, but in vain ; who died and 
 never knew the secret. 
 
 All those who had grown old in power 
 Or misery, all who had their age subdued 
 By action or by suffering, 
 
 alike the famous and the infamous. Only a few are 
 not seen there, are not captives the Prophets of 
 Mankind, who touched the world with flame, and then 
 fled back to their native noon ; who put aside the 
 diadem ; who were not victims of Life, because they 
 despised all that Life could offer ; who conquered its 
 secret by not caring to penetrate it, of whom the types 
 were they of Athens and Jerusalem Socrates and 
 Christ. 
 
 In his trance Shelley asks, What is this ? And a 
 Shape, like an old root by the wayside, who is 
 Rousseau, answers him that it is the pageantry of 
 Life's Triumph, and that if Shelley can forbear to join 
 the dance as he does forbear he will unfold that to 
 which this deep scorn this thing worthy of deep 
 scorn has led him and his companions. " Then, 
 if you want further knowledge, follow the car ; for 
 me, I am weary, nor would corruption now inherit so 
 much of Rousseau 
 
 " if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit 
 Had been with purer sentiment supplied." 
 
 Who are those chained to the car? Shelley asks.
 
 PREFACE. Iv 
 
 " The wise, the great, the unforgotten," who were 
 wise, but did not know themselves. Their love, their 
 might, that won for them empire, " could not repress 
 the mystery within." For at the last, that fierce 
 mystery shrouded in the car, Life, and the question 
 what it is, arose in their soul and conquered them, 
 and deep night swallowed them. 
 
 Napoleon is then seen, and all the conquerors of 
 the world by force of arms or intellect, chained to 
 Life's car and vanquished by its scornful secret. I 
 myself, speaks Rousseau, was overcome by my own 
 heart alone, that nothing in the world could temper 
 to its object.^ 
 
 The course of the vision is here interrupted by two 
 speeches of Shelley's, and both of them are meant to 
 mark his present apartness from the throng of Life 
 and his disdain of those who, through desire of con- 
 quest or fame, were slaves to Life. The last of these 
 speeches, and Rousseau's answer to it, are steeped in 
 Shelley's passionate sense that humanity was but an 
 imagery of anT~e'ternal Oneness ^Behind it, which, 
 reflected in the ever-changing mirror of circumstance 
 and nature, made its infinite variety. But all the 
 reflections are reflections, nothing more. The same 
 thought is in Adonais, Hi. Here, it is 
 
 Figures ever new 
 Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may ; 
 
 1 How close to truth !
 
 Ivi PREFACE. 
 
 We have but thrown, as those before us threw, 
 Our shadows on it as it passed away. 
 
 Then he sees, captives also, " the mighty phantoms 
 of an elder day." Plato expiating his too great feel- 
 ing of joy and of sorrow, not his own master, whom 
 Life conquered at last by love ; Aristotle, Alexander, 
 whose conquests the Life of the world finally made 
 nought ; the Elder Bards, " who quelled 
 
 "The passions which they sung, as by their strain 
 May well be known : their living melody 
 Tempers its own contagion to the vein 
 Of those who are infected with it." 
 
 Even these, who quelled passions, are captive to Life, 
 because they were too curious of the passions, and 
 because they knew their work would stir in others 
 the passions they themselves subdued. But they are 
 of a higher cast than Rousseau, who, like Shelley, 
 "suffered what he wrote," and whose words have seeds 
 of misery. 
 
 Then the dreamer sees the Emperors of Rome 
 and her great Bishops, whose power was given but 
 to destroy ; and, sick at heart, turns again to Rous- 
 seau (if, as I think, there is no long break here in the 
 poem, and the " leader " mentioned is still Rousseau 
 and not another), and asks him how his course 
 began and why. Rousseau then tells his tale and 
 that of the pageant ; and portions of the story are 
 so like what Shelley has at other times said of his 
 own life, that it seems as if he would have partly
 
 PREFACE. Ivii 
 
 told his own story in the tale that Rousseau tells. 
 Rousseau thinks that if Shelley would become actor 
 or victim instead of spectator in this wretchedness, 
 and follow the Conqueror 
 
 What thou wouldst be taught I then may learn 
 
 From thee. 
 
 That is, he would learn from Shelley's fate to under- 
 stand his o\vn. 
 
 A new phase of the allegory now begins ; the story 
 of a single life and its overthrow by Life. Rousseau 
 describes himself asleep at the portals of this and 
 of the antenatal world, a place here imaged as a 
 cavern, through which flows a stream in which all 
 things are forgotten. All those who are in the 
 pageant of life have also been, as we understand at 
 the end, asleep in this oblivious valley. When he 
 arose into being, in infancy, he says that all things 
 around kept the trace of some diviner light than that 
 of earth, and melodies that confused the sense of 
 earthly things were heard. This is the half Platonic 
 conception of reminiscence. Boyhood comes, imaged 
 by the brightness of morning that floods the cavern, 
 and then, a Shape all light stood before him, flinging 
 freshness, and in her hand a cup of nepenthe. It is 
 the Spirit of the aspirations and dreams of youth, the 
 vision of Beauty Shelley saw, the Vision which, in dif- 
 ferent forms, all the creators see. She leads the youth 
 forth out of the cave, and as he follows her all his 
 thoughts were strewn under her feet like embers, and,
 
 Iviii PREFACE. 
 
 thought by thought, she quenched them, and all that 
 was, seemed, as he gazed, as if it had been not. That 
 is the swift succession of aspiration, thought, and feel- 
 ing, each dying as its successor is born, which we 
 know when we are young, and the sense, then also 
 ours, of all the outward world becoming, in the pur- 
 suit of the ideal, as if it had no real being. At last 
 the mystery of life which cannot be repressed, begins 
 to stir within the youth. He can no longer resist the 
 fatal question all must ask, and " Show whence I 
 came, he cries, and where I am, and why." " Arise 
 and quench thy thirst," the Shape replies ; and as 
 he drank the cup, this Dream of youth grew dim, and 
 her light a light of heaven that hereafter glimmered 
 only, forever sought again, forever lost waned in the 
 glare of the Masque of Life that now rushed through 
 the forest. It is the entrance into manhood, life as 
 it is in the world of action. He sees and it seems 
 the answer to his question the car in which Life 
 itself is borne, its captives, and those who played, or 
 gazed ; or followed, or out-speeded the car all as yet 
 young. He himself plunges into " the thickest billows 
 of that living storm," but before the chariot had begun 
 to climb the steep of middle age a new wonder grew. 
 The weariness, the cruel working of life's secret, 
 begins to exhaust and destroy all the pleasure, all the 
 eagerness, with which men at the first follow the chariot 
 of Life. The way in which Shelley images this change, 
 and the cause he assigns for it, are as imaginative
 
 PREFACE. lix 
 
 as they are original. Shadows began to people the 
 grove, dense flocks of phantoms, of various quality 
 and shape, who hid in the capes of kings, and rode 
 across the tiara of popes ; and some were old ana- 
 tomies that hatched broods, and whose dead eyes 
 took power and gave it to those who ruined earth ; 
 and some fell like flashes of discoloured snow on 
 the bosoms of the young and were melted by the 
 glow which they extinguished ; and others, like small 
 gnats, thronged about the brows of lawyer, states- 
 man, priest, and theorist. Shelley invents all kinds 
 of them, and each has its meaning. These are the 
 thoughts, written or spoken, the work and the pas- 
 sions of men ; all that men have poured forth from 
 their hearts or impressed upon the world ; the old 
 theologies, the old doctrines of kingcraft whose dead 
 eyes have power ; the political theories, poetry, philo- 
 sophies, which have been sent forth from the begin- 
 ning of humanity, but which poured forth so fast and 
 furious before the Revolution. Rousseau knows 
 whence they came. " Each one 
 
 "Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly 
 These shadows." 
 
 Shadows as they were, form was given them by the 
 creative rays of the car, for all the thoughts and feel- 
 ings of men are moulded by the mystery of life. And 
 so moulded, and darkening all the ways of the pageant 
 with the sense of the deep mystery that gave them
 
 Ix PREFACE. 
 
 shape, they did their work, and hour by hour the un- 
 conquerable secret, embodied in the forms given to it 
 by the infinite questioning of men, destroyed its 
 victims. 
 
 From every form the beauty slowly waned ; 
 From every firmest limb and fairest face 
 The strength and freshness fell like dust 
 
 And long before the day of life 
 
 Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glance 
 The sleepers in the oblivious valley died ; 
 And some grew weary of th ghastly dance, 
 And fell as I have fallen, by the wayside ; 
 
 And those fell soonest who had done most creative 
 work ; who had thought and felt and expressed the 
 most the more passionate, whether for good or evil, 
 the worse off. 
 
 Those soonest from whose forms most shadows passed, 
 And least of strength and beauty did abide. 
 "Then what is Life?" I cried. 
 
 And with that cry all that Shelley wrote is ended.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY i 
 
 THE POET'S PHILOSOPHY 4 
 
 THE POET'S WORLD 5 
 
 ALASTOR 6 
 
 THE Two SPIRITS. AN ALLEGORY . . . .31 
 LINES 33 
 
 POEMS ON DEATH 
 
 A Summer Evening Churchyard 35 
 
 Sonnet 36 
 
 Sonnet 37 
 
 Peace 37 
 
 " The Babe is at peace " 37 
 
 The Dirge of Ginevra 38 
 
 The Dirge of Beatrice . . . -39 
 
 Sleep and Death ...... 40
 
 Ixii CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 " SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY " 
 
 To Wordsworth 4 1 
 
 The Snake and Eagle 42 
 
 The Mask of Anarchy 47 
 
 Song 53 
 
 Sonnet .54 
 
 Sonnet 55 
 
 Ode to Liberty 56 
 
 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES 
 
 Ozymandias . . . . . .66 
 
 Time 67 
 
 The Seasons 67 
 
 Spring ........ 68 
 
 June 69 
 
 Summer and Winter ...... 7 
 
 Autumn .' . 71 
 
 Dirge for the Year 7 2 
 
 Mutability 73 
 
 To-morrow ....... 74 
 
 Lines 74 
 
 The Past 75 
 
 Time Long Past 75 
 
 Lines . . 76 
 
 SONGS OF LOVE 
 
 Love's Philosophy 77 
 
 From the Arabic 78 
 
 The Indian Serenade 78 
 
 To . 79
 
 CONTENTS. Ixiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SONGS OF LOVE continued 
 
 Song for "Tasso" ...... 80 
 
 Love Left Alone . . ., . . .81 
 
 A Song . .82 
 
 Love and Parting ...... 82 
 
 To F. G . . . .84 
 
 Fiordispina 85 
 
 To Night 86 
 
 A Bridal Song ....... 87 
 
 s- JULIAN AND MADDALO A Conversation ... 89 
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN 
 
 Mont Blanc. Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni in 
 
 The Alps at Dawn 116 
 
 Lines written among the Euganean Hills . . 117 
 
 >^ The World's Wanderer 129 
 
 To the Moon 129 
 
 Stanzas. Written in dejection, near Naples . 130 
 
 ***^ A Fragment 131 
 
 The Forest at Evening ..... 132 
 
 Italy and Sorrow T 33 
 
 The Zucca 134 
 
 To a Skylark 137 
 
 The Nightingale 141 
 
 ^The Woodman and the Nightingale . . . 142 
 
 The Tower of Famine 145 
 
 Evening. Ponte a Mare, Pisa .... 146 
 
 " And like a Dying Lady " .... 147 
 
 " When soft Winds " 147
 
 Ixiv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE 
 
 Passage of the Apennines 148 
 
 The Cloud . . . . . . .149 
 
 The Dawn I5 2 
 
 / Dawn and Desire IS 2 
 
 Twilight and Desire 153 
 
 All Sustaining Love 154 
 
 Song of Spirits ....... 155 
 
 Hymn to Asia 156 
 
 Echo Song to Asia . . . . . .158 
 
 The Spirits of the Earth and the Moon . . 159 
 
 The Moon and the Earth 164 
 
 The Music of the Woods 169 
 
 CLASSIC POEMS OF NATURE 
 
 Hymn of Apollo . . . . . 173 
 
 Hymn of Pan 175 
 
 The Birth of Pleasure 176 
 
 Arethusa 177 
 
 Song of Proserpine. While gathering flowers on 
 
 the Plain of Enna 180 
 
 POEMS OF HOME LIFE 
 
 To Mary Shelley 181 
 
 To William Shelley 182 
 
 To William Shelley 182 
 
 Letter to Maria Gisborne . . . . .183 
 
 The Aziola 194 
 
 The Boat on the Serchio 195 
 
 The Witch of Atlas 198
 
 CONTENTS. Ixv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS 201 
 
 THE QUESTION . 224 
 
 To Emilia Viviani ..... 226 
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. Verses addressed to the noble and 
 unfortunate Lady Emilia Viviani, now impri- 
 soned in the Convent of St. Anne, Pisa . . 227 
 
 FRAGMENT 247 
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, AND ITALY 
 
 ,. Ode to Naples 
 
 Greece to Slavery ...... 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Chorus ........ 
 
 The New World 
 
 Life may change ...... 
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 266 
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS 
 
 To Edward Williams 278 
 
 Song 280 
 
 A Lament 282 
 
 A Dirge 282 
 
 To- 283 
 
 Lines 283 
 
 To 284 
 
 With a Guitar, to Jane 285
 
 Ixvi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS continued 
 
 To Jane The Invitation 288 
 
 To Jane The Recollection . . . .290 
 
 Remembrance ... .... 293 
 
 Lines written in the Bay of Lerici . . . 294 
 
 ADONAIS ; An elegy on the death of John Keats . 296 
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 317 
 
 NOTES 321 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES ...... 337
 
 POEMS FROM SHELLEY
 
 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 
 
 THE awful shadow of some unseen Power 
 Floats tho' unseen amongst us, visiting 
 This various world with as inconstant wing 
 As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, 
 Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, 
 
 It visits with inconstant glance 
 
 Each human heart and countenance ; 
 Like hues and harmonies of evening, 
 
 Like clouds in starlight widely spread, 
 
 Like memory of music fled, 
 
 Like aught that for its grace may be 
 Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. 
 
 Spirit of BEAUTY^ that dost consecrate 
 
 With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon 
 Of human thought or form, where art thou gone? 
 Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, 
 This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? 
 Ask why the sunlight not for ever 
 Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river, 
 Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, 
 Why fear and dream and death and birth 
 Cast on the daylight of this earth 
 Such gloom, why man has such a scope 
 For love and hate, despondency and hope ? 
 B
 
 2 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 
 
 No voice from some sublimer world hath ever 
 To sage or poet these responses given 
 Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, 
 Remain the records of their vain endeavour, 
 Frail spells whose uttered charm might not avail to 
 
 sever, 
 
 From all we hear and all we see, 
 Doubt, chance, and mutability. 
 Thy light alone like mist o'er mountains driven, 
 Or music by the night wind sent, 
 Thro' strings of some still instrument, 
 Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 
 Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. 
 
 Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart 
 And come, for some uncertain moments lent. 
 Man were immortal, and omnipotent, 
 
 Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 
 
 Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. 
 Thou messenger of sympathies, 
 That wax and wane in lovers' eyes 
 
 Thou that to human thought art nourishment, 
 Like darkness to a dying flame ! 
 Depart not as thy shadow came, 
 Depart not lest the grave should be, 
 
 Like life and fear, a dark reality. 
 
 While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped 
 Thro' many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, 
 And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 
 Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 
 1 called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed, 
 I was not heard I saw them not 
 When musing deeply on the lot
 
 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 3 
 
 Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing 
 
 All vital things that wake to bring 
 
 News of birds and blossoming, 
 
 Sudden, thy shadow fell on me ; 
 I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy ! 
 
 I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 
 
 To thee and thine have I not kept the vow ? 
 With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now 
 I call the phantoms of a thousand hours 
 Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned 
 
 bowers 
 
 Of studious zeal or love's delight 
 Outwatched with me the envious night 
 They know that never joy illumed my brow 
 
 Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
 This world from its dark slavery, 
 That thou O awful Loveliness, 
 Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. 
 
 The day becomes more solemn and serene 
 When noon is past there is a harmony 
 In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 
 Which thro' the summer is not heard or seen, 
 As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! 
 Thus let thy power, which like the truth 
 Of nature on my passive youth 
 Descended, to my onward life supply 
 
 Its calm to one who worships thee, 
 And every form containing thee, j 
 
 Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind 
 To fear himself, and love all human kind. 
 
 1816.
 
 THE POET'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 THE POET'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 [WE] look on that which cannot change the One, 
 
 The unborn and the undying. Earth and Ocean, 
 
 Space, and the isles of life or light that gem 
 
 The sapphire floods of interstellar air ; 
 
 This firmament, pavilioned upon chaos, 
 
 With all its cressets of immortal fire, 
 
 Whose outwall, bastioncd Impregnably 
 
 Against the escape of boldest thoughts, repels them 
 
 As Calpe the Atlantic clouds this Whole 
 
 Of suns, and worlds, and men, and beasts, and flowers, 
 
 With all the silent or tempestuous workings 
 
 By which they have been, are, or cease to be, 
 
 Is but a vision ; all that it inherits 
 
 Are motes of a sick eye, bubbles and dreams ; 
 
 Thought is its cradle and its grave, nor less, 
 
 The future and the past are idle shadows 
 
 Of thought's eternal flight they have no being ; 
 
 Nought is but that which feels itself to be. 
 
 Hellas.
 
 THE POET'S WORLD. 
 
 THE POET'S WORLD. 
 
 ON a poet's lips I slept 
 
 Dreaming like a love-adept 
 
 In the sound his breathing kept ; 
 
 Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, 
 
 But feeds on the aerial kisses 
 
 Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. 
 
 He will watch from dawn to gloom 
 
 The lake-reflected sun illume 
 
 The yellow bees in the ivy bloom, 
 
 Nor heed nor see what things they be ; 
 
 But from these create he can 
 
 Forms more real than living man, 
 
 Nurslings of immortality. 
 
 1 " ^Prometheus Unbound.
 
 Slastor, 
 
 " Nondum amabam, et amare amabatn, quaerebam quid amarem, 
 amans amare." Confess. St. Augustine. 
 
 THE poem entitled " ALASTOR" may be considered as alle- 
 gorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human 
 mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and 
 adventurous genius, led forth, by an imagination inflamed 
 and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and 
 majestic, to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks 
 deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. 
 The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks 
 profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, and affords to 
 their modifications a variety not to be exhausted. So long 
 as it is possible for his desires to point towards objects thus 
 infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous and tranquil and self- 
 possessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease 
 to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened, and 
 thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself. 
 He images to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant 
 with speculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, 
 the vision in which he embodies his own imaginations unites 
 all of wonderful or wise or beautiful which the poet, the 
 philosopher, or the lover, could depicture. The intellectual 
 faculties, the imagination, the functions of sense, have their 
 respective requisitions on the sympathy of corresponding 
 powers in other human beings. The Poet is represented as 
 uniting these requisitions, and attaching them to a single 
 image. He seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. 
 Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an untimely 
 grave. 
 
 The picture is not barren of instruction to actual men.
 
 ALASTOR; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 7 
 
 The Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the Furies 
 of an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin. But 
 that power which strikes the luminaries of the world with 
 sudden darkness and extinction, by awakening them to too 
 exquisite a perception of its influences, dooms to a slow and 
 poisonous decay those meaner spirits that dare to abjure its 
 dominion. Their destiny is more abject and inglorious, as. 
 their delinquency is more contemptible and pernicious. They 
 who, deluded by no generous error, instigated by no sacred 
 thirst of doubtful knowledge, duped by no illustrious super- 
 stition, loving nothing on this earth, and cherishing no hopes 
 beyond, yet keep aloof from sympathies with their kind, re- 
 joicing neither in human joy nor mourning with human grief; 
 these, and such as they, have their apportioned curse. They 
 languish, because none feel with them their common nature. 
 They are morally dead. They are neither friends, nor 
 lovers, nor fathers, nor citizens of the world, nor benefactors 
 of their country. Among those who attempt to exist with- 
 out human sympathy, the pure and tender-hearted perish, 
 through the intensity and passion of their search after its 
 communities when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly makes 
 itself felt. All else, selfish, blind, and torpid, are those un- 
 foreseeing multitudes who constitute, together with their 
 own, the lasting miser)' and loneliness of the world. Those 
 who love not their fellow-beings live unfruitful lives, and 
 prepare for their old age a miserable grave. 
 
 " The good die first, 
 
 And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust, 
 Bum to the socket !" 
 
 EARTH, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood ! 
 
 If our great Mother has imbued my soul 
 
 With aught of natural piety to feel 
 
 Your love, and recompense the boon with mine ; 
 
 If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, 
 
 With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
 
 8 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 And solemn midnight's tingling silentness ; 
 If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, 
 And winter robing with pure snow and crowns 
 Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs ; 
 If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes 
 Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me ; 
 If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast 
 I consciously have injured, but still loved 
 And cherished these my kindred ; then forgive 
 This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw 
 No portion of your wonted favour now ! 
 
 Mother of this unfathomable world ! 
 Favour my solemn song, for I have loved 
 Thee ever, and thee only ; I have watched 
 Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps, 
 And my heart ever gazes on the depth 
 Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed 
 In charnels and on coffins, where black death 
 Keeps record of the trophies won from thee, 
 Hoping to still these obstinate questionings 
 Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost 
 Thy messenger, to render up the tale 
 Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, 
 When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, 
 Like an inspired and desperate alchymist 
 Staking his very life on some dark hope, 
 Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks 
 With my most innocent love, until strange tears 
 Uniting with those breathless kisses, made 
 Such magic as compels the charmed night 
 To render up thy charge : . . . and, though ne'er yet 
 Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 9 
 
 Enough from incommunicable dream, 
 
 And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought, 
 
 Has shone within me, that serenely now 
 
 And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre 
 
 Suspended in the solitary dome 
 
 Of some mysterious and deserted fane, 
 
 I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain 
 
 May modulate with murmurs of the air, 
 
 And motions of the forests and the sea, 
 
 And voice of living beings, and woven hymns 
 
 Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. 
 
 There was a Poet whose untimely tomb 
 No human hands with pious reverence reared, 
 But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds 
 Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid 
 Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness : 
 A lovely youth, no mourning maiden decked 
 With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath, 
 The lone couch of his everlasting sleep : 
 Gentle, and brave, and generous no lorn bard 
 Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh : 
 He lived, he died, he sung, in solitude. 
 Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes, 
 And virgins, as unknown he past, have pined 
 And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes. 
 The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn, 
 And Silence, too enamoured of that voice, 
 Locks its mute music in her rugged cell. 
 
 By solemn vision, and bright silver dream, 
 His infancy was nurtured. Every sight 
 And sound from the vast earth and ambient air,
 
 io ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 Sent to his heart its choicest impulses. 
 
 The fountains of divine philosophy 
 
 Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great, 
 
 Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past 
 
 In truth or fable consecrates, he felt 
 
 And knew. When early youth had past, he left 
 
 His cold fireside and alienated home 
 
 To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands. 
 
 Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness 
 
 Has lured his fearless steps ; and he has bought 
 
 With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, 
 
 His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps 
 
 He like her shadow has pursued, where'er 
 
 The red volcano overcanopies 
 
 Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice 
 
 With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes 
 
 On black bare pointed islets ever beat 
 
 With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves 
 
 Rugged and dark, winding among the springs 
 
 Of fire and poison, inaccessible 
 
 To avarice or pride, their starry domes 
 
 Of diamond and of gold expand above 
 
 Numberless and immeasurable halls, 
 
 Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines 
 
 Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite. 
 
 Nor had that scene of ampler majesty 
 
 Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven 
 
 And the green earth lost in his heart its claims 
 
 To love and wonder ; he would linger long 
 
 In lonesome vales, making the wild his home, 
 
 Until the doves and squirrels would partake 
 
 From his innocuous hand his bloodless food, 
 
 Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. u 
 
 And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er 
 The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend 
 Her timid steps to gaze upon a form 
 More graceful than her own. 
 
 His wandering step 
 Obedient to high thoughts, has visited 
 The awful ruins of the days of old : 
 Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste 
 Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers 
 Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, 
 Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange 
 Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, 
 Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx, 
 Dark /Ethiopia in her desert hills 
 Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, 
 Stupendous columns, and wild images 
 Of more than man, where marble daemons watch 
 The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men 
 Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, 
 He lingered, poring on memorials 
 Of the world's youth, through the long burning day 
 Gazed on those speechless shapes, nor, when the moon 
 Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades 
 Suspended he that task, but ever gazed 
 And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind 
 Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw 
 The thrilling secrets of the birth of time. 
 
 Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food, 
 Her daily portion, from her father's tent, 
 And spread her matting for his couch, and stole 
 From duties and repose to tend his steps :
 
 12 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe 
 
 To speak her love : and watched his nightly sleep, 
 
 Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips 
 
 Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath 
 
 Of innocent dreams arose : then, when red morn 
 
 Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home 
 
 Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned. 
 
 The Poet, wandering on, through Arabic 
 And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, 
 And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down 
 Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, 
 In joy and exultation held his way ; 
 Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within 
 Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine 
 Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, 
 Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched 
 His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep 
 There came, a dream of hopes that never yet 
 Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid 
 Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. 
 Her voice was like the voice of his own soul 
 Heard in the calm of thought ; its music long, 
 Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held 
 His inmost sense suspended in its web 
 Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues. 
 Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme, 
 And lofty hopes of divine liberty, 
 Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, 
 Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood 
 Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame 
 A permeating fire : wild numbers then 
 She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 13 
 
 Subdued by its own pathos : her fair hands 
 
 Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp 
 
 Strange symphony, and in their branching veins 
 
 The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale. 
 
 The beating of her heart was heard to fill 
 
 The pauses of her music, and her breath 
 
 Tumultuously accorded with those fits 
 
 Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose, 
 
 As if her heart impatiently endured 
 
 Its bursting burthen : at the sound he turned, 
 
 And saw by the warm light of their own life 
 
 Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil 
 
 Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare, 
 
 Her dark locks floating in the breath of night, 
 
 Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips 
 
 Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. 
 
 His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess 
 
 Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled 
 
 His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet 
 
 Her panting bosom : . . . she drew back a while, 
 
 Then, yielding to the irresistible joy, 
 
 With frantic gesture and short breathless cry 
 
 Folded his frame in her dissolving arms. 
 
 Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night 
 
 Involved and swallowed up the vision ; sleep, 
 
 Like a dark flood suspended in its course, 
 
 Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain. 
 
 Roused by the shock he started from his trance 
 The cold white light of morning, the blue moon 
 LowTrTtfie west,~tTie"'cTeaf v an3 garish hills, 
 The distinct valley and the vacant woods, 
 Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled
 
 14 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 The hues of heaven that canopied his bower 
 
 Of yesternight ? The sounds that soothed his sleep, 
 
 The mystery and the majesty of Earth, 
 
 The joy, the exultation ? His wan eyes 
 
 Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly 
 
 As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. 
 
 The spirit of sweet human love has sent 
 
 A vision to the sleep of him who spurned 
 
 Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues 
 
 Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade ; 
 
 He overleaps the bound. Alas ! alas ! 
 
 Were limbs, and breath, and being intertwined 
 
 Thus treacherously ? Lost, lost, for ever lost, 
 
 In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep, 
 
 That beautiful shape ! Does the dark gate of death 
 
 Conduct to thy mysterious paradise, 
 
 O Sleep ? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds, 
 
 And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake, 
 
 Lead only to a black and watery depth, 
 
 While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung, 
 
 Where every shade which the foul grave exhales 
 
 Hides its dead eye from the detested day, 
 
 Conduct, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms ? 
 
 This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart, 
 
 The insatiate hope which it awakened, stung 
 
 His brain even like despair. 
 
 While day-light held 
 The sky, the Poet kept mute conference 
 With his still soul. At night the passion came, 
 Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, 
 And shook him from his rest, and led him forth 
 Into the darkness. As an eagle grasped
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 15 
 
 In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast 
 
 Burn with the poison, and precipitates 
 
 Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud, 
 
 Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight 
 
 O'er the wide aery wilderness : thus driven 
 
 By the bright shadow of that lovely dream, 
 
 Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night, 
 
 Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, 
 
 Startling with careless step the moon-light snake, 
 
 He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight, 
 
 Shedding the mockery of its vital hues 
 
 Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on 
 
 Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep 
 
 Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud ; 
 
 Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs 
 
 Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind 
 
 Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on, 
 
 Day after day, a weary waste of hours, 
 
 Bearing within his life the brooding care 
 
 That ever fed on its decaying flame. 
 
 And now his limbs were lean ; his scattered hair 
 
 Sered by the autumn of strange suffering 
 
 Sung dirges in the wind ; his listless hand 
 
 Hung like dead bone within its withered skin ; 
 
 Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone 
 
 As in a furnace burning secretly 
 
 From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers, 
 
 Who ministered with human charity 
 
 His human wants, beheld with wondering awe 
 
 Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer, 
 
 Encountering on some dizzy precipice 
 
 That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind 
 
 With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet
 
 16 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused 
 
 In its career : the infant would conceal 
 
 His troubled visage in his mother's robe 
 
 In terror at the glare of those wild eyes, 
 
 To remember their strange light in many a dream 
 
 Of after-times ; but youthful maidens, taught 
 
 By nature, would interpret half the woe 
 
 That wasted him, would call him with false names 
 
 Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand 
 
 At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path 
 
 Of his departure from their father's door. 
 
 At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore 
 He paused, a wide and melancholy waste 
 Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged 
 His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, 
 Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. 
 It rose as he approached, and with strong wings 
 Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course 
 High over the immeasurable main. 
 His eyes pursued its flight. " Thou hast a home, 
 Beautiful bird ; thou voyagest to thine home, 
 Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck 
 With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes 
 Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. 
 And what am I that I should linger here, 
 With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, 
 Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned 
 To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers 
 In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven 
 That echoes not my thoughts ? " A gloomy smile 
 Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips. 
 For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 17 
 
 Its precious charge, and silent death exposed, 
 
 Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure, 
 
 With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. 
 
 Startled by his own thoughts he looked around. 
 There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight 
 Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. 
 A little shallop floating near the shore 
 Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. 
 It had been long abandoned, for its sides 
 Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints 
 Swayed with the undulations of the tide. 
 A restless impulse urged him to embark 
 And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste ; 
 For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves 
 The slimy caverns of the populous deep. 
 
 The day was fair and sunny, sea and sky 
 Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind 
 Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. 
 Following his eager soul, the wanderer 
 Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft 
 On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat, 
 And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea 
 Like a torn cloud before the hurricane. 
 
 As one that in a silver vision floats 
 Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds 
 Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly 
 Along the dark and ruffled waters fled 
 The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on, 
 With fierce gusts and precipitating force, 
 Through the white ridges of the chafed sea. 
 The waves arose. Higher and higher still 
 C
 
 18 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's 
 
 scourge 
 
 Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp. 
 Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war 
 Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast 
 Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven 
 With dark obliterating course, he sate : 
 As if their genii were the ministers 
 Appointed to conduct him to the light 
 Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate 
 Holding the steady helm. Evening came on, 
 The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues 
 High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray 
 That canopied his path o'er the waste deep ; 
 Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, 
 Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks 
 O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day ; 
 Night followed, clad with stars. On every side 
 More horribly the multitudinous streams 
 Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war 
 Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock 
 The calm and spangled sky. The little boat 
 Still fled before the storm ; still fled, like foam 
 Down the steep cataract of a wintry river ; 
 Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave ; 
 Now leaving far behind the bursting mass 
 That fell, convulsing ocean : safely fled 
 As if that frail and wasted human form, 
 Had been an elemental god. 
 
 At midnight 
 
 The moon arose : and lo ! the etherial cliffs 
 Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 19 
 
 Among the stars like sunlight, and around 
 Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves 
 Bursting and eddying irresistibly 
 Rage and resound for ever. Who shall save ? 
 The boat fled on, the boiling torrent drove 
 The crags closed round with black and jagged arms, 
 The shattered mountain overhung the sea, 
 And faster still, beyond all human speed, 
 Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave, 
 The little boat was driven. A cavern there 
 Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths 
 Ingulphed the rushing sea. The boat fled on 
 With unrelaxing speed. "Vision and Love!" 
 The Poet cried aloud, " I have beheld 
 The path of thy departure. Sleep and death 
 Shall not divide us long ! " 
 
 The boat pursued 
 
 The windings of the cavern. Day-light shone 
 At length upon that gloomy river's flow ; 
 Now, where the fiercest war among the waves 
 Is calm, on the unfathomable stream 
 The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven, 
 Exposed those black depths to the azure sky, 
 Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell 
 Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound 
 That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass 
 Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm ; 
 Stair above stair the eddying waters rose, 
 Circling immeasurably fast, and laved 
 With alternating dash the knarled roots 
 Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms 
 In darkness over it. I' the midst was left,
 
 20 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud, 
 
 A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm. 
 
 Seized by the sway of the ascending stream, 
 
 With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round, 
 
 Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose, 
 
 Till on the verge of the extremes! curve, 
 
 Where, through an opening of the rocky bank, 
 
 The waters overflow, and a smooth spot 
 
 Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides 
 
 Is left, the boat paused shuddering. Shall it sink 
 
 Down the abyss ? Shall the reverting stress 
 
 Of that resistless gulph embosom it ? 
 
 Now shall it fall ? A wandering stream of wind, 
 
 Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail, 
 
 And, lo ! with gentle motion, between banks 
 
 Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, 
 
 Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark ! 
 
 The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar, 
 
 With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods. 
 
 Where the embowering trees recede, and leave 
 
 A little space of green expanse, the cove 
 
 Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers 
 
 For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes, 
 
 Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave 
 
 Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task, 
 
 Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind, 
 
 Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay 
 
 Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed 
 
 To deck with their bright hues his withered hair, 
 
 But on his heart its solitude returned, 
 
 And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid 
 
 In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame 
 
 Had yet performed its ministry : it hung
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 21 
 
 Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud 
 Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods 
 Of night close over it. 
 
 The noonday sun 
 
 Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass 
 Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence 
 A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves, 
 Scooped in the dark base of their aery rocks 
 Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever. 
 The meeting boughs and implicated leaves 
 Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led 
 By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death, 
 He sought in Nature's dearest haunt, some bank, 
 Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark 
 And dark the shades accumulate. The oak, 
 Expanding its immense and knotty arms, 
 Embraces the light beech. The pyramids 
 Of the tall cedar overarching, frame 
 Most solemn domes within, and far below, 
 Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky, 
 The ash and the acacia floating hang 
 Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed 
 In rainbow and in fire, the parasites, 
 Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around 
 The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes, 
 With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles, 
 Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love, 
 These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs 
 Uniting their close union ; the woven leaves 
 Make net-work of the dark blue light of day, 
 And the night's noontide clearness, mutable 
 As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
 
 22 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 Beneath these canopies extend their swells, 
 
 Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms 
 
 Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen 
 
 Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine, 
 
 A soul-dissolving odour, to invite 
 
 To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell, 
 
 Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep 
 
 Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades, 
 
 Like vaporous shapes half seen ; beyond, a well, 
 
 Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave, 
 
 Images all the woven boughs above, 
 
 And each depending leaf, and every speck 
 
 Of azure sky, darting between their chasms ; 
 
 Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves 
 
 Its portraiture, but some inconstant star 
 
 Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair, 
 
 Or, painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon, 
 
 Or gorgeous insect floating motionless, 
 
 Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings 
 
 Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon. 
 
 Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld 
 Their own wan light through the reflected lines 
 Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth 
 Of that still fountain ; as the human heart, 
 Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, 
 Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard 
 The motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung 
 Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel 
 An unaccustomed presence, and the sound 
 Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs 
 Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed 
 To stand beside him clothed in no bright robes
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 23 
 
 Of shadowy silver or enshrining light, 
 
 Borrowed from aught the visible world affords 
 
 Of grace, or majesty, or mystery ; 
 
 But, undulating woods, and silent well, 
 
 And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom 
 
 Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming, 
 
 Held commune with him, as if he and it 
 
 Were all that was, only . . . when his regard 
 
 Was raised by intense pensiveness, . . . two eyes, 
 
 Two starry eyes hung in the gloom of thought, 
 
 And seemed with their serene and azure smiles 
 
 To beckon him. 
 
 Obedient to the light 
 
 That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing 
 The windings of the dell. The rivulet 
 Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine 
 Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell 
 Among the moss with hollow harmony 
 Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones 
 It danced ; like childhood laughing as it went : 
 Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept, 
 Reflecting every herb and drooping bud 
 That overhung its quietness. " O stream ! 
 Whose source is inaccessibly profound, 
 Whither do thy mysterious waters tend ? 
 Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, 
 Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulphs, 
 Thy searchless fountain, and invisible course 
 Have each their type in me : and the wide sky, 
 And measureless ocean may declare as soon 
 What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud 
 Contains thy waters, as the universe
 
 24 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched 
 Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste 
 I' the passing wind !" 
 
 Beside the grassy shore 
 
 Of the small stream he went ; he did impress 
 On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught 
 Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one 
 Roused by some joyous madness from the couch 
 Of fever, he did move ; yet, not like him, 
 Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame 
 Of his frail exultation shall be spent, 
 He must descend. With rapid steps he went 
 Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow 
 Of the wild babbling rivulet ; and now 
 The forest's solemn canopies were changed 
 For the uniform and lightsome evening sky. 
 Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed 
 The struggling brook : tall spires of windlestrae 
 Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope, 
 And nought but knarled roots of ancient pines 
 Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots 
 The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here, 
 Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away, 
 The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin 
 And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes 
 Had shone, gleam stony orbs : so from his steps 
 Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade 
 Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds 
 And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued 
 The stream, that with a larger volume now 
 Rolled through the labyrinthine dell ; and there 
 Fretted a path through its descending curves
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 25 
 
 With its wintry speed. On every side now rose 
 
 Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms, 
 
 Lifted their black and barren pinnacles 
 
 In the light of evening, and its precipice 
 
 Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above, 
 
 'Mid toppling stones, black gulphs and yawning caves, 
 
 Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues 
 
 To the loud stream. Lo ! where the pass expands 
 
 Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks, 
 
 And seems, with its accumulated crags, 
 
 To overhang the world ; for wide expand 
 
 Beneath the wan stars and descending moon 
 
 Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, 
 
 Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom 
 
 Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills 
 
 Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge 
 
 Of the remote horizon. The near scene, 
 
 In naked and severe simplicity, 
 
 Made contrast with the universe. A pine, 
 
 Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy 
 
 Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast 
 
 Yielding one only response, at each pause 
 
 In most familiar cadence, with the howl 
 
 The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams 
 
 Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river, 
 
 Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path, 
 
 Fell into that immeasurable void 
 
 Scattering its waters to the passing winds. 
 
 Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine 
 And torrent, were not all : one silent nook 
 Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain, 
 Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,
 
 26 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 It overlooked in its serenity 
 
 The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars. 
 
 It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile 
 
 Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped 
 
 The fissured stones with its entwining arms, 
 
 And did embower with leaves for ever green, 
 
 And berries dark, the smooth and even space 
 
 Of its inviolated floor, and here 
 
 The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore, 
 
 In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay, 
 
 Red, yellow, or etherially pale, 
 
 Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the haunt 
 
 Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach 
 
 The wilds to love tranquillity. One step, 
 
 One human step alone, has ever broken 
 
 The stillness of its solitude : one voice 
 
 Alone inspired its echoes ; even that voice 
 
 Which hither came, floating among the winds, 
 
 And led the loveliest among human forms 
 
 To make their wild haunts the depository 
 
 Of all the grace and beauty that endued 
 
 Its motions, render up its majesty, 
 
 Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm, 
 
 And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould, 
 
 Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss, 
 
 Commit the colours of that varying cheek, 
 
 That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes. 
 
 The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured 
 A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge 
 That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist 
 Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank 
 Wan moonlight even to fulness : not a star
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 27 
 
 Shone, not a sound was heard ; the very winds, 
 
 Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice 
 
 Slept, clasped in his embrace. O, storm of death ! 
 
 Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night : 
 
 And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still 
 
 Guiding its irresistible career 
 
 In thy devastating omnipotence, 
 
 Art king of this frail world, from the red field 
 
 Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital, 
 
 The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed 
 
 Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne, 
 
 A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls 
 
 His brother Death. A rare and regal prey 
 
 He hath prepared, prowling around the world ; 
 
 Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men 
 
 Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms, 
 
 Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine 
 
 The unheeded tribute of a broken heart. 
 
 When on the threshold of the green recess 
 The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death 
 Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled, 
 Did he resign his high and holy soul 
 To images of the majestic past, 
 That paused within his passive being now, 
 Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe 
 Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place 
 His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk 
 Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone 
 Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest 
 Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink 
 Of that obscurest chasm ; and thus he lay, 
 Surrendering to their final impulses
 
 28 ALASTOR; OR, 
 
 The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair, 
 
 The torturers, slept ; no mortal pain or fear 
 
 Marred his repose, the influxes of sense, 
 
 And his own being unalloyed by pain, 
 
 Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed 
 
 The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there 
 
 At peace, and faintly smiling : his last sight 
 
 Was the great moon, which o'er the western line 
 
 Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, 
 
 With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed 
 
 To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills 
 
 It rests, and still as the divided frame 
 
 Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood, 
 
 That ever beat in mystic sympathy 
 
 With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still : 
 
 And when two lessening points of light alone 
 
 Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp 
 
 Of his faint respiration scarce did stir 
 
 The stagnate night : till the minutest ray 
 
 Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart. 
 
 It paused it fluttered. But when heaven remained 
 
 Utterly black, the murky shades involved 
 
 An image, silent, cold, and motionless, 
 
 As their own voiceless earth and vacant air. 
 
 Even as a vapour fed with golden beams 
 
 That ministered on sunlight, ere the west 
 
 Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame 
 
 No sense, no motion, no divinity 
 
 A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings 
 
 The breath of heaven did wander a bright stream 
 
 Once fed with many-voiced waves a dream 
 
 Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever, 
 
 Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 29 
 
 O, for Medea's wondrous alchemy, 
 Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam 
 With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale 
 From vernal blooms fresh fragrance ! O, that God, 
 Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice 
 Which but one living man has drained, who now, 
 Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels 
 No proud exemption in the blighting curse 
 He bears, over the world wanders for ever, 
 Lone as incarnate death ! O, that the dream 
 Of dark magician in his visioned cave, 
 Raking the cinders of a crucible 
 For life and power, even when his feeble hand 
 Shakes in its last decay, were the true law 
 Of this so lovely world ! But thou art fled 
 Like some frail exhalation ; which the dawn 
 Robes in its golden beams, ah ! thou hast fled ! 
 The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful, 
 The child of grace and genius. Heartless things 
 Are done and said i' the world, and many worms 
 And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth 
 From sea and mountain, city and wilderness, 
 In vesper low or joyous orison, 
 Lifts still its solemn voice : but thou art fled 
 Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes 
 Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee 
 Been purest ministers, who are, alas ! 
 Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips 
 So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes 
 That image sleep in death, upon that form 
 Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear 
 Be shed not even in thought. Nor, when those hues 
 Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,
 
 30 ALASTOR ; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 
 
 Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone 
 In the frail pauses of this simple strain, 
 Let not high verse, mourning the memory 
 Of that which is no more, or painting's woe 
 Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery 
 Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence, 
 And all the shows o' the world are frail and vain 
 To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade. 
 It is a woe too " deep for tears," when all 
 Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit, 
 Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves 
 Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans, 
 The passionate tumult of a clinging hope : 
 But pale despair and cold tranquillity, 
 Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, 
 Birth and the grave, that are not as they were. 
 
 1815.
 
 THE TWO SPIRITS. 31 
 
 THE TWO SPIRITS. 
 
 FIRST SPIRIT. 
 
 O THOU, who plumed with strong desire 
 
 Wouldst float above the earth, beware ! 
 A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire 
 
 Night is coming ! 
 Bright are the regions of the air, 
 And among the winds and beams 
 It were delight to wander there 
 Night is coming ! 
 
 SECOND SPIRIT. 
 
 The deathless stars are bright above ; 
 If I would cross the shade of night, 
 Within my heart is the lamp of love, 
 
 And that is day ! 
 
 And the moon will smile with gentle light 
 On my golden plumes where'er they move ; 
 The meteors will linger round my flight, 
 And make night day.
 
 32 THE TWO SPIRITS. 
 
 FIRST SPIRIT. 
 
 But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken 
 
 Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain ; 
 
 See, the bounds of the air are shaken 
 
 Night is coming ! 
 
 The red swift clouds of the hurricane 
 Yon declining sun have overtaken, 
 
 The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain- 
 Night is coming ! 
 
 SECOND SPIRIT. 
 
 I see the light, and I hear the sound ; 
 
 I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark, 
 With the calm within and the light around 
 
 Which makes night day : 
 And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark, 
 Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound, 
 My moon-like flight thou then may'st mark 
 On high, far away. 
 
 Some say there is a precipice 
 
 Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin 
 O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice 
 'Mid Alpine mountains ; 
 And that the languid storm pursuing 
 That winged shape, for ever flies 
 
 Round those hoar branches, aye renewing 
 Its aery fountains.
 
 LINES. 33 
 
 Some say when nights are dry and clear, 
 
 And the death-dews sleep on the morass, 
 Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller, 
 
 Which make night day : 
 
 And a silver shape like his early love doth pass 
 Upborne by her wild and glittering hair, 
 And when he awakes on the fragrant grass, 
 He finds night day. 
 
 1820. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 THE cold earth slept below ; 
 Above the cold sky shone ; 
 And all around, 
 With a chilling sound, 
 From caves of ice and fields of snow, 
 The breath of night like death did flow 
 Beneath the sinking moon. 
 
 The wintry hedge was black, 
 The green grass was not seen, 
 The birds did rest 
 On the bare thorn's breast, 
 Whose roots, beside the pathway track, 
 Had bound their folds o'er many a crack 
 Which the frost had made between. 
 D
 
 LINES.- 
 
 Thine eyes glowed in the glare 
 Of the moon's dying light ; 
 As a fen-fire's beam, 
 On a sluggish stream, 
 Gleams dimly so the moon shone there, 
 And it yellowed the strings of thy tangled hair 
 That shook in the wind of night. 
 
 The moon made thy lips pale, beloved ; 
 The wind made thy bosom chill ; 
 The night did shed 
 On thy dear head 
 Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie 
 Where the bitter breath of the naked sky 
 Might visit thee at will. 
 
 1815.
 
 Jioems on Jieatfj. 
 
 A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD. 
 
 LECHI.ADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 
 
 THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere 
 
 Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray ; 
 
 And pallid evening twines its beaming hair 
 
 In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day : 
 
 Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men, 
 
 Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. 
 
 They breathe their spells towards the departing day, 
 Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea ; 
 Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway, 
 Responding to the charm with its own mystery. 
 The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass 
 Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. 
 
 Thou too, aerial Pile ! whose pinnacles 
 Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, 
 Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, 
 Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, 
 Around whose lessening and invisible height 
 Gather among the stars the clouds of night. 
 
 The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres : 
 And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound 
 Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,
 
 36 POEMS ON DEATH. 
 
 Breathed from their wormy beds all livingthings around, 
 And mingling with the still night and mute sky 
 Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. 
 
 Thus solemnised and softened, death is mild 
 
 And terrorless as this serenest night : 
 
 Here could I hope, like some enquiring child 
 
 Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human 
 
 sight 
 
 Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep 
 That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. 
 
 1815. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 YE hasten to the dead ! 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 anticipation feigneth fair ! 
 
 Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess 
 
 Whence thou didst come, and whither thou mayst go, 
 
 And that which never yet was known wouldst 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 grey death ? 
 
 O heart, and mind, and thoughts ! What thing do you 
 
 Hope to inherit in the grave below ? 
 
 1820.
 
 POEMS ON DEATH. 37 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 LIFT not the painted veil which those who live 
 Call Life : though unreal shapes be pictured there, 
 And it but mimic all we would believe 
 With colours idly spread, behind, lurk Fear 
 And Hope, twin destinies ; who ever weave 
 Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear. 
 I knew one who had lifted it he sought, 
 For his lost heart was tender, things to love, 
 But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught 
 The world contains, the which he could approve. 
 Through the unheeding many he did move, 
 A splendour among shadows, a bright blot 
 Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove 
 For truth, and like the Preacher found it not. 
 
 PEACE. 
 
 THE rude wind is singing 
 The dirge of the music dead, 
 
 The cold worms are clinging 
 Where kisses were lately fed. 
 
 THE babe is at peace within the womb, 
 The corpse is at rest within the tomb, 
 We begin in what we end.
 
 38 POEMS ON DEATH. 
 
 THE DIRGE OF GINEVRA. 
 
 OLD winter was gone 
 In his weakness back to the mountains hoar, 
 
 And the spring came down 
 From the planet that hovers upon the shore 
 
 Where the sea of sunlight encroaches 
 On the limits of wintry night ; 
 If the land, and the air, and the sea 
 
 Rejoice not when spring approaches, 
 We did not rejoice in thee, 
 Ginevra ! 
 
 She is still, she is cold 
 
 On the bridal couch, 
 One step to the white death-bed, 
 
 And one to the bier, 
 And one to the charnel and one, O where ? 
 
 The dark arrow fled 
 
 In the noon. 
 
 Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled, 
 The rats in her heart 
 Will have made their nest, 
 And the worms be alive in her golden hair, 
 While the spirit that guides the sun, 
 Sits throned in his flaming chair, 
 She shall sleep. 
 
 1821.
 
 POEMS ON DEATH. 39 
 
 THE DIRGE OF BEATRICE. 
 
 FALSE friend, wilt thou smile or weep 
 When my life is laid asleep ? 
 Little cares for a smile or a tear, 
 The clay-cold corpse upon the bier ! 
 
 Farewell ! Heigho ! 
 
 What is this whispers low ? 
 There is a snake in thy smile, my dear ; 
 And bitter poison within thy tear. 
 
 Sweet sleep, were death like to thee, 
 Or if thou couldst mortal be, 
 I would close these eyes of pain ; 
 When to wake ? Never again. 
 
 O, World ! Farewell ! 
 
 Listen to the passing bell ! 
 It says, thou and I must part, 
 With a light and a heavy heart. 
 
 Cenci.
 
 40 POEMS ON DEATH. 
 
 SLEEP AND DEATH. 
 
 They. WE strew these opiate flowers 
 
 On thy restless pillow, 
 They were stript from Orient bowers, 
 By the Indian billow. 
 Be thy sleep 
 Calm and deep, 
 Like their's who fell not ours who weep ! 
 
 She. Away, unlovely dreams ! 
 
 Away, false shapes of sleep ! 
 Be his, as Heaven seems, 
 
 Clear, and bright, and deep ! 
 Soft as love, and calm as death, 
 Sweet as a summer night without a breath. 
 
 They. Sleep, sleep ! our song is laden 
 
 With the soul of slumber ; 
 It was sung by a Samian maiden, 
 Whose lover was of the number 
 Who now keep 
 That calm sleep 
 Whence none may wake, where none shall weep. 
 
 She. I touch thy temples pale ! 
 
 I breathe my soul on thee ! 
 And could my prayers avail, 
 
 All my joy should be 
 Dead, and I would live to weep, 
 So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep. 
 
 Hellas.
 
 Songs Consecrate to 
 
 TO WORDSWORTH. 
 
 POET of Nature, thou has wept to know 
 That things depart which never may return : 
 Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, 
 Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. 
 These common woes I feel. One loss is mine 
 Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore. 
 Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine 
 On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar : 
 Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood 
 Above the blind and battling multitude : 
 In honoured poverty thy voice did weave 
 Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, 
 Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, 
 Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. 
 
 1815.
 
 42 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 THE SNAKE AND EAGLE. 
 
 WHEN the last hope of trampled France had failed 
 Like a brief dream of unremaining glory, 
 From visions of despair I rose, and scaled 
 The peak of an aerial promontory, 
 Whose caverned base with the vext surge was hoary ; 
 And saw the golden dawn break forth, and waken 
 Each cloud, and every wave : but transitory 
 The calm : for sudden, the firm earth was shaken, 
 As if by the last wreck its frame were overtaken. 
 
 So as I stood, one blast of muttering thunder 
 Burst in far peals along the waveless deep, 
 When, gathering fast, around, above and under, 
 Long trains of tremulous mist began to creep, 
 Until their complicating lines did steep 
 The orient sun in shadow : not a sound 
 Was heard ; one horrible repose did keep 
 The forests and the floods, and all around 
 Darkness more dread than night was poured upon the 
 ground. 
 
 Hark ! 'tis the rushing of a wind that sweeps 
 Earth and the ocean. See ! the lightnings yawn 
 Deluging Heaven with fire, and the lashed deeps 
 Glitter and boil beneath : it rages on, 
 One mighty stream, whirlwind and waves upthrown, 
 Lightning, and hail, and darkness eddying by. 
 There is a pause the sea-birds, that were gone 
 Into their caves to shriek, come forth, to spy 
 What calm has fall'n on earth, what light is in the sky.
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 43 
 
 For, where the irresistible storm had cloven 
 That fearful darkness, the blue sky was seen 
 Fretted with many a fair cloud interwoven 
 Most delicately, and the ocean green, 
 Beneath that opening spot of blue serene, 
 Quivered like burning emerald : calm was spread 
 On all below ; but far on high, between 
 Earth and the upper air, the vast clouds fled, 
 Countless and swift as leaves on autumn's tempest 
 shed. 
 
 For ever, as the war became more fierce 
 Between the whirlwinds and the rack on high, 
 That spot grew more serene ; blue light did pierce 
 The woof of those white clouds, which seemed to lie 
 Far, deep, and motionless ; while thro' the sky 
 The pallid semicircle of the moon 
 Past on, in slow and moving majesty ; 
 Its upper horn arrayed in mists, which soon 
 But slowly fled, like dew beneath the beams of 
 noon. 
 
 I could not choose but gaze ; a fascination 
 Dwelt in that moon, and sky, and clouds, which drew 
 My fancy thither, and in expectation 
 Of what I knew not, I remained : the hue 
 Of the white moon, amid that heaven so blue, 
 Suddenly stained with shadow did appear ; 
 A speck, a cloud, a shape, approaching grew, 
 Like a great ship in the sun's sinking sphere 
 Beheld afar at sea, and swift it came anear.
 
 44 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 Even like a bark, which from a chasm of mountains, 
 Dark, vast, and overhanging, on a river 
 Which there collects the strength of all its fountains, 
 Comes forth, whilst with the speed its frame doth 
 
 quiver, 
 
 Sails, oars, and stream, tending to one endeavour ; 
 So, from that chasm of light a winged Form 
 On all the winds of heaven approaching ever 
 Floated, dilating as it came : the storm 
 Pursued it with fierce blasts, and lightnings swift and 
 
 warm. 
 
 A course precipitous, of dizzy speed, 
 Suspending thought and breath ; a monstrous sight ! 
 For in the air do I behold indeed 
 An Eagle and a Serpent wreathed in fight : 
 And now relaxing its impetuous flight, 
 Before the aerial rock on which I stood, 
 The Eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right, 
 And hung with lingering wings over the flood, 
 And startled with its yells the wide air's solitude. 
 
 A shaft of light upon its wings descended, 
 And every golden feather gleamed therein 
 Feather and scale inextricably blended. 
 The Serpent's mailed and many-coloured skin 
 Shone thro' the plumes its coils were twined within 
 By many a swollen and knotted fold, and high 
 And far, the neck receding lithe and thin, 
 Sustained a crested head, which warily 
 Shifted and glanced before the Eagle's stedfast eye.
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 45 
 
 Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling 
 With clang of wings and scream, the Eagle sailed 
 Incessantly sometimes on high concealing 
 Its lessening orbs, sometimes as if it failed, 
 Drooped thro' the air; and still it shrieked and 
 
 wailed, 
 
 And casting back its eager head, with beak 
 And talon unremittingly assailed 
 The wreathed Serpent, who did ever seek 
 Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak. 
 
 What life what power was kindled and arose 
 Within the sphere of that appalling fray ! 
 For, from the encounter of those wondrous foes, 
 A vapour like the sea's suspended spray 
 Hung gathered : in the void air, far away, 
 Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did 
 
 leap, 
 
 Where'er the Eagle's talons made their way, 
 Like sparks into the darkness ; as they sweep, 
 Blood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep. 
 
 Swift chances in that combat many a check, 
 And many a change, a dark and wild turmoil ; 
 Sometimes the Snake around his enemy's neck 
 Locked in stiff rings his adamantine coil, 
 Until the Eagle, faint with pain and toil, 
 Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea 
 Languidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil 
 His adversary, who then reared on high 
 His red and burning crest, radiant with victory.
 
 46 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 Then on the white edge of the bursting surge, 
 Where they had sank together, would the Snake 
 Relax his suffocating grasp, and scourge 
 The wind with his wild writhings ; for to break 
 That chain of torment, the vast bird would shake 
 The strength of his unconquerable wings 
 As in despair, and with his sinewy neck 
 Dissolve in sudden shock those linked rings, 
 Then soar as swift as smoke from a volcano springs. 
 
 Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength, 
 Thus long, but unprevailing : the event 
 Of that portentous fight appeared at length : 
 Until the lamp of day was almost spent 
 It had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent, 
 Hung high that mighty Serpent, and at last 
 Fell to the sea, while o'er the continent, 
 With clang of wings and scream the Eagle past, 
 Heavily borne away on the exhausted blast. 
 
 Such is this conflict when mankind doth strive 
 With its oppressors in a strife of blood, 
 Or when free thoughts, like lightnings are alive ; 
 And in each bosom of the multitude 
 Justice and truth, with custom's hydra brood 
 Wage silent war ; when priests and kings dis- 
 semble 
 
 In smiles or frowns their fierce disquietude, 
 When round pure hearts, a host of hopes assemble, 
 The Snake and Eagle meet the world's foundations 
 tremble ! 
 
 Revolt of Islam, canto i. 1817. .
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 47 
 
 THE MASK OF ANARCHY. 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE MASSACRE AT 
 MANCHESTER. 
 
 As I lay asleep in Italy 
 There came a voice from over the Sea, 
 And with great power it forth led me 
 To walk in the visions of Poesy. 
 
 I met Murder on the way 
 He^ had_ a masklike Castlereagh 
 Very smooth he looked, yet grim ; 
 Seven blood-hounds followed him : 
 
 All were fat ; and well they might 
 
 Be in admirable plight, 
 
 For one by one, and two by two, 
 
 He tossed them human hearts to chew 
 
 Which from his wide cloak he drew. 
 
 Next came Fraud, and he had on, 
 Like Lord E., an ermined gown ; 
 His big tears, for he wept well, 
 Turned to mill-stones as they fell. 
 
 And the little children, who 
 Round his feet played to and fro, 
 Thinking every tear a gem, 
 
 their brains knocked out by them.
 
 48 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 Clothed with the Bible, as with light, 
 And the shadows of the night, 
 Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy 
 On a crocodile rode by. 
 
 And many more Destructions played 
 In this ghastly masquerade, 
 All disguised, even to the eyes, 
 Like Bishops, lawyers, peers or spies. 
 
 Last came Anarchy : he rode 
 
 On a white horse, splashed with blood ; 
 
 He was pale even to the lips, 
 
 Like Death in the Apocalypse. 
 
 And he wore a kingly crown ; 
 And in his grasp a sceptre shone ; 
 On his brow this mark I saw 
 " I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW !" 
 
 With a pace stately and fast, 
 Over English land he past, 
 Trampling to a mire of blood 
 The adoring multitude. 
 
 And a mighty troop around, 
 
 With their trampling shook the ground, 
 
 Waving each a bloody sword, 
 
 For the service of their Lord. 
 
 And with glorious triumph, they 
 Rode thro' England proud and gay, 
 Drunk as with intoxication 
 Of the wine of desolation.
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 49 
 
 O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea, 
 Past the Pageant swift and free, 
 Tearing up, and trampling down ; 
 Till they came to London town. 
 
 And each dweller, panic-stricken, 
 Felt his heart with terror sicken 
 Hearing the tempestuous cry 
 Of the triumph of Anarchy. 
 
 For with pomp to meet him came, 
 Clothed in arms like blood and flame, 
 The hired murderers, who did sing 
 " Thou art God, and Law, and King. 
 
 " We have waited, weak and lone 
 For thy coming, Mighty One ! 
 Our purses are empty, our swords are cold, 
 Give us glory, and blood, and gold." 
 
 Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd, 
 To the earth their pale brows bowed ; 
 Like a bad prayer not over loud, 
 Whispering "Thou art Law and God." 
 
 Then all cried with one accord, 
 " Thou art King, and God, and Lord ; 
 Anarchy, to thee we bow, 
 Be thy name made holy now !" 
 
 And Anarchy, the Skeleton, 
 Bowed and grinned to ever)- one, 
 As well as if his education 
 Had cost ten millions to the nation. 
 E
 
 50 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 For he knew the Palaces 
 Of our Kings were nightly his ; 
 His the sceptre, crown, and globe, 
 And the gold-inwoven robe. 
 
 So he sent his slaves before 
 To seize upon the Bank and Tower, 
 And was proceeding with intent 
 To meet his pensioned Parliament 
 
 When one fled past, a maniac maid, 
 And her name was Hope, she said : 
 But she looked more like Despair, 
 And she cried out in the air : 
 
 " My father Time is weak and grey 
 With waiting for a better day ; 
 See how idiot-like he stands, 
 Fumbling with his palsied hands ! 
 
 " He has had child after child, 
 And the dust of death is piled 
 Over every one but me 
 Misery, oh, Misery !" 
 
 Then she lay down in the street, 
 Right before the horses' feet, 
 Expecting, with a patient eye, 
 Murder, Fraud and Anarchy. 
 
 When between her and her foes 
 A mist, a light, an image rose, 
 Small at first, and weak, and frail 
 Like the vapour of a vale :
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 51 
 
 Till as clouds grow on the blast, 
 Like tower-crowned giants striding fast, 
 And glare with lightnings as they fly, 
 And speak in thunder to the sky, 
 
 It grew a Shape arrayed in mail 
 Brighter than the viper's scale, 
 And upborne on wings whose grain 
 Was as the light of sunny rain. 
 
 On its helm, seen far away, 
 A planet, like the Morning's, lay ; 
 And those plumes its light rained thro' 
 Like a shower of crimson dew. 
 
 With step as soft as wind it past 
 O'er the heads of men so fast 
 That they knew the presence there, 
 And looked, and all was empty air. 
 
 As flowers beneath May's footstep waken, 
 As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken, 
 As waves arise when loud winds call, 
 Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall. 
 
 And the prostrate multitude 
 Looked and ankle-deep in blood, 
 Hope, that maiden most serene, 
 Was walking with a quiet mien : 
 
 And Anarchy, the ghastly birth, 
 
 Lay dead earth upon the earth ; 
 
 The Horse of Death tameless as wind 
 
 Fled, and with his hoofs did grind 
 
 To dust, the murderers thronged behind.
 
 52 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 A rushing light of clouds and splendour, 
 A sense awakening and yet tender 
 Was heard and felt and at its close 
 These words of joy and fear arose 
 
 As if their own indignant Earth 
 Which gave the sons of England birth 
 Had felt their blood upon her brow, 
 And shuddering with a mother's throe 
 
 Had turned every drop of blood 
 By which her face had been bedewed 
 To an accent unwithstood, 
 As if her heart had cried aloud : 
 
 " Men of England, heirs of Glory, 
 Heroes of unwritten story, 
 Nurslings of one mighty Mother, 
 Hopes of her, and one another ; 
 
 " Rise like Lions after slumber 
 In unvanquishable number 
 Shake your chains to earth like dew 
 Which in sleep had fallen on you 
 Ye are many they are few." 
 
 1819.
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 53 
 
 SONG 
 
 TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND. 
 
 MEN of England, wherefore plough 
 For the lords who lay you low ? 
 Wherefore weave with toil and care 
 The rich robes your tyrants wear ? 
 
 Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save, 
 From the cradle to the grave, 
 Those ungrateful drones who would 
 Drain your sweat nay, drink your blood ? 
 
 Wherefore, Bees of England, forge 
 Many a weapon, chain and scourge, 
 That these stingless drones may spoil 
 The forced produce of your toil ? 
 
 Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, 
 Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ? 
 Or what is it ye buy so dear 
 With your pain and with your fear ? 
 
 The seed ye sow, another reaps ; 
 The wealth ye find, another keeps ; 
 The robes ye weave, another wears ; 
 The arms ye forge, another bears. 
 
 Sow seed, but let no tyrant reap ; 
 Find wealth, let no impostor heap ; 
 Weave robes, let not the idle wear ; 
 Forge arms, in your defence to bear.
 
 54 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells ; 
 In halls ye deck another dwells. 
 Why shake the chains ye wrought ? Ye see 
 The steel ye tempered glance on ye. 
 
 With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, 
 Trace your grave, and build your tomb, 
 And weave your winding sheet, till fair 
 England be your sepulchre. 
 
 1819. 
 
 r SONNET: 
 
 ENGLAND IN 1819. 
 
 AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, 
 Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow 
 Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring, - 
 Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 
 But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 
 Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, 
 A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,- 
 An army, which liberticide and prey 
 Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield 
 Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay ; 
 Religion Christless, Godless a book sealed ; 
 A Senate, Time's worst statute unrepealed, 
 Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may 
 Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 55 
 
 SONNET: > 
 
 POLITICAL GREATNESS. 
 
 NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, 
 
 Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, 
 
 Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame ; 
 
 Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts, 
 
 History is but the shadow of their shame, 
 
 Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts 
 
 As to oblivion their blind millions fleet, 
 
 Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery 
 
 Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit 
 
 By force or custom ? Man who man would be, 
 
 Must rule the empire of himself; in ft 
 
 Must be supreme, establishing his throne 
 
 On vanquTshed will, quelling the anarchy 
 
 Of hopes and fears, being himself alone. 
 
 1821.
 
 
 56 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 ODE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 I Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner torn but flying, 
 
 Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind. 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 A GLORIOUS people vibrated again : 
 
 The lightning of the nations, Liberty, 
 From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, 
 
 Scattering contagious fire into the sky, 
 Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, 
 And, in the rapid plumes of song, 
 Clothed itself, sublime and strong ; 
 As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, 
 Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey ; 
 Till from its station in the heaven of fame 
 The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray 
 
 Of the remotest sphere of living flame 
 Which paves the void was from behind it flung, 
 As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came 
 A voice out of the deep : I will record the same. 
 
 The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth ; 
 
 The burning stars of the abyss were hurled 
 
 Into the depths of heaven. The daedal earth, 
 
 That island in the ocean of the world, 
 Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air : 
 But this divinest universe 
 Was yet a chaos and a curse, 
 
 For thou wert not : but power from worst producing 
 worse.
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 57 
 
 The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, 
 
 And of the birds, and of the watery forms, 
 And there was war among them, and despair 
 
 Within them, raging without truce or terms : 
 The bosom of their violated nurse 
 
 Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms 
 
 on worms, 
 And men on men ; each heart was as a hell of storms. 
 
 Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied 
 
 His generations under the pavilion 
 Of the Sun's throne : palace and pyramid, 
 
 Temple and prison, to many a swarming million, 
 Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. 
 This human living multitude 
 Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, 
 For thou wert not ; but o'er the populous solitude, 
 "Like 'one fierce cloud over a waste of waves 
 
 Hung Tyranny ; beneath, sate deified 
 The sister-pest, congregator of slaves ; 
 Into the shadow of her pinions wide 
 Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood, 
 Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, 
 Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. 
 
 The nodding promontories, and blue isles, 
 
 And' cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves 
 Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles 
 
 Of favouring heaven : from their enchanted caves 
 PropKetic echoes flung dim melody. 
 On the unapprehensive wild 
 The vine, the corn, the olive mild, 
 Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled ;
 
 58 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, 
 
 Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, 
 
 Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, 
 
 Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein 
 Of Parian stone ; andyet_a_srjeechless child, 
 
 Verse murmured,~and~Phiiosophy djd jrtrain 
 
 HeTntnesTeyes for thee :"f wheffcPeTtrie vEgean main 
 
 - Athens arose : a city such as vision 
 
 'Builds from tHe purple crags and silver towers 
 Of battlemented cloud, as in derision 
 
 Of kingliest masonry : the ocean-floors 
 Pave it ; the evening sky pavilions it ; 
 Its portals are inhabited 
 By thunder-zoned winds, each head 
 Within its cloudy wings with sunfife garlanded, 
 A divine work ! Athens diviner yet 
 
 Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will 
 Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set ; 
 
 For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill 
 Peopled with forms that mock the eternal dead 
 In marble immortality, that hill 
 Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. 
 
 Within the surface of Time's fleeting river 
 
 Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay 
 Immovably unquiet, and for ever 
 
 It trembles, but it cannot pass away ! 
 The voices of thy bards and sages thunder 
 With an earth-awakening blast 
 Through the caverns of the past ; 
 Religion veils her eyes ; Oppression shrinks aghast :
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 59 
 
 A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, 
 Which soars where Expectation never flew, 
 Rending the veil of space and time asunder ! 
 
 One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew ; 
 One sun illumines heaven ; one spirit vast 
 With life and love makes chaos ever new, 
 As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. 
 
 Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, 
 
 Like~a~wolf-cub from a Cadmasan Maenad, 
 She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest 
 
 From that Elysian food was yet unweaned ; 
 And many a deed of terrible uprightness 
 By thy sweet love was sanctified ; 
 And in thy smile, and by thy side, 
 Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. 
 
 But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness, 
 
 And gold profaned thy capitolian throne, 
 Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, 
 The senate of the tyrants : they sunk prone 
 Slaves of one tyrant : Palatinus signed 
 Faint echoes of Ionian song ; that tone 
 Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. 
 
 From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, 
 Or piny promontory of the Arctic main, 
 Or utmost islet inaccessible, 
 
 Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, 
 Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, 
 And every Naiad's ice-cold urn, 
 To talk in echoes sad and stern, 
 Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn?
 
 6o SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks 
 
 Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep. 
 
 What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks 
 
 Were quickly dried ? for thou didst groan, not 
 
 weep, 
 
 When from its sea of death to kill and burn, 
 The Galilean serpent forth did creep, 
 And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. 
 
 A thousand_years the Earth cried, Where art thou ? 
 
 And then the shadow of thy coming tell '" 
 On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow : 
 
 And many a warrior-peopled citadel, 
 Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep, 
 Arose in sacred Italy, 
 Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea 
 Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned 
 
 majesty ; 
 That multitudinous anarchy did sweep, 
 
 And burst around their walls, like idle foam, 
 Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep 
 
 Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb 
 Dissonant arms ; and Art, which cannot die, 
 With divine wand traced on our earthly home 
 Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. 
 
 Thou huntress swifter than the Moon ! thou terror 
 Of the world's wolves ! thou bearer of the quiver, 
 Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, 
 
 As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever 
 In the calm regions of the orient day ! 
 
 Luther caught thy wakening glance, 
 Like lightning, from his leaden lance 
 Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 61 
 
 In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay ; 
 
 And England's prophets hailed thee as their 
 
 queenj 
 In songs" whose music cannot pass away, 
 
 Though it must flow for ever : not unseen 
 Before the spirit-sighted countenance 
 "Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene 
 Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. 
 
 The eager hours and unreluctant years 
 
 As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood, 
 Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, 
 
 Darkening each other with their multitude, 
 And cried aloud, Liberty ! Indignation 
 Answered Pity from her cave ; 
 Death grew pale within the grave, 
 And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save ! 
 When like heaven's sun girt by the exhalation 
 
 Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise, 
 Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation 
 
 Like shadows : as if day had cloven the skies 
 At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, 
 Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, 
 Under the liirhtnin' r s of thine unfamiliar eves. 
 
 n irr .'-*" " .iu.iiuMflnim m -t, I'um J BI " " |- 'IT*" I * i 
 
 Thou heaven of earth ! what spells could pall thee then, 
 
 In ominous eclipse ? a thousand years 
 Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den, 
 
 Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears, 
 Till thy sweet stars could wipe the stain away ; 
 How like Bacchanals of blood 
 Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood 
 Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred 
 brood !
 
 62 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 When one, like them, but mightier far than they, 
 
 The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers 
 Rose : armies mingled in obscure array, 
 
 Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred 
 
 bowers 
 
 Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, 
 Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours, 
 Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral 
 towers. 
 
 England yet sleeps : was she not called of old ? 
 
 Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder 
 Vesuvius wakens ALtna, and the cold 
 
 Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder : 
 O'er the lit waves every ^Eolian isle 
 From Pithecusa to Pelorus 
 Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus : 
 They cry, Be dim ; ye lamps of heaven suspended 
 
 o'er us. 
 
 Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile 
 And they dissolve ; but Spain's were links of steel, 
 Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file. 
 
 Twins of a single destiny ! appeal 
 To the eternal years enthroned before us, 
 In the dim West ; impress us from a seal, 
 All ye have thought and done ! Time cannot dare 
 conceal. 
 
 Tomb of Arminius ! render up thy dead, 
 
 Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, 
 
 His soul may stream over the tyrant's head ; 
 Thy victory shall be his epitaph, 
 
 Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine,
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 63 
 
 King-deluded Germany, 
 His dead spirit lives in thee. 
 Why do we fear or hope ? thou art already free ! 
 And thou, lost Paradise of this divine 
 
 And glorious world ! thou flowery wilderness ! 
 Thou island of eternity ! thou shrine 
 
 Where desolation clothed with loveliness, 
 Worships the thing thou wert ! O Italy, 
 Gather thy blood into thy heart ; repress 
 The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. 
 
 O, that the free would stamp the impious name 
 
 ~~Of~ICinginto the dust! or write it ihere^ 
 So ttfat "this blot upon the page of fame 
 
 Were as a serpent's path, which the light air 
 Erases, and the flat sands close behind ! 
 Ye the oracle have heard : 
 Lift the victory-flashing sword, 
 And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, 
 Which weak itself as stubble, yet can bind 
 
 Into a mass, irrefragably firm, 
 The axes and the rods which awe mankind ; 
 The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm 
 Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred ; 
 Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, 
 To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. 
 
 O, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle 
 Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, 
 
 That the pale name of Priest might shrink and 
 
 dwindle 
 
 Into the hell from which it first was hurled, 
 
 A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure ;
 
 64 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 
 
 Till human thoughts might kneel alone 
 Kadi IK- fore the judgment-throne"" 
 Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown ! 
 O, that the words which make the thoughts obscure 
 From which they spring, as clouds of glimmer- 
 ing dew 
 From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture, 
 
 Were stript of their thin masks and various hue 
 And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, 
 Till in the nakedness of false and true 
 They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due. 
 
 He who taught men to vanquish whatsoever 
 Can be between the cradle and the grave 
 Crowned him the King of Life. O vain endeavour ! 
 
 If on his 1 own high will a willing slave, 
 He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor. 
 What if earth can clothe and feed 
 Amplest millions at their need, 
 
 And power in thought be as the tree within the seed ? 
 O, what if Art, an ardent intercessor, 
 
 Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, 
 Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, 
 
 And cries : Give me, thy child, dominion 
 Over all height and depth ? if Life can breed 
 
 New wants, and wealth from those who toil and 
 
 groan 
 Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousand fold for one. 
 
 Come Thou, but lead out of the inmost cave 
 Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star 
 
 Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, 
 Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car
 
 SONGS CONSECRATE TO LIBERTY. 65 
 
 Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame ; 
 Comes she not, and come ye not, 
 Rulers of eternal thought, 
 
 To judge, with solemn truth, life's ill-apportioned lot? 
 Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Farn^ 
 
 Of wKaThas been, the Hoe of what "will be ? 
 O, Liberty ! if such could be thy name 
 
 Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee : 
 If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought 
 By blood or tears, have not the wise and free 
 Wept tears, and blood like tears ? The solemn 
 harmony 
 
 Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing- 
 
 To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ; 
 Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging 
 Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, 
 Sinks headlong througlTthe aerial golden light 
 On the heavy sounding plain, 
 When the bolt has pierced its brain ; 
 As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain ; 
 As a far taper fades with fading night, 
 
 As a brief insect dies with dying day, 
 My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, 
 
 Drooped ; o'er it closed the echoes far away 
 Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, 
 As waves which lately paved his watery way 
 Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous 
 play. 
 
 1820.
 
 on Eime anti its Cjjangcs. 
 
 OZYMANDIAS. 
 
 I MET a traveller from an antique land 
 Who said : Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
 Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
 Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
 The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed : 
 And on the pedestal these words appear : 
 " My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair !" 
 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
 The lone and level sands stretch far away. 
 
 1817.
 
 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 67 
 
 TIME. 
 
 UNFATHOMABLE Sea ! whose waves are years, 
 
 Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe 
 Are brackish with the salt of human tears ! 
 
 Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow 
 Claspest the limits of mortality ! 
 And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, 
 Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore ; 
 Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, 
 Who shall put forth on thee, 
 Unfathomable Sea ? 
 
 1821. 
 
 THE SEASONS. 
 
 THE blasts of Autumn drive the winged seeds 
 
 Over the earth, next come the snows, and rain, 
 And frosts, and storms, which dreary Winter leads 
 
 Out of his Scythian cave, a savage train ; 
 
 Behold ! Spring sweeps over the world again, 
 Shedding soft dews from her aetherial wings ; 
 
 Flowers on the mountains, fruits over the plain, 
 And music on the waves and woods she flings, 
 And love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things.
 
 68 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 
 
 O Spring! of hope and love and youth and gladness 
 Wind-winged emblem ! brightest, best, and fairest ! 
 Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter's 
 
 sadness 
 
 The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest ; 
 Sister of joy, thou art the child who wearest 
 Thy mother's dying smile, tender and sweet 
 
 Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest 
 
 Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet 
 
 Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet. 
 
 Revolt of Islam, 
 Canto ix. 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 'TWAS at the season when the Earth upsprings 
 From slumber, as a sphered angel's child, 
 Shadowing its eyes with green and golden wings, 
 
 Stands up before its mother bright and mild, 
 Of whose soft voice the air expectant seems 
 So stood before the sun, which shone and smiled 
 
 To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams, 
 The fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary grove 
 Waxed green and flowers burst forth like starry 
 beams ; 
 
 The grass in the warm sun did start and move, 
 And sea-buds burst beneath the waves serene : 
 How many a one, though none be near to love, 
 
 Loves then the shade of his own soul, half seen 
 In any mirror or the spring's young minions, 
 The winged leaves amid the copses green ;
 
 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 69 
 
 How many a spirit then puts on the pinions 
 Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast, 
 And his own steps and over wide dominions 
 
 Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast, 
 More fleet than storms the wide world shrinks below, 
 When winter and despondency are past. 
 
 Prince A thanase, 1817. 
 
 JUNE. 
 
 IT was the azure time of June 
 
 When the skies are deep in the stainless noon, 
 And the warm and fitful breezes shake 
 The fresh green leaves of the hedgerow briar, 
 And there were odours then to make 
 The very breath we did respire 
 
 A liquid element, whereon 
 
 Our spirits, like delighted things 
 
 That walk the air on subtle wings, 
 
 Floated and mingled far away, 
 
 Mid the warm winds of the sunny day. 
 
 And when the evening star came forth 
 Above the curve of the new-bent moon, 
 
 And light and sound ebbed from the earth, 
 
 Like the tide of the full and weary sea 
 
 To the depths of its own tranquillity, 
 
 Our natures to its own repose 
 
 Did the Earth's breathless sleep attune. 
 
 Rosalind and Helen.
 
 70 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 1820.
 
 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 71 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, 
 The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are 
 dying, 
 
 And the year 
 
 On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves 
 dead, 
 
 Is lying. 
 
 Come, months, come away, 
 From November to May 
 In your saddest array ; 
 Follow the bier 
 Of the dead cold year, 
 And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. 
 
 The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, 
 The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling 
 
 For the year ; 
 
 The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each 
 gone 
 
 To his dwelling ; 
 Come, months, come away ; 
 Put on white, black, and grey ; 
 Let your light sisters play 
 Ye, follow the bier 
 Of the dead cold year, 
 And make her grave green with tear on tear. 
 
 1820.
 
 72 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 
 
 DIRGE FOR THE YEAR. 
 
 ORPHAN hours, the year is dead, 
 Come and sigh, come and weep ! 
 
 Merry hours, smile instead, 
 For the year is but asleep. 
 
 See, it smiles as it is sleeping, 
 
 Mocking your untimely weeping. 
 
 As an earthquake rocks a corse 
 
 In its coffin in the clay, 
 So White Winter, that rough nurse, 
 
 Rocks the death-cold year to-day ; 
 Solemn hours ! wail aloud 
 For your mother in her shroud. 
 
 As the wild air stirs and sways 
 The tree-swung cradle of a child, 
 
 So the breath of these rude days 
 
 Rocks the year : be calm and mild, 
 
 Trembling hours, she will arise 
 
 With new love within her eyes. 
 
 January grey is here, 
 
 Like a sexton by her grave ; 
 February bears the bier, 
 
 March with grief doth howl and rave, 
 And April weeps but, O, ye hours, 
 Follow with May's fairest flowers. 
 
 1821.
 
 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 73 
 
 MUTABILITY. 
 
 THE flower that smiles to-day 
 
 To-morrow dies ; 
 All that we wish to stay 
 
 Tempts and then flies. 
 What is this world's delight ? 
 Lightning that mocks the night, 
 Brief even as bright. 
 
 Virtue, how frail it is ! 
 
 Friendship how rare ! 
 Love, how it sells poor bliss 
 
 For proud despair ! 
 But we, though soon they fall, 
 Survive their joy, and all 
 Which ours we call. 
 
 Whilst skies are blue and bright, 
 Whilst flowers are gay, 
 Whilst eyes that change ere night 
 
 Make glad the day ; 
 Whilst yet the calm hours creep, 
 Dream thou and from thy sleep 
 Then wake to weep. 
 
 1821.
 
 74 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 
 
 TO-MORROW. 
 
 WHERE art thou, beloved To-morrow ? 
 
 When young and old and strong and weak, 
 Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow, 
 
 Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, 
 In thy place ah ! well-a-day ! 
 We find the thing we fled To-day. 
 
 1821. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 IF I walk in Autumn's even 
 
 While the dead leaves pass, 
 If I look on Spring's soft heaven, 
 
 Something is not there which was. 
 Winter's wondrous frost and snow, 
 Summer's clouds, where are they now ? 
 
 1821.
 
 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 75 
 
 THE PAST. 
 
 WILT thou forget the happy hours 
 Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers, 
 Heaping over their corpses cold 
 Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould ? 
 Blossoms which were the joys that fell, 
 And leaves, the hopes that yet remain. 
 
 Forget the dead, the past ? O yet 
 There are ghosts that may take revenge for it, 
 Memories that make the heart a tomb, 
 Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom, 
 And with ghastly whispers tell 
 That joy, once lost, is pain. 
 
 1818. 
 
 TIME LONG PAST. 
 
 LIKE the ghost of a dear friend dead 
 
 Is time long past. 
 A tone which is now forever fled, 
 A hope which is now forever past, 
 A love so sweet it could not last, 
 
 Was time long past. 
 
 There were sweet dreams in the night 
 
 Of time long past ; 
 And, was it sadness or delight, 
 Each day a shadow onward cast 
 Which made us wish it yet might last 
 That time long past. 
 
 1820.
 
 76 POEMS ON TIME AND ITS CHANGES. 
 
 There is regret, almost remorse, 
 
 For time long past. 
 
 'Tis like a child's beloved corse 
 
 A father watches, till at last 
 
 Beauty is like remembrance cast 
 
 From time long past. 
 
 1820. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 THAT time is dead for ever, child, 
 Drowned, frozen, dead for ever ! 
 
 We look on the past 
 
 And stare aghast 
 
 At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, 
 Of hopes which thou and I beguiled 
 
 To death on life's dark river. 
 
 The stream we gazed on then, rolled by ; 
 Its waves are unreturning ; 
 
 But we yet stand 
 
 In a lone land, 
 
 Like tombs to mark the memory 
 Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee 
 In the light of life's dim morning. 
 
 1817.
 
 of 5Lobe. 
 
 / 
 
 LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 THE fountains mingle with the river, 
 
 And the rivers with the ocean ; 
 The winds of heaven mix for ever : 
 
 With a sweet emotion ; 
 Nothing in the world is single ; 
 
 All things by a law divine 
 In one another's being mingle ; 
 
 Why not I with thine ? 
 
 See the mountains kiss high heaven, 
 
 And the waves clasp one another ; 
 No sister flower would be forgiven, 
 
 If it disdained its brother ; 
 And the sunlight clasps the earth, 
 
 And the moonbeams kiss the sea : 
 What are all these kissings worth, 
 
 If thou kiss not me ? 
 
 1820.
 
 7 8 SONGS OF LOVE. 
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 AN IMITATION. 
 
 MY faint spirit was sitting in the light 
 
 Of thy looks, my love ; 
 It panted for thee like the hind at noon 
 
 For the brooks, my love. 
 Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight 
 
 Bore thee far from me ; 
 
 My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, 
 Did companion thee. 
 
 Ah ! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed, 
 
 Or the death they bear, 
 The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove 
 
 With the wings of care ; 
 In the battle, in the darkness, in the need, 
 
 Shall mine cling to thee, 
 Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love, 
 It may bring to thee. 
 
 1821. 
 
 I 
 
 THE INDIAN SERENADE. 
 
 I ARISE from dreams of thee 
 In the first sweet sleep of night, 
 When the winds are breathing low, 
 And the stars are shining bright : 
 I arise from dreams of thee, 
 And a spirit in my feet 
 Hath led me who knows how ? 
 To thy chamber window, Sweet !
 
 SONGS OF LOVE. 79 
 
 The wandering airs they faint 
 On the dark, the silent stream 
 And the Champak's odours fail 
 Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; 
 The nightingale's complaint, 
 It dies upon her heart ; 
 As I must on thine, 
 O ! beloved as. thou art ! 
 
 lift me from the grass ! 
 
 1 die ! I faint ! I fail ! 
 Let thy love in kisses rain 
 On my lips and eyelids pale. 
 
 My cheek is cold and white, alas ! 
 My heart beats loud and fast ; 
 Oh ! press it close to thine again, 
 Where it will break at last. 
 
 1819. 
 
 TO 
 
 I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, 
 
 Thou needest not fear mine ; 
 My spirit is too deeply laden 
 
 Ever to burthen thine. 
 
 I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, 
 
 Thou needest not fear mine ; 
 Innocent is the heart's devotion 
 
 With which I worship thine. 
 
 1820.
 
 8o SONGS OF LOVE. 
 
 SONG FOR "TASSO." 
 
 I LOVED alas ! our life is love ; 
 
 But when we cease to breathe and move 
 
 I do suppose love ceases too. 
 
 I thought, but not as now I do, 
 
 Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore, 
 
 Of all that men had thought before, 
 
 And all that nature shows, and more. 
 
 And still I love and still I think, 
 But strangely, for my heart can drink 
 The dregs of such despair, and live, 
 And love ; 
 
 And if I think, my thoughts come fast, 
 I mix the present with the past, 
 And each seems uglier than the last. 
 
 Sometimes I see before me flee 
 A silver spirit's form, like thee, 
 O Leonora, and I sit 
 Still watching it, 
 
 Till by the grated casement's ledge 
 It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge 
 Breathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge. 
 
 1818.
 
 SONGS OF LOVE. 81 
 
 LOVE LEFT ALONE. 
 
 I LOVED, I love, and when I love no more, 
 Let joys and grief perish, and leave despair 
 To ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me, 
 The embodied vision of the brightest dream, 
 Which like a dawn heralds the day of life; 
 The shadow of his presence made my world 
 A paradise. All familiar things he touched, 
 All common words he spoke, became to me 
 Like forms and sounds of a diviner world. 
 He was as is the sun in his fierce youth, 
 As terrible and lovely as a tempest ; 
 He came, and went, and left me what I am 
 
 Alas ! Why must I think how oft we two 
 
 Have sate together near the river springs, 
 
 Under the green pavilion which the willow 
 
 Spreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain, 
 
 Strewn by the nurslings that linger there, 
 
 Over that islet paved with flowers and moss, 
 
 While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson 
 
 snow, 
 
 Showered on us, and the dove mourned in the pine, 
 Sad prophetess of sorrows not her own ? 
 The crane returned to her unfrozen haunt, 
 And the false cuckoo bade the spray good morn ; 
 And on a wintry bough the widowed bird, 
 Hid in the deepest night of ivy-leaves, 
 Renewed the vigils of a sleepless sorrow. 
 
 An Unfinisiied Drama. 1822. 
 G
 
 8a SONGS OF LOVE. 
 
 A SONG. 
 
 A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love 
 
 Upon a wintry bough ; 
 The frozen wind crept on above, 
 
 The freezing stream below. 
 
 There was no leaf upon the forest bare, 
 
 No flower upon the ground, 
 And little motion in the air 
 
 Except the mill-wheel's sound. 
 
 1822. 
 
 LOVE AND PARTING. 
 
 SHE saw me not she heard me not alone 
 Upon the mountain's dizzy brink she stood ; 
 She spake not, breathed not, moved not there 
 
 was thrown 
 
 Over her look, the shadow of a mood 
 Which only clothes the heart in solitude, 
 A thought of voiceless depth ; she stood alone, 
 Above, the Heavens were spread ; below, the flood 
 Was murmuring in its caves ; the wind had blown 
 Her hair apart, thro' which her eyes and forehead 
 
 shone.
 
 SONGS OF LOVE. 83 
 
 A cloud was hanging o'er the western mountains : 
 Before its blue and moveless depth were flying 
 Grey mists poured forth from the unresting fountains 
 Of darkness in the North : the day was dying : 
 Sudden, the sun shone forth, its beams were lying 
 Like boiling gold on Ocean, strange to see, 
 And on the shattered vapours, which defying 
 The power of light in vain, tossed restlessly 
 In the red Heaven, like wrecks in a tempestuous sea. 
 
 It was a stream of living beams, whose bank 
 On either side by the cloud's cleft was made ; 
 And where its chasms that flood of glory drank, 
 Its waves gushed forth like fire, and as if swayed 
 By some mute tempest, rolled on her ; the shade 
 Of her bright image floated on the river 
 Of liquid light, which then did end and fade 
 Her radiant shape upon its verge did shiver ; 
 Aloft, her flowing hair like strings of flame did quiver. 
 
 I stood beside her, but she saw me not 
 She looked upon the sea, and skies, and earth ; 
 Rapture, and love, and admiration wrought 
 A passion deeper far than tears, or mirth, 
 Or speech, or gesture, or whate'er has birth 
 From common joy ; which, with the speechless 
 
 feeling 
 
 That led her there, united and shot forth 
 From her far eyes, a light of deep revealing, 
 All but her dearest self from my regard concealing.
 
 84 SONGS OF LOVE. 
 
 Her lips were parted, and the measured breath 
 Was now heard there ; her dark and intricate eyes 
 Orb within orb, deeper than sleep or death, 
 Absorbed the glories of the burning skies, 
 Which, mingling with her heart's deep ecstasies, 
 Burst from her looks and gestures ; and a light 
 Of liquid tenderness like love, did rise 
 From her whole frame, an atmosphere which quite 
 Arrayed her in its beams, tremulous and soft and 
 bright. 
 
 She would have clasped me to her glowing frame ; 
 Those warm and odorous lips might soon have shed 
 On mine the fragrance and the invisible flame 
 Which now the cold winds stole ; she would have 
 
 laid 
 
 Upon my languid heart her dearest head ; 
 I might have heard her voice, tender and sweet ; 
 Her eyes mingling with mine, might soon have fed 
 My soul with their own joy. One moment yet 
 I gazed we parted then, never again to meet ! 
 
 Revolt of Islam, Canto xi. 
 
 TO F. G. 
 
 HER voice did quiver as we parted, 
 Yet knew I not that heart was broken 
 From which it came, and I departed 
 Heeding not the words then spoken. 
 Misery O Misery, 
 This world is all too wide for thee. 
 
 1817.
 
 SONGS OF LOVE. 85 
 
 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 or sorrow, if sweet May 
 Had not brought forth this morn your wedding-day. 
 
 1820.
 
 86 SONGS OF LOVE. 
 
 TO NIGHT. 
 
 SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, 
 
 Spirit of Night ! 
 Out of the misty eastern cave, 
 Where all the long and lone daylight, 
 Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, 
 Which make thee terrible and dear, 
 
 Swift be thy flight ! 
 
 Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, 
 
 Star-inwrought ! 
 
 Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day ; 
 Kiss her until she be wearied out, 
 Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, 
 Touching all with thine opiate wand 
 
 Come, long sought ! 
 
 / When I arose and saw the dawn, 
 
 I sighed for thee ; 
 
 When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 
 And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, 
 And the weary Day turned to his rest, 
 Lingering like an unloved guest, 
 I sighed for thee.
 
 SONGS OF LOVE. 87 
 
 Thy brother Death came, and cried, 
 
 Wouldst thou me ? 
 Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, 
 
 Murmured like a noon-tide bee, 
 Shall I nestle near thy side ? 
 Wouldst thou me ? And I replied, 
 
 No, not thee ? 
 
 Death will come when thou art dead, 
 
 Soon, too soon - 
 
 Sleep will come when thou art fled ; 
 Of neither would I ask the boon 
 I ask of thee, beloved Night 
 Swift be thine approaching flight, 
 
 Come soon, soon ! 
 
 1821. 
 
 A BRIDAL SONG. 
 
 THE golden gates of Sleep unbar 
 
 Where Strength and Beauty met together, 
 Kindle their image like a star 
 
 In a sea of glassy weather. 
 Night, with all thy stars look down, 
 
 Darkness, weep thy holiest dew, 
 Never smiled the inconstant moon 
 
 On a pair so true. 
 
 Let eyes not see their own delight ; 
 Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight 
 Oft renew.
 
 88 SONGS OF LOVE. 
 
 Fairies, sprites, and angels keep her ! 
 
 Holy stars, peimit no wrong ! 
 And return to wake the sleeper, 
 
 Dawn, ere it be long ! 
 Oh joy ! oh fear ! what will be done 
 In the absence of the sun ! 
 Come along ! 
 
 1821.
 
 Sultan anfc 
 
 A CONVERSATION. 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme, 
 The goats with the green leaves of budding Spring, 
 Are saturated not nor Love with tears. 
 
 VIRGIL'S CALLUS. 
 
 COUNT MADDALO is a Venetian nobleman of antient family 
 and of great fortune, who, without mixing much in the society 
 01 his countrymen, resides chiefly at his magnificent palace 
 in that city. He is a person of the most consummate genius, 
 and capable, if he would direct his energies to such an end, 
 of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. But it 
 is his weakness to be proud : he derives, from a comparison 
 of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects 
 that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothing- 
 ness of human life. His passions and his powers are incom- 
 parably greater than those of other men ; and, instead of the 
 latter having been employed in curbing the former, they have 
 mutually lent each other strength. His ambition preys upon 
 itself, for want of objects which it can consider worthy of 
 exertion. I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find 
 no other word to express the concentered and impatient 
 feelings which consume him ; but it is on his own hopes and 
 affections only that he seems to trample, for in social life no 
 human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming 
 than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank, and witty. His
 
 90 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication ; men are 
 held by it as by a spell. He has travelled much ; and there 
 is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in 
 different countries. 
 
 Julian is an Englishman of good family, passionately at- 
 tached to those philosophical notions which assert the power 
 of man over his own mind, and the immense improvements 
 of which, by the extinction of certain moral superstitions, 
 human society may be yet susceptible. Without concealing 
 the evil in the world, he is for ever speculating how good 
 may be made superior. He is a complete infidel, and a 
 scoffer at all things reputed holy ; and Macldalo takes a 
 wicked pleasure in drawing out his taunts against religion. 
 What Maddalo thinks on these matters is not exactly known. 
 Julian, in spite of his heterodox opinions, is conjectured by 
 his friends to possess some good qualities. How far this is 
 possible the pious reader will determine. Julian is rather 
 serious. 
 
 Of the Maniac I can give no information. He seems, by 
 his own account, to have been disappointed in love. He 
 was evidently a very cultivated and amiable person when 
 in his right senses. His story, told at length, might be like 
 many other stories of the same kind : the unconnected ex- 
 clamations of his agony will perhaps be found a sufficient 
 comment for the text of every heart. 
 
 I RODE one evening with Count Maddalo 
 
 Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow 
 
 Of Adria towards Venice : a bare strand 
 
 Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand, 
 
 Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds, 
 
 Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds, 
 
 Is this ; an uninhabited sea-side, 
 
 Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried, 
 
 Abandons ; and no other object breaks 
 
 The waste, but one dwarf tree and some few stakes
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 91 
 
 Broken and unrepaired, and the tide makes 
 
 A narrow space of level sand thereon, 
 
 Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down. 
 
 This ride was my delight. I love all waste 
 
 And solitary places ; where we taste 
 
 The pleasure of believing what we see 
 
 Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be : 
 
 And such was this wide ocean, and this shore 
 
 More barren than its billows ; and yet more 
 
 Than all, with a remembered friend I love 
 
 To ride as then I rode ; -for the winds drove 
 
 The living spray along the sunny air 
 
 Into our faces ; the blue heavens were bare, 
 
 Stripped to their depths by the awakening north ; 
 
 And, from the waves, sound like delight broke forth 
 
 Harmonizing with solitude, and sent 
 
 Into our hearts aerial merriment. 
 
 So, as we rode, we talked ; and the swift thought, 
 
 Winging itself with laughter, lingered not, 
 
 But flew from brain to brain, such glee was ours, 
 
 Charged with light memories of remembered hours, 
 
 None slow enough for sadness : till we came 
 
 Homeward, which always makes the spirit tame. 
 
 This day had been cheerful but cold, and now 
 
 The sun was sinking, and the wind also. 
 
 Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may be 
 
 Talk interrupted with such raillery 
 
 As mocks itself, because it cannot scorn 
 
 The thoughts it would extinguish : 'twas forlorn, 
 
 Yet pleasing, such as once, so poets tell, 
 
 The devils held within the dales of Hell 
 
 Concerning God, freewill and destiny : 
 
 Of all that earth has been or yet may be,
 
 92 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 All that vain men imagine or believe, 
 
 Or hope can paint or suffering may achieve, 
 
 We descanted, and I (for ever still 
 
 Is it not wise to make the best of ill ?) 
 
 Argued against despondency, but pride 
 
 Made my companion take the darker side. 
 
 The sense that he was greater than his kind 
 
 Had struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blind 
 
 By gazing on its own exceeding light. 
 
 Meanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight, 
 
 Over the horizon of the mountains ; Oh 
 
 How beautiful is sunset, when the glow 
 
 Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee, 
 
 Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy ! 
 
 Thy mountains, seas and vineyards and the 
 
 towers 
 
 Of cities they encircle ! it was ours 
 To stand on thee, beholding it ; and then 
 Just where we had dismounted the Count's men 
 Were waiting for us with the gondola. 
 As those who pause on some delightful way 
 Tho' bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood 
 Looking upon the evening and the flood 
 Which lay between the city and the shore 
 Paved with the image of the sky . . . the hoar 
 And aery Alps towards the North appeared 
 Thro' mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared 
 Between the East and West ; and half the sky 
 Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry 
 Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew 
 Down the steep West into a wondrous hue 
 Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent 
 Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 93 
 
 Among the many folded hills : they were 
 
 Those famous Euganean hills, which bear 
 
 As seen from Lido thro' the harbour piles 
 
 The likeness of a clump of peaked isles 
 
 And then as if the earth and Sea had been 
 
 Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen 
 
 Those mountains towering as from waves of flame 
 
 Around the vaporous sun, from which there came 
 
 The inmost purple spirit of light, and made 
 
 Their very peaks transparent. " Ere it fade," 
 
 Said my companion, " I will show you soon 
 
 A better station " so, o'er the lagune 
 
 We glided, and from that funereal bark 
 
 I leaned, and saw the city, and could mark 
 
 How from their many isles in evening's gleam 
 
 Its temples and its palaces did seem 
 
 Like fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven. 
 
 I was about to speak, when " We are even 
 
 Now at the point I meant," said Maddalo, 
 
 And bade the gondolieri cease to row. 
 
 " Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well 
 
 If you hear not a deep and heavy bell." 
 
 I looked, and saw between us and the sun 
 
 A building on an island ; such a one 
 
 As age to age might add, for uses vile, 
 
 A windowless, deformed and dreary pile ; 
 
 And on the top an open tower, where hung 
 
 A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung ; 
 
 We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue : 
 
 The broad sun sank behind it, and it tolled 
 
 In strong and black relief "What we behold 
 
 Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower," 
 
 Said Maddalo, " and ever at this hour
 
 94 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Those who may cross the water, hear that bell 
 Which calls the maniacs each one from his cell 
 To vespers." " As much skill as need to pray 
 In thanks or hope for their dark lot have they 
 To their stern maker," I replied. " O ho ! 
 You talk as in years past," said Maddalo. 
 " 'Tis strange men change not. You were ever 
 
 still 
 
 Among Christ's flock a perilous infidel, 
 A wolf for the meek lambs if you can't swim 
 Beware of Providence." I looked on him, 
 But the gay smile had faded in his eye, 
 " And such," he cried, " is our mortality, 
 And this must be the emblem and the sign 
 Of what should be eternal and divine ! 
 And like that black and dreary bell, the soul 
 Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must toll 
 Our thoughts and our desires to meet below 
 Round the rent heart and pray as madmen do ; 
 For what ? they know not, till the night of death 
 As sunset that strange vision, severeth 
 Our memory from itself, and us from all 
 We sought and yet were baffled." I recall 
 The sense of what he said, altho' I mar 
 The force of his expressions. The broad star 
 Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill, 
 And the black bell became invisible, 
 And the red tower looked grey, and all between 
 The churches, ships and palaces were seen 
 Huddled in gloom : into the purple sea 
 The orange hues of heaven sunk silently. 
 We hardly spoke, and soon the gondola 
 Conveyed me to my lodging by the way.
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 95 
 
 The following morn was rainy, cold and dim, 
 Ere Maddalo arose, I called on him, 
 And whilst I waited with his child I played ; 
 A lovelier toy sweet Nature never made, 
 A serious, suT3tle7"w7137yet tfe"tifle being, 
 Graceful without design and Ufiforeseeing, 
 Wrtheyes Oh speak not of her eyes ! which seem 
 TwTrTmirrors of Italian Heaven, yet gleam 
 With" such deep meaning, as we' never see 
 BTfFTn the human countenance : with me 
 STieTwas a special favourite, I had nursed 
 Her fine and feeble limbs when she came first 
 To this bleak world ; and she yet seemed to know 
 On second sight her antient playfellow, 
 Less changed than she was by six months or so ; 
 For after her first shyness was worn out 
 We sate there, rolling billiard balls about, 
 When the Count entered salutations past ; 
 " The words you spoke last night might well have cast 
 A darkness on my spirit if man be 
 The passive thing you say, I should not see 
 Much harm in the religions and old saws 
 (Tho' I may never own such leaden laws) 
 Which break a teachless nature to the yoke : 
 Mine is another faith " thus much I spoke 
 And noting he replied not, added : " See 
 This lovely child, blithe, innocent and free, 
 She spends a happy time with little care 
 While we to such sick thoughts subjected are 
 As came on you last night it is our will 
 That thus enchains us to permitted ill 
 We might be otherwise we might be all 
 We dream of happy, high, majestical.
 
 $6 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek 
 But in our mind ? and if we were not weak 
 Should we be less in deed than in desire ?" 
 " Aye, if we were not weak and we aspire 
 How vainly to be strong !" said Maddalo : 
 " You talk Utopia." " It remains to know," 
 I then rejoined, " and those who try may find 
 How strong the chains are which our spirit bind ; 
 Brittle perchance as straw . . . We are assured 
 Much may be conquered, much may be endured 
 Of what degrades and crushes us. We know 
 That we have power over ourselves to do 
 And suffer what, we know not till we try ; 
 But something nobler than to live and die- 
 So taught those kings of old philosophy 
 Who reigned, before Religion made men blind ; 
 And those who suffer with their suffering kind 
 Yet feel this faith, religion." " My dear friend," 
 Said Maddalo, " my judgment will not bend 
 To your opinion, tho' I think you might 
 Make such a system refutation-tight 
 As far as words go. I knew one like you 
 Who to this city came some months ago, 
 With whom I argued in this sort, and he ' 
 Is now gone mad, and so he answered me, 
 Poor fellow ! but if you would like to go 
 We'll visit him, and his wild talk will show 
 How vain are such aspiring theories.". 
 " I hope to prove the induction otherwise, 
 And that a want of that true theory, still, 
 Which seeks a 'soul of goodness' in things ill, 
 Or in himself or others, has thus bowed 
 His being there are some by nature proud,
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 97 
 
 Who patient in all else demand but this : 
 To love and be beloved with gentleness ; 
 And being scorned, what wonder if they die 
 Some living death ? this is not destiny 
 But man's own wilful ill." 
 
 As thus I spoke 
 
 Servants announced the gondola, and we 
 Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea 
 Sailed to the island where the madhouse stands. 
 We disembarked. The clap of tortured hands, 
 Fierce yells and howlings and lamentings keen, 
 And laughter where complaint had merrier been, 
 Moans, shrieks, and curses, and blaspheming prayers 
 Accosted us. We climbed the oozy stairs 
 Into an old court yard. I heard on high, 
 Then, fragments of most touching melody, 
 But looking up saw not the singer there 
 Through the black bars in the tempestuous air 
 I saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing, 
 Long tangled locks flung wildly forth, and flowing, 
 Of those who on a sudden were beguiled 
 Into strange silence, and looked forth and smiled 
 Hearing sweet sounds. Then I : " Methinks there 
 
 were 
 
 A cure of these with patience and kind care, 
 If music can thus move . . . but what is he 
 W r hom we seek here?" " Of his sad history 
 I know but this," said Maddalo, " he came 
 To Venice a dejected man, and fame 
 Said he was wealthy, or he had been so ; 
 Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him 
 
 woe ;
 
 98 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 But he was ever talking in such sort 
 
 As you do far more sadly he seemed hurt, 
 
 Even as a man with his peculiar wrong, 
 
 To hear but of the oppression of the strong, 
 
 Or those absurd deceits (I think with you 
 
 In some respects you know) which carry through 
 
 The excellent impostors of this earth 
 
 When they outface detection he had worth, 
 
 Poor fellow ! but a humourist in his way" 
 
 " Alas, what drove him mad ? " " I cannot say ; 
 
 A lady came with him from France, and when 
 
 She left him and returned, he wandered then 
 
 About yon lonely isles of desart sand 
 
 Till he grew wild he had no cash or land 
 
 Remaining, the police had brought him here 
 
 Some fancy took him and he would not bear 
 
 Removal ; so I fitted up for him 
 
 Those rooms beside the sea, to please his whim, 
 
 And sent him busts and books and urns for flowers 
 
 Which had adorned his life in happier hours, 
 
 And instruments of music you may guess 
 
 A stranger could do little more or less 
 
 For one so gentle and unfortunate, 
 
 And those are his sweet strains which charm the 
 
 weight 
 
 From madmen's chains, and make this Hell appear 
 A heaven of sacred silence, hushed to hear." 
 " Nay, this was kind of you he had no claim, 
 As the world says" " None but the very same 
 Which I on all mankind were I as he 
 Fallen to such deep reverse ; his melody 
 Is interrupted now we hear the din 
 Of madmen, shriek on shriek again begin ;
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 99 
 
 Let us now visit him ; after this strain 
 
 He ever communes with himself again, 
 
 And sees nor hears not any." Having said 
 
 These words we called the keeper, and he led 
 
 To an apartment opening on the sea 
 
 There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully 
 
 Near a piano, his pale fingers twined 
 
 One with the other, and the ooze and wind 
 
 Rushed thro' an open casement, and did sway 
 
 His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray ; 
 
 His head was leaning on a music book, 
 
 And he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook ; 
 
 His lips were pressed against a folded leaf 
 
 In hue too beautiful for health, and grief 
 
 Smiled in their motions as they lay apart 
 
 As one who wrought from his own fervid heart 
 
 The eloquence of passion, soon he raised 
 
 His sad meek face and eyes lustrous and glazed 
 
 And spoke sometimes as one who wrote and 
 
 thought 
 
 His words might move some heart that heeded not 
 If sent to distant lands : and then as one 
 Reproaching deeds never to be undone 
 With wondering self-compassion ; then his speech 
 Was lost in grief, and then his words came each 
 Unmodulated, cold, expressionless ; 
 But that from one jarred accent you might guess 
 It was despair made them so uniform : 
 And all the while the loud and gusty storm 
 Hissed thro' the window, and we stood behind 
 Stealing his accents from the envious wind 
 Unseen. I yet remember what he said 
 Distinctly : such impression his words made.
 
 ioo JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Month after month,' he cried, ' to bear this load 
 And as a jade urged by the whip and goad 
 To drag life on, which like a heavy chain 
 Lengthens behind with many a link of pain ! 
 And not to speak my grief O not to dare 
 To give a human voice to my despair, 
 But live and move, and wretched thing ! smile on 
 As if I never went aside to groan, 
 And wear this mask of falsehood even to those 
 Who are most dear not for my own repose 
 Alas no scorn or pain or hate could be 
 So heavy as that falsehood is to me 
 But that I cannot bear more altered faces 
 Than needs must be, more changed and cold embraces, 
 More misery, disappointment and mistrust 
 To own me for their father . . . Would the dust 
 Were covered in upon my body now ! 
 That the life ceased to toil within my brow ! 
 And then these thoughts would at the least be fled ; 
 Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead. 
 
 ' What Power delights to torture us ? I know 
 That to myself I do not wholly owe 
 What now I suffer, tho' in part I may. 
 Alas none strewed sweet flowers upon the way 
 Where wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain 
 My shadow, which will leave me not again 
 If I have erred, there was no joy in error, 
 But pain and insult and unrest and terror ; 
 I have not as some do, bought penitence 
 With pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence, 
 For then, if love and tenderness and truth 
 Had overlived hope's momentary youth,
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 101 
 
 My creed should have redeemed me from repenting, 
 
 But loathed scorn and outrage unrelenting 
 
 Met love excited by far other seeming 
 
 Until the end was gained ... as one from dreaming 
 
 Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state 
 
 Such as it is. 
 
 ' O Thou, my spirit's mate 
 Who, for thou art compassionate and wise, 
 Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes 
 If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see 
 My secret groans must be unheard by thee, 
 Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood to know 
 Thy lost friend's incommunicable woe. 
 
 ' Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed 
 In friendship, let me not that name degrade 
 By placing on your hearts the secret load 
 Which crushes mine to dust. There is one road 
 To peace and that is truth, which follow ye ! 
 Love sometimes leads astray to misery. 
 Yet think not tho' subdued and I may well 
 Say that I am subdued that the full Hell 
 Within me would infect the untainted breast 
 Of sacred nature with its own unrest ; 
 As some perverted beings think to find 
 In scorn or hate a medicine for the mind 
 Which scorn or hate have wounded O how vain ! 
 The dagger heals not but may rend again .... 
 Believe that I am ever still the same 
 In creed as in resolve, and what may tame 
 My heart, must leave the understanding free, 
 Or all would sink in this keen agony
 
 102 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Nor dream that I will join the vulgar cry, 
 Or with my silence sanction tyranny, 
 Or seek a moment's shelter from my pain 
 In any madness which the world calls gain, 
 Ambition or revenge or thoughts as stern 
 As those which make me what I am, or turn 
 To avarice or misanthropy or lust .... 
 Heap on me soon, O grave, thy welcome dust ! 
 Till then the dungeon may demand its prey, 
 And Poverty and Shame may meet and say 
 Halting beside me on the public way 
 That love-devoted youth is our's let's sit 
 Beside him he may live some six months yet. 
 Or the red scaffold, as our country bends, 
 May ask some willing victim, or ye friends 
 May fall under some sorrow which this heart 
 Or hand may share or vanquish or avert ; 
 I am prepared : in truth with no proud joy 
 To do or suffer aught, as when a boy 
 I did devote to justice and to love 
 My nature, worthless now ! . . . 
 
 ' I must remove 
 
 A veil from my pent mind. 'Tis torn aside ! 
 O, pallid as Death's dedicated bride, 
 Thou mockery which art sitting by my side, 
 Am I not wan like thee ? at the grave's call 
 I haste, invited to thy wedding-ball 
 To greet the ghastly paramour, for whom 
 Thou hast deserted me . . . and made the tomb 
 Thy bridal bed . . . but I beside your feet 
 Will lie and watch ye from my winding sheet 
 Thus . . . wide awake tho' dead ... yet stay O stay ! 
 Go not so soon I know not what I say
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 103 
 
 Hear but my reasons . . I am mad, I fear, 
 My fancy is o'envrought . . thou art not here . . . 
 Pale art thou, 'tis most true . . but thou art gone, 
 Thy work is finished ... I am left alone ! 
 
 ' Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breast 
 Which, like a serpent thou envenomest 
 As in repayment of the warmth it lent ? 
 Didst thou not seek me for thine own content ? 
 Did not thy love awaken mine ? I thought 
 That thou wert she who said ' You kiss me not 
 Ever, I fear you do not love me now ' 
 In truth I loved even to my overthrow 
 Her, who would fain forget these words : but they 
 Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away. 
 
 ' You say that I am proud that when I speak 
 My lip is tortured with the wrongs which break 
 The spirit it expresses . . . Never one 
 Humbled himself before, as I have done ! 
 Even the instinctive worm on which we tread 
 Turns, tho' it wound not then with prostrate head 
 Sinks in the dust and writhes like me and dies ? 
 No : wears a living death of agonies ! 
 As the slow shadows of the pointed grass 
 Mark the eternal periods, his pangs pass 
 Slow, ever-moving, making moments be 
 As mine seem each an immortality !
 
 104 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 ' That you had never seen me never heard 
 My voice, and more than all had ne'er endured 
 The deep pollution of my loathed embrace 
 That your eyes ne'er had lied love in my face 
 That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out 
 The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root 
 With mine own quivering fingers, so that ne'er 
 Our hearts had for a moment mingled there 
 To disunite in horror these were not 
 With thee, like some suppressed and hideous thought 
 Which flits athwart our musings, but can find 
 No rest within a pure and gentle mind . . . 
 Thou sealedst them with many a bare broad word 
 And searedst my memory o'er them, for I heard 
 And can forget not .... they were ministered 
 One after one, those curses. Mix them up 
 Like self-destroying poisons in one cup, 
 And they will make one blessing which thou ne'er 
 Didst imprecate for, on me, death. 
 
 ' It were 
 
 A cruel punishment for one most cruel 
 If such can love, to make that love the fuel 
 Of the mind's hell ; hate, scorn, remorse, despair : 
 But me whose heart a stranger's tear might wear 
 As water-drops the sandy fountain-stone, 
 Who loved and pitied all things, and could moan 
 For woes which others hear not, and could see 
 The absent with the glance of phantasy, 
 And with the poor and trampled sit and weep, 
 Following the captive to his dungeon deep ; 
 Me who am as a nerve o'er which do creep
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 105 
 
 The else unfelt oppressions of this earth, 
 And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth, 
 When all beside was cold that thou on me 
 Shouldst reign these plagues of blistering agony 
 Such curses are from lips once eloquent 
 With love's too partial praise let none relent 
 Who intend deeds too dreadful for a name 
 Henceforth, if an example for the same 
 They seek ... for thou on me lookedst so, and so 
 And didst speak thus . . and thus ... I live to shew 
 How much men bear and die not ! 
 
 ' Thou wilt tell 
 
 With the grimace of hate how horrible 
 It was to meet my love when thine grew less ; 
 Thou wilt admire how I could e'er address 
 Such features to love's work . . . this taunt, tho' true, 
 (For indeed nature nor in form nor hue 
 Bestowed on me her choicest workmanship) 
 Shall not be thy defence ... for since thy lip 
 Met mine first, years long past, since thine eye kindled 
 With soft fire under mine, I have not dwindled 
 Nor changed in mind or body, or in aught 
 But as love changes what it loveth not 
 After long years and many trials. 
 
 ' How vain 
 
 Are words ! I thought never to speak again, 
 Not even in secret, not to my own heart 
 But from my lips the unwilling accents start, 
 And from my pen the words flow as I write, 
 Dazzling my eyes with scalding tears . . . my sight
 
 io6 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Is dim to see that charactered in vain 
 
 On this unfeeling leaf which burns the brain 
 
 And eats into it ... blotting all things fair 
 
 And wise and good which time had written there. 
 
 1 Those who inflict must suffer, for they see 
 The work of their own hearts and this must be 
 Our chastisement or recompense O child ! 
 I would that thine were like to be more mild 
 For both our wretched sakes ... for thine the most 
 Who feelest already all that thou hast lost 
 Without the power to wish it thine again ; 
 And as slow years pass, a funereal train 
 Each with the ghost of some lost hope or friend 
 Following it like its shadow, wilt thou bend 
 No thought on my dead memory ? 
 
 ' Alas, love ! 
 
 Fear me not . . . against thee I would not move 
 A finger in despite. Do I not live 
 That thou mayest have less bitter cause to grieve ? 
 I give thee tears for scorn and love for hate ; 
 And that thy lot may be less desolate 
 Than his on whom thou tramplest, I refrain 
 From that sweet sleep which medicines all pain. 
 Then, when thou speakest of me, never say 
 He could forgive not. Here I cast away 
 All human passions, all revenge, all pride ; 
 I think, speak, act no ill ; I do but hide 
 Under these words like embers, every spark 
 Of that which has consumed me quick and dark
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 107 
 
 The grave is yawning ... as its roof shall cover 
 My limbs with dust and worms under and over 
 So let Oblivion hide this grief . . . the air 
 Closes upon my accents, as despair 
 Upon my heart let death upon despair !' 
 
 He ceased, and overcome leant back awhile, 
 Then rising, with a melancholy smile 
 Went to a sofa, and lay down, and slept 
 A heavy sleep, and in his dreams he wept 
 And muttered some familiar name, and we 
 Wept without shame in his society. 
 I think I never was impressed so much ; 
 The man who were not, must have lacked a touch 
 Of human nature . . . then we lingered not, 
 Although our argument was quite forgot, 
 But calling the attendants, went to dine 
 At Maddalo's ; yet neither cheer nor wine 
 Could give us spirits, for we talked of him 
 And nothing else, till daylight made stars dim ; 
 And we agreed his was some dreadful ill 
 Wrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable, 
 By a dear friend ; some deadly change in love 
 Of one vowed deeply which he dreamed not of ; 
 For whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a blot 
 Of falsehood on his mind which flourished not 
 But in the light of all-beholding truth, 
 And having stamped this canker on his youth 
 She had abandoned him and how much more 
 Might be his woe, we guessed not he had 
 
 store 
 
 Of friends and fortune once, as we could guess 
 From his nice habits and his gentleness ;
 
 io8 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 These were now lost ... it were a grief indeed 
 If he had changed one unsustaining reed 
 For all that such a man might else adorn. 
 The colours of his mind seemed yet unworn ; 
 For the wild language of his grief was high, 
 Such as in measure were called poetry, 
 And I remember one remark which then 
 Maddalo made. He said : " Most wretched men 
 Are cradled into poetry by wrong, 
 They learn in suffering what they teach in song." 
 
 If I had been an unconnected man 
 I, from this moment, should have formed some 
 
 plan 
 
 Never to leave sweet Venice, for to me 
 It was delight to ride by the lone sea ; 
 And then, the town is silent one may write 
 Or read in gondolas by day or night, 
 Having the little brazen lamp alight, 
 Unseen, uninterrupted ; books are there, 
 Pictures, and casts from all those statues fair 
 Which were twin-born with poetry, and all 
 We seek in towns, with little to recall 
 Regrets for the green country. I might sit 
 In Maddalo's great palace, and his wit 
 And subtle talk would cheer the winter night 
 And make me know myself, and the firelight 
 Would flash upon our faces, till the day 
 Might dawn and make me wonder at my stay : 
 But I had friends in London too : the chief 
 Attraction here, was that I sought relief 
 From the deep tenderness that maniac wrought 
 Within me 'twas perhaps an idle thought
 
 JULIAN AND MADDALO. 109 
 
 But I imagined that if day by day 
 
 I watched him, and but seldom went away, 
 
 And studied all the beatings of his heart 
 
 With zeal, as men study some stubborn art 
 
 For their own good, and could by patience find 
 
 An entrance to the caverns of his mind, 
 
 I might reclaim him from this dark estate : 
 
 In friendships I had been most fortunate 
 
 Yet never saw I one whom I would call 
 
 More willingly my friend ; and this was all 
 
 Accomplished not ; such dreams of baseless good 
 
 Oft come and go in crowds and solitude 
 
 And leave no trace but what I now designed 
 
 Made for long years impression on my mind. 
 
 The following morning urged by my affairs 
 
 I left bright Venice. 
 
 After many years 
 
 And many changes I returned ; the name 
 Of Venice, and its aspect was the same ; 
 But Maddalo was travelling far away 
 Among the mountains of Armenia. 
 His dog was dead. His child had now become 
 A woman ; such as it has been my doom 
 To meet with few, a wonder of this earth 
 Where there is little of transcendant worth, 
 Like one of Shakespeare's women : kindly she, 
 And with a manner beyond courtesy, 
 Received her father's friend ; and when I asked 
 Of the lorn maniac, she her memory tasked 
 And told as she had heard the mournful tale. 
 " That the poor sufferer's health began to fail 
 Two years from my departure, but that then 
 The lady who had left him, came again.
 
 no JULIAN AND MADDALO. 
 
 Her mien had been imperious, but she now 
 
 Looked meek perhaps remorse had brought her low. 
 
 Her coming made him better, and they stayed 
 
 Together at my father's for I played 
 
 As I remember with the lady's shawl 
 
 I might be six years old but after all 
 
 She left him " . . . " Why, her heart must have been 
 
 tough : 
 
 How did it end ?" " And was not this enough ? 
 They met they parted" "Child, is there no more?" 
 " Something within that interval which bore 
 The stamp of why they parted, how they met : 
 Yet if thine aged eyes disdain to wet 
 Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears, 
 Ask me no more, but let the silent years 
 Be closed and cered over their memory 
 As yon mute marble where their corpses lie." 
 I urged and questioned still, she told me how 
 All happened but the cold world shall not know. 
 
 1818.
 
 MONT BLANC. 
 
 
 LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI 
 
 THE everlasting universe of things 
 
 Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, 
 
 Now dark now glittering now reflecting gloom 
 
 Now lending splendour, where from secret springs 
 
 The source of human thought its tribute brings 
 
 Of waters, with a sound but half its own, 
 
 Such as a feeble brook will oft assume 
 
 In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, 
 
 Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, 
 
 Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river 
 
 Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves. 
 
 Thus thou, Ravine of Arve dark, deep Ravine 
 Thou many-coloured, many-voiced vale, 
 Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail 
 Fast cloud shadows and sunbeams : awful scene, 
 Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down 
 From the ice gulphs that gird his secret throne, 
 Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame 
 Of lightning thro' the tempest ; thou dost lie,
 
 112 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, 
 
 Children of elder time, in whose devotion 
 
 The chainless winds still come and ever came 
 
 To drink their odours, and their mighty .swinging 
 
 To hear an old and solemn harmony ; 
 
 Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep 
 
 Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil 
 
 Robes some unsculptured image ; the strange sleep 
 
 Which when the voices of the desart fail 
 
 Wraps all in its own deep eternity ; 
 
 Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion, 
 
 A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame ; 
 
 Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, 
 
 Thou art the path of that unresting sound 
 
 Dizzy Ravine ! and when I gaze on thee 
 
 I seem as in a trance sublime and strange 
 
 To muse on my own separate phantasy, 
 
 My own, my human mind, which passively 
 
 Now renders and receives fast influencings, 
 
 Holding an unremitting interchange 
 
 With the clear universe of things around ; 
 
 One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings 
 
 Now float above thy darkness, and now rest 
 
 Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, 
 
 In the still cave of the witch Poesy, 
 
 Seeking among the shadows that pass by 
 
 Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, 
 
 Some phantom, some faint image ; till the breast 
 
 From which they fled recalls them, thou art there ! 
 
 Some say that gleams of a remoter world 
 Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber, 
 And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 113 
 
 Of those who wake and live. I look on high ; 
 
 Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled 
 
 The veil of life and death ? or do I lie 
 
 In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep 
 
 Spread far around and inaccessibly 
 
 Its circles ? For the very spirit fails, 
 
 Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep 
 
 That vanishes among the viewless gales ! 
 
 Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, 
 
 Mont Blanc appears, still, snowy, and serene 
 
 Its subject mountains their unearthly forms 
 
 Pile around it, ice and rock ; broad vales between 
 
 Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, 
 
 Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread 
 
 And wind among the accumulated steeps ; 
 
 A desart peopled by the storms alone, 
 
 Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, 
 
 And the wolf tracks her there how hideously 
 
 Its shapes are heaped around ! rude, bare, and 
 
 high, 
 
 Ghastly, and scarred, and riven. Is this the scene 
 Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young 
 Ruin ? Were these their toys ? or did a sea 
 Of fire envelope once this silent snow ? 
 None can reply all seems eternal now. 
 The wilderness has a mysterious tongue 
 Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, 
 So solemn, so serene, that man may be 
 But for such faith with nature reconciled ; 
 Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal 
 Large codes of fraud and woe ; not understood 
 By all, but which the wise, and great, and good 
 Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. 
 I
 
 H4 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, 
 
 Ocean, and all the living things that dwell 
 
 Within the daedal earth ; lightning, and rain, 
 
 Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, 
 
 The torpor of the year when feeble dreams 
 
 Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep 
 
 Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound 
 
 With which from that detested trance they leap ; 
 
 The works and ways of man, their death and birth, 
 
 And that of him and all that his may be ; 
 
 All things that move and breathe with toil and sound 
 
 Are born and die ; revolve, subside and swell. 
 
 Power dwells apart in its tranquillity 
 
 Remote, serene, and inaccessible : 
 
 And this, the naked countenance of earth, 
 
 On which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains 
 
 Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep 
 
 Like snakes that watch their prey from their far 
 
 fountains, 
 
 Slow rolling on ; there, many a precipice, 
 Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power 
 Have piled : dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, 
 A city of death, distinct with many a tower 
 And wall impregnable of beaming ice. 
 Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin 
 Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky 
 Rolls its perpetual stream ; vast pines are strewing 
 Its destined path, or in the mangled soil 
 Branchless and shattered stand ; the rocks, drawn 
 
 down 
 
 From yon remotest waste, have overthrown 
 The limits of the dead and living world, 
 Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 115 
 
 Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil ; 
 Their food and their retreat for ever gone, 
 So much of life and joy is lost. The race 
 Of man flies far in dread : his work and dwelling 
 Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, 
 And their place is not known. Below, vast caves 
 Shine in the rushing torrent's restless gleam, 
 Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling 
 Meet in the vale, and one majestic River, 
 The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever 
 Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves, 
 Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air. 
 
 Mont Blanc yet gleams on high : the power is there, 
 The still and solemn power of many sights, 
 And many sounds, and much of life and death. 
 In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, 
 In the lone glare of day, the snows descend 
 Upon that Mountain ; none beholds them there, 
 Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, 
 Or the star-beams dart through them : Winds 
 
 contend 
 
 Silently there, and heap the snow with breath 
 Rapid and strong, but silently ! Its home 
 The voiceless lightning in these solitudes 
 Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods 
 Over the snow. The secret strength of things 
 Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome 
 Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee ! 
 And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, 
 If to the human mind's imaginings 
 Silence and solitude were vacancy ? 
 
 1816.
 
 n6 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 THE ALPS AT DAWN. 
 
 BENEATH is a wide plain of billowy mist, 
 As a lake, paving in the morning sky, 
 With azure waves which burst in silver light, 
 Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on 
 Under the curdling winds, and islanding 
 The peak whereon we stand, midway, around, 
 Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, 
 Dim twilight lawns, and stream-illumined caves, 
 And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist ; 
 And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains 
 From icy spires of sunlike radiance fling 
 The dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray, 
 From some Atlantic islet scattered up, 
 Spangles the wind with lamp-like water drops. 
 The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl 
 Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines 
 Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, 
 Awful as silence. Hark ! the rushing snow ! 
 The sun-awakened avalanche ! whose mass, 
 Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there 
 Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds 
 As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth 
 Is loosened, and the nations echo round, 
 Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now. 
 
 Prom, Unbound.
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 117 
 
 LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE 
 EUGANEAN HILLS. 
 
 MANY a green isle needs must be 
 In the deep wide sea of misery, 
 Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
 Never thus could voyage on 
 Day and night, and night and day, 
 Drifting on his dreary way, 
 With the solid darkness black 
 Closing round his vessel's track ; 
 Whilst above the sunless sky, 
 Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 
 And behind the tempest fleet 
 Hurries on with lightning feet, 
 Riving sail, and cord, and plank, 
 Till the ship has almost drank 
 Death from the o'er-brimming deep ; 
 And sinks down, down, like that sleep 
 When the dreamer seems to be 
 Weltering through eternity ; 
 And the dim low line before 
 Of a dark and distant shore 
 Still recedes, as ever still 
 Longing with divided will, 
 But no power to seek or shun, 
 He is ever drifted on 
 O'er the unreposing wave 
 To the haven of the grave.
 
 Ii8 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 What, if there no friends will greet ; 
 What, if there no heart will meet 
 His with love's impatient beat ; 
 Wander wheresoe'er he may, 
 Can he dream before that day 
 To find refuge from distress 
 In friendship's smile, in love's caress ? 
 Then 'twill wreak him little woe 
 Whether such there be or no : 
 Senseless is the breast, and cold, 
 Which relenting love would fold ; 
 Bloodless are the veins and chill 
 Which the pulse of pain did fill ; 
 Every little living nerve 
 That from bitter words did swerve 
 Round the tortured lips and brow, 
 Are like sapless leaflets now 
 Frozen upon December's bough. 
 
 On the beach of a northern sea 
 Which tempests shake eternally, 
 As once the wretch there lay to sleep, 
 Lies a solitary heap, 
 One white skull and seven dry bones, 
 On the margin of the stones, 
 Where a few grey rushes stand, 
 Boundaries of the sea and land : 
 Nor is heard one voice of wail 
 But the sea-mews, as they sail 
 O'er the billows of the gale ; 
 Or the whirlwind up and down 
 Howling, like a slaughtered town, 
 When a king in glory rides
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 119 
 
 Through the pomp of fratricides : 
 
 Those unburied bones around 
 
 There is many a mournful sound ; 
 
 There is no lament for him, 
 
 Like a sunless vapour, dim, 
 
 Who once clothed with life and thought 
 
 What now moves nor murmurs not. 
 
 Aye, many flowering islands lie 
 
 In the waters of wide Agony : 
 
 To such a one this morn was led, 
 
 My bark by soft winds piloted : 
 
 'Mid the mountains Euganean 
 
 I stood listening to the paean, 
 
 With which the legioned rooks did hail 
 
 The sun's uprise majestical ; 
 
 GaThering found with wings all hoar, 
 
 Thro' the dewy mist they soar 
 
 Like grey shades, till the eastern heaven 
 
 Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, 
 
 Flecked with fire and azure, lie 
 
 In the unfathomable sky, 
 
 So their plumes of purple grain, 
 
 Starred with drops of golden rain, 
 
 Gleajp~^6ventTie""su'nTTgril "woods, 
 
 As in silent multitudes 
 
 On the morning's fitful gale 
 
 Thro' the broken mist they sail, 
 
 Anc^the vapours cloven and gleaming 
 
 Follow down the dark steep streaming, 
 
 Till all is bright, and clear, and still, 
 
 Round the solitary hill. t 
 
 Beneath is spread like a green sea
 
 120 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 The waveless plain of Lombardy, 
 Bounded by the vaporous air, 
 Islanded by cities fair ; 
 Underneath day's azure eyes 
 Ocean's nursling, Venice lies, 
 A peopled labyrinth of walls, 
 Amphitrite's destined halls, 
 Which her hoary sire now paves 
 With his blue and beaming waves. 
 Lo ! the sun upsprings behind, 
 Broad, red, radiant, half reclined 
 On the level quivering line 
 Of the waters crystalline ; 
 And before that chasm of light, 
 As within a furnace bright, 
 Column, tower, and dome, and spire, 
 Shine like obelisks of fire, 
 Pointing with inconstant motion 
 From the altar of dark ocean 
 To the sapphire-tinted skies ; 
 As the flames of sacrifice 
 From the marblf'shrines did rise, 
 As to pierce the dome of gold 
 Where Apollo spoke of old. 
 
 Sun-girt City, thou hast been 
 Ocean's child, and then his queen ; 
 Now is come a darker day, 
 And thou soon must be his prey, 
 If the power that raised thee here 
 Hallow so thy watery bier. 
 A less drear ruin then than now, 
 With thy conquest-branded brow
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 Stooping to the slave of slaves 
 From thy throne, among the waves 
 Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew 
 Flies, as once before it flew, 
 O'er thine isles depopulate, 
 And all is in its antient state, 
 Save where many a palace gate 
 With green sea-flowers overgrown 
 Like a rock of ocean's own, 
 Topples o'er the abandoned sea 
 As the tides change sullenly. 
 The fisher on his watery way, 
 Wandering at the close of day, 
 Will spread his sail and seize his oar 
 Till he pass the gloomy shore, 
 Lest thy dead should, from their sleep 
 Bursting o'er the starlight deep, 
 Lead a rapid masque of death 
 O'er the waters of his path. 
 
 Those who alone thy towers behold 
 Quivering through aerial gold, 
 As I now behold them here, 
 Would imagine not they were 
 Sepulchres, where human forms, 
 Like pollution-nourished worms 
 To the corpse of greatness cling, 
 Murdered, and now mouldering : 
 But if Freedom should awake 
 In her omnipotence, and shake 
 From the Celtic Anarch's hold 
 All the keys of dungeons cold, 
 Where a hundred cities lie
 
 122 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 Chained like thee, ingloriously, 
 
 Thou and all thy sister band 
 
 Might adorn this sunny land, 
 
 Twining memories of old time 
 
 With new virtues more sublime ; 
 
 If not, perish thou and they, 
 
 Clouds which stain truth's rising day 
 
 By her sun consumed away, 
 
 Earth can spare ye : while like flowers, 
 
 In the waste of years and hours, 
 
 From your dust new nations spring 
 
 With more kindly blossoming. 
 
 Perish let there only be 
 
 Floating o'er thy hearthless sea 
 
 As the garment of thy sky 
 
 Clothes the world immortally, 
 
 One remembrance, more sublime 
 
 Than the tattered pall of Time, 
 
 Which scarce hides thy visage wan ; 
 
 That a tempest-cleaving swan 
 
 Of the songs of Albion, 
 
 Driven from his ancestral streams 
 
 By the might of evil dreams, 
 
 Found a nest in thee ; and Ocean 
 
 Welcomed him with such emotion 
 
 That its joy grew his, and sprung 
 
 From his lips like music flung 
 
 O'er a mighty thunder-fit 
 
 Chastening terror : what though yet 
 
 Poesy's unfailing river, 
 
 Which thro' Albion winds for ever 
 
 Lashing with melodious wave 
 
 Many a sacred Poet's grave,
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 123 
 
 Mourn its latest nursling fled ? 
 What though thou with all thy dead 
 Scarce can for this fame repay 
 Aught thine own ? oh, rather say 
 Though thy sins and slaveries foul 
 Overcloud a sunlike soul ? 
 As the ghost of Homer clings 
 Round Scamander's wasting springs ; 
 As divinest Shakespeare's might 
 Fills Avon and the world with light 
 Like omniscient power which he 
 Imaged 'mid mortality ; 
 As the love from Petrarch's urn, 
 Yet amid yon hills doth burn, 
 A quenchless lamp by which the heart 
 Sees things unearthly ; so thou art 
 Mighty spirit so shall be 
 The City that did refuge thee. 
 
 Lo, the sun floats up the sky 
 Like thought-winged Liberty, 
 Till the universal light 
 Seems to level plain and height ; 
 From the sea a mist has spread, 
 And the beams of morn lie dead 
 On the towers of Venice now, 
 Like its glory long ago. 
 By the skirts of that grey cloud 
 Many-domed Padua proud 
 Stands, a peopled solitude, 
 'Mid the harvest shining plain, 
 Where the peasant heaps his grain 
 In the garner of his foe,
 
 124 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 And the milk-white oxen slow 
 With the purple vintage strain, 
 Heaped upon the creaking wain, 
 That the brutal Celt may swill 
 Drunken sleep with savage will ; 
 And the sickle to the sword 
 Lies unchanged, though many a lord, 
 Like a weed whose shade is poison, 
 Overgrows this region's foison, 
 Sheaves of whom are ripe to come 
 To destruction's harvest home : 
 Men must reap the things they sow, 
 Force from force must ever flow, 
 Or worse ; but 'tis a bitter woe 
 That love or reason cannot change 
 The despot's rage, the slave's revenge. 
 
 Padua, thou within whose walls 
 Those mute guests at festivals, 
 Son and Mother, Death and Sin, 
 Played at dice for Ezzelin, 
 Till Death cried, " I win, I win !" 
 And Sin cursed to lose the wager, 
 But death promised to assuage her, 
 That he would petition for 
 Her to be made Vice-Emperor, 
 When the destined years were o'er, 
 Over all between the Po 
 And the eastern Alpine snow, 
 Under the mighty Austrian. 
 Sin smiled so as Sin only can, 
 And since that time, aye, long before, 
 Both have ruled from shore to shore,
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 125 
 
 That incestuous pair, who follow 
 Tyrants as the sun the swallow, 
 As Repentance follows Crime, 
 And as changes follow Time. 
 
 In thine halls the lamp of learning, 
 
 Padua, now no more is burning ; 
 
 Like a meteor, whose wild way 
 
 Is lost over the grave of day, 
 
 It gleams betrayed and to betray : 
 
 Once remotest nations came 
 
 To adore that sacred flame, 
 
 When it lit not many a hearth 
 
 On this cold and gloomy earth : 
 
 Now new fires from antique light 
 
 Spring beneath the wide world's might ; 
 
 But their spark lies dead in thee, 
 
 Trampled out by tyranny. 
 
 As the Norway woodman quells, 
 
 In the depth of piny dells, 
 
 One light flame among the brakes, 
 
 While the boundless forest shakes, 
 
 And its mighty trunks are torn 
 
 By the fire thus lowly born : 
 
 The spark beneath his feet is dead, 
 
 He starts to see the flames it fed 
 
 Howling through the darkened sky 
 
 \Vith a myriad tongues victoriously, 
 
 And sinks down in fear : so thou, 
 
 O Tyranny, beholdest now 
 
 Light around thee, and thou hearest 
 
 The loud flames ascend, and fearest : 
 
 Grovel on the earth : aye, hide 
 
 In the dust thy purple pride !
 
 126 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 Noon descends around me now : 
 'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, 
 When a soft and purple mist 
 Like a vaporous amethyst, 
 Or an air-dissolved star 
 Mingling light and fragrance, far 
 From the curved horizon's bound 
 To the point of heaven's profound, 
 Fills the overflowing sky ; 
 And the plains that silent lie 
 Underneath, the leaves unsodden 
 Where the infant frost has trodden 
 With his morning-winged feet, 
 Whose bright print is gleaming yet ; 
 And the red and golden vines, 
 Piercing with their trellised lines 
 The rough, dark-skirted wilderness ; 
 The dun and bladed grass no less, 
 Pointing from this hoary tower 
 In the windless air ; the flower 
 Glimmering at my feet ; the line 
 Of the olive-sandalled Apennine 
 In the south dimly islanded ; 
 And the Alps, whose snows are spread 
 High between the clouds and sun ; 
 And of living things each one ; 
 , And my spirit which so long 
 
 Darkened this swift stream of song, 
 
 Interpenetrated lie 
 
 By the glory of the sky : 
 
 Be it love, light, harmony, 
 
 Odour, or the soul of all 
 
 Which from heaven like dew doth fall,
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 127 
 
 Or the mind which feeds this verse 
 Peopling the lone universe. 
 
 Noon descends, and after noon 
 
 Autumn's evening meets me soon, 
 
 Leading the infantine moon, 
 
 And that one star, which to her 
 
 Almost seems to minister 
 
 Half the crimson light she brings 
 
 From the sunset's radiant springs : 
 
 And the soft dreams of the morn, 
 
 (Which like winged winds had borne 
 
 To that silent isle, which lies 
 
 'Mid remembered agonies, 
 
 The frail bark of this lone being,) 
 
 Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, 
 
 And its ancient pilot, Pain, 
 
 Sits beside the helm again. 
 
 Other flowering isles must be 
 
 In the sea of life and agony : 
 
 Other spirits float and flee 
 
 O'er that gulph : even now, perhaps, 
 
 On some rock the wild wave wraps, 
 
 With folded wings they waiting sit 
 
 For my bark, to pilot it 
 
 To some calm and blooming cove, 
 
 Where for me, and those I love, 
 
 May a windless bower be built, 
 
 Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 
 
 In a dell 'mid lawny hills, 
 
 Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
 
 128 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 And soft sunshine, and the sound 
 
 Of old forests echoing round, 
 
 And the light and smell divine 
 
 Of all flowers that breathe and shine : 
 
 We may live so happy there, 
 
 That the spirits of the air, 
 
 Envying us, may even entice 
 
 To our healing paradise 
 
 The polluting multitude ; 
 
 But their rage would be subdued 
 
 By that clime divine and calm, 
 
 And the winds whose wings rain balm 
 
 On the uplifted soul, and leaves 
 
 Under which the bright sea heaves ; 
 
 While each breathless interval 
 
 In their whisperings musical 
 
 The inspired soul supplies 
 
 With its own deep melodies, 
 
 And the love which heals all strife 
 
 Circling, like the breath of life, 
 
 All things in that sweet abode 
 
 With its own mild brotherhood : 
 
 (They, not it would change ; and soon 
 Every sprite beneath the moon 
 Would repent its envy vain, 
 And the earth grow young again. 
 
 October 1818.
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 129 
 
 THE WORLD'S WANDERER. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 Tell me, moon, thou pale and grey 
 Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way, 
 In what depth of night or day 
 
 Seekest thou repose now ? 
 
 Weary wind, who wanderest 
 Like the world's rejected guest, 
 Hast thou still some secret nest 
 On the tree or billow ? 
 
 1820. 
 
 TO THE MOON. 
 
 ART thou pale for weariness 
 Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, 
 
 Wandering companionless 
 Among the stars that have a different birth, 
 And ever changing, like a joyless eye 
 That finds no object worth its constancy ? 
 
 1820.
 
 130 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAX. 
 STANZAS. 
 
 WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES. 
 
 THE sun is warm, the sky is clear, 
 
 The waves are dancing fast and bright, 
 
 Blue isles and snowy mountains wear 
 The purple noon's transparent might, 
 The breath of the moist earth is light, 
 
 Around its unexpanded buds ; 
 
 Like many a voice of one delight, 
 
 The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, 
 The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. 
 
 I see the Deep's untrampled floor 
 
 With green and purple seaweeds strown ; 
 I see the waves upon the shore, 
 
 Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown : 
 
 I sit upon the sands alone, 
 The lightning of the noon-tide ocean 
 
 Is flashing round me, and a tone 
 Arises from its measured motion, 
 How sweet ! did any heart now share in my emotion. 
 
 Alas ! I have nor hope nor health, 
 Nor peace within nor calm around, 
 
 Nor that content surpassing wealth 
 The sage in meditation found, 
 And" walked with inward glory crowned 
 
 NorTame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. 
 Others I see whom these surround 
 
 Smiling they live and call life pleasure ; 
 To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 131 
 
 Yet now despair itself is mild, 
 
 Even as the winds and waters are ; 
 
 I could lie down like a tired child, 
 And weep away the life of care 
 Which I have borne and yet must bear, 
 
 Till death like sleep might steal on me, 
 And I might feel in the warm air 
 
 My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 
 Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 
 
 Some might lament that I were cold, 
 
 As I, when this sweet day is gone, 
 Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, 
 
 Insults with this untimely moan ; 
 
 They might lament for I am one 
 Whom men love not, and yet regret, 
 
 Unlike this day, which, when the sun 
 Shall on its stainless glory set, 
 
 Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. 
 
 1818. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 YE gentle visitations of calm thought 
 Moods like the memories of happier earth, 
 Which come arrayed in thoughts of little worth, 
 
 Like stars in clouds by the weak winds enwrought, 
 But that the clouds depart and stars remain, 
 While they remain, and ye, alas, depart !
 
 132 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 THE FOREST AT EVENING. 
 
 IN silence then they took the way, 
 
 Beneath the forest's solitude. 
 
 It was a vast and antique wood, 
 
 Thro' which they took their way ; 
 
 And the grey shades of evening 
 
 O'er that green wilderness did fling 
 
 Still deeper solitude. 
 
 Pursuing still the path that wound 
 
 The vast and knotted trees around 
 
 Thro' which slow shades were wandering, 
 
 To a deep lawny dell they came, 
 
 To a stone seat beside a spring, 
 
 O'er which the columned wood did frame 
 
 A roofless temple, like the fane 
 
 Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain, 
 
 Man's early race once knelt beneath 
 
 The overhanging deity. 
 
 O'er this fair fountain hung the sky, 
 
 Now spangled with rare stars. The snake, 
 
 The pale snake, that with eager breath" 
 
 Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake, 
 
 Is beaming with many a mingled hue, 
 
 Shed from yon dome's eternal blue, 
 
 When he floats on that dark and lucid flood 
 
 In the light of his own loveliness ; 
 
 And the birds that in the fountain dip 
 
 Their plumes, with fearless fellowship 
 
 Above and round him wheel and hover. 
 
 The fitful wind is heard to stir
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 133 
 
 One solitary leaf on high ; 
 
 The chirping of the grasshopper 
 
 Fills every pause. There is emotion 
 
 In all that dwells at noontide here : 
 
 Then, thro' the intricate wild wood, 
 
 A maze of life and light and motion 
 
 Is woven. But there is stillness now : 
 
 Gloom, and the trance of Nature now : 
 
 The snake is in his cave asleep ; 
 
 The birds are on the branches dreaming : 
 
 Only the shadows creep : 
 
 Only the glow-worm is gleaming : 
 
 Only the owls and the nightingales 
 
 Wake in this dell when daylight fails, 
 
 And grey shades gather in the woods : 
 
 And the owls have all fled far away 
 
 In a merrier glen to hoot and play, 
 
 For the moon is veiled and sleeping now. 
 
 The accustomed nightingale still broods 
 
 On^ her accustomed Chough, 
 
 Butf she fs mute ; for her false mate 
 
 Has fled and left her desolate. 
 
 Rosalind and Helen. 
 
 ITALY AND SORROW. 
 
 Alas ! Italian winds are mild, 
 
 But my bosom is cold *wintry cold 
 
 When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves, 
 
 Soft music, my poor brain is wild, 
 
 And I am weak like a nursling child 
 
 Though my soul with grief is grey and old.
 
 I 3 4 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAX. 
 
 THE ZUCCA. 
 
 I SAW t\vo little dark-green leaves 
 
 Lifting the light mould at their birth, and then 
 
 I half-remembered my forgotten dream. 
 
 And day by day, green as a gourd in June, 
 
 The plant grew fresh and thick, yet no one knew 
 
 What plant it was ; its stem and tendrils seemed 
 
 Like emerald snakes, mottled and diamonded 
 
 With azure mail and streaks of woven silver ; 
 
 And all the sheaths that folded the dark buds 
 
 Rose like the crest of cobra-di-capel, 
 
 Until the golden eye of the bright flower 
 
 Through the dark lashes of those veined lids, 
 
 Disencumbered of their silent sleep, 
 
 Gazed like a star into the morning light. 
 
 Its leaves were delicate, you almost saw 
 
 The pulses 
 
 With which the purple velvet flower was fed 
 
 To overflow, and like a poet's heart 
 
 Changing bright fancy to sweet sentiment, 
 
 Changed half the light to fragrance. It soon fell, 
 
 And to a green and dewy embryo-fruit 
 
 Left all its treasured beauty. Day by day 
 
 I nursed the plant, and on the double flute 
 
 Played to it on the sunny winter days 
 
 Soft melodies, as sweet as April rain 
 
 On silent leaves, and sang those words in which 
 
 Passion makes Echo taunt the sleeping strings ; 
 
 And I would send tales of forgotten love 
 
 Late into the lone night, and sing wild songs
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 135 
 
 Of maids deserted in the olden time, 
 
 And weep like a soft cloud in April's bosom 
 
 Upon the sleeping eyelids of the plant, 
 
 So that perhaps it dreamed that Spring was come, 
 
 And crept abroad into the moonlight air, 
 
 And loosened all its limbs, as, noon by noon, 
 
 The sun averted less his oblique beam. 
 
 INDIAN. 
 And the plant died not in the frost ? 
 
 LADY. 
 
 It grew ; 
 
 And went out of the lattice which I left 
 Half open for it, trailing its quaint spires 
 Along the garden and across the lawn, 
 And down the slope of moss and through the tufts 
 Of wild-flower roots, and stumps of trees o'ergrown 
 With simple lichens, and old hoary stones, 
 On to the margin of the glassy pool, 
 Even to a nook of unblown violets 
 And lilies-of-the-valley yet unborn, 
 Under a pine with ivy overgrown. 
 And there its fruit lay like a sleeping lizard 
 Under the shadows ; but when Spring indeed 
 Came to unswathe her infants, and the lilies 
 Peeped from their bright green marks to wonder at 
 This shape of autumn couched in their recess, 
 Then it dilated, and it grew until 
 One half lay floating on the fountain wave, 
 Whose pulse, elapsed in unlike sympathies, 
 Kept time
 
 136 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 Among the snowy water-lily buds. 
 
 Its shape was such as summer melody 
 
 Of the south wind in spicy vales might give 
 
 To some light cloud bound from the golden dawn 
 
 To fairy isles of evening, and it seemed 
 
 In hue and form that it had been a mirror 
 
 Of all the hues and forms around it and 
 
 Upon it pictured by the sunny beams 
 
 Which, from the bright vibrations of the pool, 
 
 Were thrown upon the rafters and the roof 
 
 Of boughs and leaves, and on the pillared stems 
 
 Of the dark sylvan temple, and reflections 
 
 Of every infant flower and star of moss 
 
 And veined leaf in the azure odorous air. 
 
 And thus it lay in the Elysian calm 
 
 Of its own beauty, floating on the line 
 
 Which, like a film in purest space, divided 
 
 The heaven beneath the water from the heaven 
 
 Above the clouds ; and every day I went 
 
 Watching its growth and wondering ; 
 
 And as the day grew hot, methought I saw 
 
 A glassy vapour dancing on the pool, 
 
 And on it little quaint and filmy shapes, 
 
 With dizzy motion, wheel and rise and fall, 
 
 Like clouds of gnats with perfect lineaments. 
 
 An Unfinished Drama. 1822.
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 137 
 
 TO A SKYLARK. 
 
 V 
 
 HAIL to thee, blithe spirit ! 
 
 Bird thou neveFwert, 
 That from heaven, or near it, 
 
 Pourest thy full heart 
 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 
 
 Higher still and higher 
 
 FforiT fhe earth thou springest 
 Like a cloud of fire ; 
 
 The blue deep thou wingest, 
 And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 
 
 In the golden lightning 
 
 Of the sunken sun, 
 O'er which clouds are brightning, 
 
 Thou dost float and run ; 
 Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 
 
 The pale purple even 
 
 Melts around thy flight ; 
 Like a star of heaven, 
 
 In the broad day-light 
 Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 
 
 Keen as are the arrows 
 Of that silver sphere, 
 Whose intense lamp narrows 
 
 In the white dawn clear, 
 Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
 
 138 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAX. 
 
 All the earth and air 
 
 With thy voice is loud, 
 As, when night is bare, 
 
 From one lonely cloud 
 
 The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is 
 overflowed. 
 
 What thou art we know not ; 
 
 What is most like thee ? 
 From rainbow clouds there flow not 
 
 Drops so bright to see, 
 As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 
 
 Like a poet hidden 
 
 In the lighf of thought, 
 
 Singing hymns unrjIcTden, 
 
 Tin the world is wrought! 
 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 
 
 Like a high-born maiden 
 
 in a palace tower, 
 Soothing her love-laden 
 
 Sou! in secret hour 
 With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 
 
 Like a glow-worm golden 
 
 In a dell of dew, 
 Scattering unbeholden 
 
 Its aerial hue 
 
 Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from 
 the view :
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 139 
 
 Like a rose embowered 
 
 In its own green leaves, 
 By warm winds deflowered, 
 
 Till the scent it gives 
 
 Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged 
 thieves : 
 
 Sound of vernal showers 
 On the twinkling grass, 
 
 MMMMMMHM4MM|^ 
 
 Rain-awakened flowers, 
 
 All that ever was 
 Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass 
 
 Teach us, sprite or bird, 
 
 What sweet thoughts are thine : 
 I have never heard 
 
 Praise of love or wine 
 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 
 
 Chorus Hymeneal, 
 
 Or triumphal chaunt, 
 Matched with thine would be all 
 
 But an empty vaunt, 
 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 
 
 What objects are the fountains 
 
 OTThy happy strain ? 
 What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
 
 What shapes of sky or plain ? 
 What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ?
 
 140 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 With thy clear keen joyance 
 
 Languor cannot be : 
 Shadow of annoyance 
 
 Never came near thee : 
 Thou lovest ; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 
 
 Waking or asleep, 
 
 Thou of death must deem 
 Things more true and deep 
 
 Than we mortals dream, 
 Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 
 
 We look before and after, 
 
 And pine for what is not : 
 Our sincerest laughter 
 
 With some pain is fraught : 
 
 Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 
 thought. 
 
 Yet if we could scorn 
 
 Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
 If we were things born 
 Not to shed a tear, 
 I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 
 
 Better than all measures 
 
 Of delightful sound, 
 Better than all treasures 
 
 That in books are found, 
 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground !
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 141 
 
 Teach me half the gladness 
 
 That thy brain must know, 
 Such harmonious madness 
 
 From my lips would flow, 
 The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. / 
 
 DAYLIGHT on its last purple cloud 
 Was lingering grey, and soon her strain 
 The Nightingale began ; now loud, 
 Climbing in circles the windless sky, 
 Now dying music ; suddenly 
 'Tis scattered in a thousand notes, 
 And now to the hushed ear it floats 
 Like field-smells known in infancy, 
 Then failing, soothes the air again. 
 
 Rosalind and Helen.
 
 142 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAX. 
 
 THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 A WOODMAN whose rough heart was out of tune 
 (I think such hearts yet never came to good) 
 Hated to hear, under the stars or moon, 
 
 One nightingale in an interfluous wood 
 Satiate the hungry dark with melody ; 
 And as a vale is watered by a flood, 
 
 Or as the moonlight fills the open sky 
 Struggling with darkness as a tuberose 
 Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie 
 
 Like clouds above the flower from which they rose, 
 The singing of that happy nightingale 
 In this sweet forest, from the golden close 
 
 Of evening, till the star of dawn may fail, 
 Was interfused upon the silentness ; 
 The folded roses and the violets pale 
 
 Heard her -within their slumbers, the abyss 
 Of heaven with all its planets ; the dull ear 
 Of the night-cradled earth ; the loneliness 
 
 Of the circumfluous waters, every sphere 
 
 And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, 
 
 And every wind of the mute atmosphere, 
 
 And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, 
 And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, 
 And every silver moth fresh from the grave,
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 143 
 
 Which is its cradle ever from below 
 Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, 
 To be consumed within the purest glow 
 
 Of one serene and unapproached star, 
 As if it were a lamp of earthly light, 
 Unconscious, as some human lovers are, 
 
 Itself how low, how high beyond all height 
 
 The heaven where it would perish ! and every form 
 
 That worshipped in the temple of the night 
 
 Was awed into delight, and by the charm 
 
 Girt as with an interminable zone, 
 
 Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm 
 
 Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion 
 Out of their dreams ; harmony became love 
 In every soul but one. 
 
 And so this man returned with axe and saw 
 At evening close from killing the tall treen, 
 The soul of whom by nature's gentle law 
 
 Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green 
 The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, 
 Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene 
 
 With jagged leaves, and from the forest tops 
 Singing the winds to sleep or weeping oft 
 Fast showers of aerial water drops
 
 144 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 Into their mother's bosom, sweet and soft, 
 Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness ; 
 Around the cradles of the birds aloft 
 
 They spread themselves into the loveliness 
 Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers 
 Hang like moist clouds : or, where high branches 
 kiss, 
 
 Make a green space among the silent bowers, 
 Like a vast fane in a metropolis, 
 Surrounded by the columns and the towers 
 
 All overwrought with branch-like traceries 
 In which there is religion- and the mute 
 Persuasion of unkindled melodies, 
 
 Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute 
 
 Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast 
 
 Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute, 
 
 Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has past 
 To such brief unison as on the brain 
 One tone, which never can recur, has cast, 
 
 One accent never to return again. 
 
 The world is full of Woodmen who expel 
 Love's gentle Dryads from the haunts of life, 
 And vex the nightingales in every dell. 
 
 1818.
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 145 
 
 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 wrapt 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. 
 
 1820.
 
 146 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 PONTE A MARE, PISA. 
 
 THE sun is set ; the swallows are asleep ; 
 
 The bats are flitting fast in the grey air ; 
 The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, 
 
 And evening's breath, wandering here and there 
 Over the quivering surface of the stream, 
 Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream. 
 
 There is no dew on the dry grass to-night, 
 Nor damp within the shadow of the trees ; 
 
 The wind is intermitting, dry, and light ; 
 And in the inconstant motion of the breeze 
 
 The dust and straws are driven up and down, 
 
 And whirled about the pavement of the town. 
 
 Within the surface of the fleeting river 
 The wrinkled image of the city lay, 
 
 Immovably unquiet, and for ever 
 
 It trembles, but it never fades away ; 
 
 Go to the ... 
 
 You, being changed, will find it then as now. 
 
 The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut 
 By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud, 
 
 Like mountain over mountain huddled but 
 Growing and moving upwards in a crowd, 
 
 And over it a space of watery blue, 
 
 Which the keen evening star is shining through. 
 
 1821.
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND MAN. 147 
 
 AND, like a dying lady, lean and pale, 
 Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil, 
 Out of her chamber, led by the insane 
 And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, 
 The moon arose up in the murky east, 
 A white and shapeless mass. 
 
 1820. 
 
 WHEN soft winds and sunny skies 
 With the green earth harmonise, 
 And the young and dewy dawn, 
 Bold as an unhunted fawn, 
 Up the windless heaven is gone, 
 Laugh for ambushed in the day, 
 Clouds and whirlwinds watch their prey. 
 
 1821.
 
 of 
 
 PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES. 
 
 LISTEN, listen, Mary mine, 
 To the whisper of the Apennine, 
 It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, 
 Or like the sea on a northern shore, 
 Heard in its raging ebb and flow 
 By the captives pent in the cave below. 
 The Apennine in the light of day 
 Is a mighty mountain dim and grey, 
 Which between the earth and sky doth lay ; 
 But when night comes, a chaos dread 
 On the dim starlight then is spread, 
 And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. 
 
 1818.
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 149 
 
 THE CLOUD. 
 
 I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 
 
 From the seas and the streams ; 
 I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 
 
 In their noon-day dreams. 
 From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 
 
 The sweet buds every one, 
 When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 
 
 As she dances about the sun. 
 I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 
 
 And whiten the green plains under, 
 And then again I dissolve it in rain, 
 
 And laugh as I pass in thunder. 
 
 I sift the snow on the mountains below, 
 
 And their great pines groan aghast ; 
 And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 
 
 While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
 Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, 
 
 Lightning my pilot sits, 
 In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 
 
 It struggles and howls at fits ; 
 Over earth and ocean with gentle motion 
 
 This pilot is guiding me, 
 Lured by the love of the genii that move 
 
 In the depths of the purple sea ; 
 Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 
 
 Over the lakes and the plains, 
 Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 
 
 The Spirit he loves remains ;
 
 150 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, 
 Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 
 
 The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 
 
 And his burning plumes outspread, 
 Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, 
 
 When the morning star shines dead, 
 As on the jag of a mountain crag, 
 
 Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 
 An eagle alit one moment may sit 
 
 In the light of its golden wings. 
 And, when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 
 
 Its ardours of rest and of love, 
 And the crimson pall of eve may fall 
 
 From the depth of heaven above, 
 With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, 
 
 As still as a brooding dove. 
 
 That orbed maiden with white fire laden, 
 
 Whom mortals call the moon, 
 Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 
 
 By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
 And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 
 
 Which only the angels hear, 
 May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 
 
 The stars peep behind her and peer ; 
 And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 
 
 Like a swarm of golden bees, 
 When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 
 
 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, 
 Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 
 
 Are each paved with the moon and these.
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 151 
 
 I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, 
 
 And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ; 
 The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 
 
 When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
 From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 
 
 Over a torrent sea, 
 Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 
 
 The mountains its columns be. 
 The triumphal arch through which I march 
 
 With hurricane, fire and snow, 
 When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, 
 
 Is the million-coloured bow ; 
 The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 
 
 While the moist earth was laughing below. 
 
 I am the daughter of earth and water, 
 
 And the nursling of the sky ; 
 I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 
 
 I change, but I cannot die. 
 For after the rain when with never a stain, 
 
 The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
 And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, 
 
 Build up the blue dome of air, 
 I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 
 
 And out of the caverns of rain, 
 Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 
 
 I arise and unbuild it again. 
 
 1820.
 
 1 52 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 THE DAWN. 
 
 THE pale stars are gone ! 
 
 For the sun, their swift shepherd, 
 
 To their folds them compelling, 
 
 In the depths of the dawn, 
 
 Hastes, in meteor eclipsing array, and they flee 
 
 Beyond his blue dwelling, 
 
 As fawns flee the leopard. 
 
 Prom. Unbound. 
 
 DAWN AND DESIRE. 
 
 MY coursers are fed with the lightning, 
 They drink of the whirlwind's stream, 
 
 And when the red morning is brightning 
 They bathe in the fresh sunbeam ; 
 They have strength for their swiftness I deem. 
 
 I desire : and their speed makes night kindle ; 
 I fear : they outstrip the Typhoon ; 
 
 Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle 
 We encircle the earth and the moon : 
 We shall rest from long labours at noon. 
 
 On the brink of the night and the morning 
 My coursers are wont to respire ; 
 
 But the Earth has just whispered a warning 
 That their flight must be swifter than fire : 
 They shall drink the hot speed of desire ! 
 
 Prom. Unbound.
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 153 
 
 TWILIGHT AND DESIRE. 
 
 THE young moon has fed 
 Her exhausted horn 
 
 With the sunset's fire ; 
 The weak day is dead, 
 
 But the night is not born ; 
 And, like loveliness panting with wild desire 
 
 While it trembles with fear and delight, 
 Hesperus flies from awakening night, 
 And pants in its beauty and speed with light 
 
 Fast-flashing, soft, and bright. 
 Thou beacon of love ! thou lamp of the free ! 
 
 Guide us far, far away 
 To climes where now veiled by the ardour of day 
 
 Thou art hidden 
 
 From waves on which weary noon 
 Faints in her summer swoon, 
 Between Kingless continents sinless as Eden, 
 Around mountains and islands inviolably 
 Prankt on the sapphire sea. 
 
 Hellas
 
 154 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 ALL SUSTAINING LOVE. 
 
 THOU art the wine whose drunkenness is all 
 We can desire, O Love ! and happy souls, 
 Ere from thy vine the leaves of autumn fall, 
 
 Catch thee, and feed from their o'erflowing bowls 
 Thousands who thirst for thy ambrosial dew ; 
 Thou art the radiance which where ocean rolls 
 
 Investest it ; and when the heavens are blue 
 Thou fillest them ; and when the earth is fair 
 The shadow of thy moving wings imbue 
 
 Its desarts and its mountains, till they wear 
 Beauty like some bright robe ; thou ever soarest 
 Among the towers of men, and as soft air 
 
 In spring, which moves the unawakened forest, 
 Clothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak, 
 Thou floatest among men ; and aye implorest 
 
 That which from thee they should implore : the weak 
 
 Alone kneel to thee, offering up the hearts 
 
 The strong have broken yet where shall any seek 
 
 A garment whom thou clothest not ? 
 
 Prince Athanase. 1817.
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 155 
 
 SONG OF SPIRITS. 
 
 " Where there is one pervading, one alone." 
 
 To the deep, to the deep, 
 
 Down, down ! 
 
 Through the shade of sleep, 
 Through the cloudy strife 
 Of Death and of Life ; 
 Through the veil and the bar 
 Of things which seem and are 
 Even to the steps of the remotest throne, 
 
 Down, down ! 
 
 While the sound whirls around, 
 Down, down ! 
 
 As the fawn draws the hound, 
 
 As the lightning the vapour, 
 
 As a weak moth the taper ; 
 
 Death, despair ; love, sorrow ; 
 
 Time both ; to day, to morrow ; 
 
 As steel obeys the spirit of the stone, 
 Down, down !
 
 i $6 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 Through the grey, void abysm, 
 
 Down, down ! 
 Where the air is no prism, 
 And the moon and stars are not, 
 And the cavern-crags wear not 
 The radiance of Heaven, 
 Nor the gloom to Earth given, 
 Where there is one pervading, one alone, 
 
 Down, down ! 
 
 In the depth of the deep 
 
 Down, down ! 
 
 Like veiled lightning asleep, 
 Like the spark nursed in embers, 
 The last look Love remembers, 
 Like a diamond, which shines 
 On the dark wealth of mines, 
 A spell is treasured but for thee alone. 
 
 Down, down ! 
 
 Prom. Unbound. 
 
 HYMN TO ASIA. 
 
 That light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
 That Beauty in which all things work and move. 
 
 ADONAIS LIV. 
 
 LIFE of Life ! thy lips enkindle 
 
 With their love the breath between them ; 
 And thy smiles before they dwindle 
 
 Make the cold air fire ; then screen them 
 In those looks, where whoso gazes 
 Faints, entangled in their mazes.
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 157 
 
 Child of Light ! thy limbs are burning 
 
 Thro' the vest which seems to hide them ; 
 
 As the radiant lines of morning 
 
 Thro' the clouds ere they divide them ; 
 
 And this atmosphere divinest 
 
 Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest. 
 
 Fair are others ; none beholds thee, 
 But thy voice sounds low and tender 
 
 Like the fairest, for it folds thee 
 
 From the sight, that liquid splendour, 
 
 And all feel, yet see thee never, 
 
 As I feel now, lost for ever ! 
 
 Lamp of Earth ! where'er thou movest 
 Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, 
 
 And the souls of whom thou lovest 
 Walk upon the winds with lightness, 
 
 Till they fail, as I am failing, 
 
 Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing ! 
 
 ASIA ANSWERS. 
 My soul is an enchanted boat, 
 Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float 
 Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; 
 And thine doth like an angel sit 
 Beside a helm conducting it, 
 Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing 
 It seems to float ever, for ever, 
 Upon that many-winding river, 
 Between mountains, woods, abysses, 
 A paradise of wildernesses ! 
 Till, like one in slumber bound, 
 Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, 
 Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound.
 
 158 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 ECHO SONG TO ASIA 
 Echoes unseen. 
 
 ECHOES we : listen ! 
 
 We cannot stay : 
 As dewstars glisten 
 
 Then fade away 
 Child of Ocean ! 
 
 O follow, follow, 
 
 As our voice recedeth 
 Through the caverns hollow, 
 
 Where the forest spreadeth ; 
 
 (More distant.} 
 
 O follow, follow ! 
 Thro' the caverns hollow, 
 As the song floats thou pursue, 
 Where the wild bee never flew, 
 Through the noontide darkness deep, 
 By the odour breathing sleep 
 Of faint night flowers, and the waves 
 At the fountain lighted caves, 
 While our music, wild and sweet, 
 Mocks thy gently falling feet, 
 
 Child of Ocean ! 
 
 Prom. Unbound.
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 159 
 
 THE SPIRITS OF THE EARTH AND THE 
 MOON. 
 
 lONE. 
 
 EVEN whilst we speak 
 New notes arise. What is that awful sound ? 
 
 PANTHEA. 
 
 'Tis the deep music of the rolling world 
 Kindling within the strings of the waved air, 
 modulations. 
 
 lONE. 
 
 Listen too, 
 
 How every pause is filled with under-notes, 
 Clear, silver, icy, keen awakening tones, 
 Which pierce the sense, and live within the soul, 
 As the sharp stars pierce winter's crystal air 
 And gaze upon themselves within the sea. 
 
 PANTHEA. 
 
 But see where through two openings in the forest 
 
 Which hanging branches overcanopy, 
 
 And where two runnels of a rivulet, 
 
 Between the close moss violet-inwoven, 
 
 Have made their path of melody, like sisters 
 
 Who part with sighs that they may meet in smiles, 
 
 Turning their dear disunion to an isle 
 
 Of lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts ;
 
 160 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 Two visions of strange radiance float upon 
 The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound, 
 Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet 
 Under the ground and through the windless air. 
 
 lONE. 
 
 I see a chariot like that thinnest boat, 
 
 In which the mother of the months is borne 
 
 By ebbing night into her western cave, 
 
 When she upsprings from interlunar dreams, 
 
 O'er which is curved an orblike canopy 
 
 Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods 
 
 Distinctly seen through that dusk airy veil, 
 
 Regard like shapes in an enchanter's glass ; 
 
 Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold, 
 
 Such as the genii of the thunder-storm 
 
 Pile on the floor of the illumined sea 
 
 When the sun rushes under it ; they roll 
 
 And move and grow as with an inward wind ; 
 
 Within it sits a winged infant, white 
 
 Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow, 
 
 Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost, 
 
 Its limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds 
 
 Of its white robe, woof of aetherial pearl. 
 
 Its hair is white, the brightness of white light 
 
 Scattered in strings ; yet its two eyes are heavens 
 
 Of liquid darkness, which the deity 
 
 Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured 
 
 From jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes, 
 
 Tempering the cold and radiant air around, 
 
 With fire that is not brightness ; in its hand 
 
 It sways a quivering moon-beam, from whose point
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 161 
 
 A guiding power directs the chariot's prow 
 
 Over its wheeled clouds, which as they roll 
 
 Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds, 
 
 Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew. 
 
 PANTHEA. 
 
 And from the other opening in the wood 
 Rushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony, 
 A sphere, which is as many thousand spheres, 
 Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass 
 Flow, as through empty space, music and light : 
 Ten thousand orbs involving and involved, 
 Purple and azure, white, and green, and golden, 
 Sphere within sphere ; and every space between 
 Peopled with unimaginable shapes, 
 Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep, 
 Yet each inter-transpicuous, and they whirl 
 Over each other with a thousand motions, 
 Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning, 
 And with the force of self-destroying swiftness, 
 Intensely, slowly, solemnly roll on, 
 Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones, 
 Intelligible words and music wild. 
 With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb 
 Grinds the bright brook into an azure mist 
 Of elemental subtlety, like light ; 
 And the wild odour of the forest flowers, 
 The music of the living grass and air, 
 The emerald light of leaf-entangled beams 
 Round its intense yet self-conflicting speed, 
 Seem kneaded into one aerial mass 
 Which drowns the sense. Within the orb itself, 
 M
 
 162 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 Pillowed upon its alabaster arms, 
 
 Like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil, 
 
 On its own folded wings, and wavy hair, 
 
 The Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep, 
 
 And you can see its little lips are moving, 
 
 Amid the changing light of their own smiles, 
 
 Like one who talks of what he loves in dream. 
 
 IONE. 
 'Tis only mocking the orb's harmony, 
 
 PANTHEA. 
 
 And from a star upon its forehead, shoot, 
 
 Like swords of azure fire, or golden spears 
 
 With tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined, 
 
 Embleming heaven and earth united now, 
 
 Vast beams like spokes of some invisible wheel 
 
 Which whirl as the orb whirls, swifter than thought, 
 
 Filling the abyss with sun-like lightnings, 
 
 And perpendicular now, and now transverse, 
 
 Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass, 
 
 Make bare the secrets of the earth's deep heart ; 
 
 Infinite mine of adamant and gold, 
 
 Valueless stones, and unimagined gems, 
 
 And caverns on crystalline columns poised 
 
 With vegetable silver overspread ; 
 
 Wells of unfathomed fire and water springs 
 
 Whence the great sea, even as a child is fed, 
 
 Whose vapours clothe earth's monarch mountain-tops 
 
 With kingly, ermine snow. The beams flash on 
 
 And make appear the melancholy ruins 
 
 Of cancelled cycles ; anchors, beaks of ships ;
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 163 
 
 Planks turned to marble ; quivers, helms, and spears, 
 
 And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels 
 
 Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry 
 
 Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts, 
 
 Round which death laughed, sepulchred emblems 
 
 Of dead destruction, ruin within ruin ! 
 
 The wrecks beside of many a city vast, 
 
 Whose population which the earth grew over 
 
 Was mortal, but not human ; see, they lie, 
 
 Their monstrous works, and uncouth skeletons, 
 
 Their statues, homes and fanes ; prodigious shapes 
 
 Huddled in grey annihilation, split, 
 
 Jammed in the hard, black deep ; and over these, 
 
 The anatomies of unknown winged things, 
 
 And fishes which were isles of living scale, 
 
 And serpents, bony chains, twisted around 
 
 The iron crags, or within heaps of dust 
 
 To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs 
 
 Had crushed the iron crags ; and over these 
 
 The jagged alligator, and the might 
 
 Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once 
 
 Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, 
 
 And weed-overgrown continents of earth, 
 
 Increased and multiplied like summer worms 
 
 On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe 
 
 Wrapt deluge round it like a cloke, and they 
 
 Yelled, gasped, and were abolished ; or some God 
 
 Whose throne was in a comet, past, and cried, 
 
 Be not ! And like my words they were no more. 
 
 Prom. Unbound.
 
 164 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 THE MOON AND THE EARTH. 
 
 THE MOON. 
 
 BROTHER mine, calm wanderer, 
 Happy globe of land and air, 
 
 Some spirit is darted like a beam from thee, 
 Which penetrates my frozen frame, 
 And passes with the warmth of flame 
 
 With love, odour, and deep melody 
 Through me, through me. 
 
 THE snow upon my lifeless mountains 
 
 Is loosened into living fountains, 
 My solid oceans flow, and sing, and shine : 
 
 A spirit from my heart bursts forth, 
 
 It clothes with unexpected birth 
 My cold bare bosom : Oh ! it must be thine 
 On mine, on mine ! 
 
 Gazing on thee I feel, I know 
 
 Green stalks burst forth, and bright flowers grow, 
 And living shapes upon my bosom move : 
 
 Music is in the sea and air, 
 
 Winged clouds soar here and there, 
 Dark with the rain new buds are dreaming of: 
 'Tis Love, all Love !
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 165 
 
 THE EARTH. 
 
 It interpenetrates' my granite mass, 
 Through tangled roots and trodden clay doth 
 pass, 
 
 Into the utmost leaves and delicatest flowers ; 
 
 Upon the winds, among the clouds 'tis spread, 
 It wakes a life in the forgotten dead, 
 
 They breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers. 
 
 THE MOON. 
 
 The shadow of white death has past 
 
 From my path in heaven at last, 
 A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep ; 
 
 And through my newly- woven bowers, 
 
 Wander happy paramours, 
 Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep 
 Thy vales more deep. 
 
 THE EARTH. 
 
 As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold 
 A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold, 
 
 And crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist, 
 And wanders up the vault of the blue day, 
 Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray 
 
 Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst
 
 166 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 THE MOON. 
 
 Thou art folded, thou art lying 
 
 In the light which is undying 
 Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine ; 
 
 All suns and constellations shower 
 
 On thee a light, a life, a power 
 Which doth array thy sphere ; thou pourest thine 
 On mine, on mine ! 
 
 THE EARTH. 
 
 I spin beneath my pyramid of night, 
 
 Which points into the heavens dreaming delight, 
 
 Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep ; 
 As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing, 
 Under the shadow of his beauty lying, 
 
 Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth 
 doth keep. 
 
 THE MOON. 
 
 As in the soft and sweet eclipse, 
 
 When soul meets soul on lovers' lips, 
 High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull ; 
 
 So when thy shadow falls on me, 
 
 Then am I mute and still, by thee 
 Covered ; of thy love, Orb most beautiful, 
 Full, oh, too full ! 
 
 Thou art speeding round the sun 
 Brightest world of many a one ; 
 Green and azure sphere which shinest
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 167 
 
 With a light which is divinest 
 
 Among all the lamps of Heaven 
 
 To whom life and light is given ; 
 
 I, thy crystal paramour 
 
 Borne beside thee by a power 
 
 Like the Polar Paradise, 
 
 Magnet-like of lovers' eyes ; 
 
 I, a most enamoured maiden 
 
 Whose weak brain is overladen 
 
 With the pleasure of her love, 
 
 Maniac-like around thee move 
 
 Gazing, an insatiate bride, 
 
 On thy form from every side 
 
 Like a Maenad, round the cup 
 
 Which Agave lifted up 
 
 In the weird Cadmasan forest. 
 
 Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest 
 
 I must hurry, whirl and follow 
 
 Through the heavens wide and hollow, 
 
 Sheltered by the warm embrace 
 
 Of thy soul from hungry space, 
 
 Drinking from thy sense and sight 
 
 Beauty, majesty, and might, 
 
 As a lover or cameleon 
 
 Grows like what it looks upon, 
 
 As a violet's gentle eye 
 
 Gazes on the azure sky 
 Until its hue grows like what it beholds, 
 
 As a grey and watery mist 
 
 Glows like solid amethyst 
 Athwart the western mountains it enfolds, 
 
 When the sunset sleeps 
 Upon its snow
 
 1 68 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 THE EARTH. 
 
 And the weak day weeps 
 
 That it should be so. 
 
 Oh, gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight 
 Falls on me like thy clear and tender light' 
 Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night, 
 Through isles for ever calm. 
 
 Prom. Unbound.
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 169 
 
 THE MUSIC OF THE WOODS. 
 
 SEMICHORUS I. OF SPIRITS. 
 
 THE path thro' which that lovely twain 
 Have past, by cedar, pine, and yew, 
 And each dark tree that ever grew, 
 Is curtained out from Heaven's wide blue ; 
 Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain, 
 Can pierce its interwoven bowers, 
 Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew, 
 Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze, 
 Between the trunks of the hoar trees, 
 
 Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers 
 Of the green laurel, blown anew ; 
 And bends, and then fades silently, 
 One frail and fair anemone : 
 Or when some star of many a one 
 That climbs and wanders thro' steep night, 
 Has found the cleft thro' which alone 
 Beams fall from high those depths upon 
 Ere it is borne away, away, 
 By the swift Heavens that cannot stay, 
 It scatters drops of golden light, 
 Like lines of rain that ne'er unite : 
 And the gloom divine is all around ; 
 And underneath is the mossy ground.
 
 170 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 SEMICHORUS II. 
 
 There the voluptuous nightingales, 
 
 Are awake Thro' all the~broad noon-day. 
 When one with bliss or sadness fails, 
 And thro' the windless ivy-boughs, 
 
 Sick with sweet love, droops dying away 
 On its mate's music-panting bosom ; 
 Another from the swinging blossom, 
 
 Watching to catch the languid close 
 
 Of the last strain, then lifts on high 
 
 The wings of the weak melody, 
 'Till some new strain of feeling bear 
 
 The song, and all the woods are mute ; 
 When there is heard thro' the dim air 
 The msh of wings, and rising there 
 
 Like many a lake-surrounded flute, 
 Sounds overflow the listener's brain 
 So sweet, that joy is almost pain. 
 
 SEMICHORUS I. 
 
 There those enchanted eddies play 
 
 Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw, 
 By Demogorgon's mighty law, 
 With melting rapture, or sweet awe, 
 
 All spirits on that secret way ; 
 
 As inland boats are driven to Ocean 
 
 Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw 
 And first there comes a gentle sound 
 To those in talk or slumber bound, 
 And wakes the destined. Soft emotion 
 
 Attracts, impels them : those who saw
 
 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 171 
 
 Say from the breathing earth behind 
 
 There steams a plume-uplifting wind 
 Which drives them on their path, while they 
 
 Believe their own swift wings and feet 
 The sweet desires withijj obey : 
 And so they float upon their way, 
 Until, still sweet, but loud and strong, 
 The storm of sound is driven along, 
 
 Sucked up and hurrying : as they fleet 
 
 Behind, its gathering billows meet 
 And to the fatal mountain bear 
 Like clouds amid the yielding air. 
 
 FIRST FAUN. 
 
 Canst thou imagine where those spirits live 
 Which make such delicate music in the woods ? 
 We haunt within the least frequented caves 
 And closest coverts, and we know these wilds, 
 Yet never meet them, tho' we hear them oft : 
 Where may they hide themselves ? 
 
 SECOND FAUX. 
 
 'Tis hard to tell : 
 
 I have heard those more skilled in spirits say, 
 The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun 
 Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave 
 The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools, 
 Are the pavilions where such dwell and float 
 Under the green and golden atmosphere 
 Which noon-tide kindles thro' the woven leaves ; 
 And when these burst, and the thin fiery air,
 
 172 POEMS OF PURE NATURE. 
 
 The which they breathed within those lucent domes, 
 Ascends to flow like meteors thro' the night, 
 They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed, 
 And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire 
 Under the waters of the earth, again. 
 
 FIRST FAUN. 
 
 If such live thus, have others other lives, 
 Under pink blossoms or within the bells 
 Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep, 
 Or on their dying odours, when they die, 
 Or in the sunlight of the sphered dew ? 
 
 SECOND FAUN. 
 
 Aye, many more which we may well divine. 
 But, should we stay to speak, noontide would come, 
 And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn, 
 And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs 
 Of fate, and chance, and God, and Chaos old, 
 And Love, and the chained Titan's woful doom, 
 And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth 
 One brotherhood : delightful strains which cheer 
 Our solitary twilights, and which charm 
 To silence the unenvying nightingales. 
 
 Prom. Unbound. 1819.
 
 Classic Poems of 
 
 HYMN OF APOLLO. 
 
 THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, // 
 
 Curtained with star-imvoven tapestries, 
 From the broad moonlight of the sky, 
 
 Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, 
 Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, 
 Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. 
 
 Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, 
 I walk over the mountains and the waves, 
 
 Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam ; 
 
 My footsteps pave the clouds with fire ; the caves 
 
 Are filled with my bright presence, and the air 
 
 Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. 
 
 The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill 
 Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day ; 
 
 All men who do or even imagine ill 
 Fly me, and from the glory of my ray 
 
 Good minds and open actions take new might, 
 
 Until diminished by the reign of night.
 
 174 CLASSIC POEMS OF NATURE. 
 
 I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers 
 With their aetherial colours ; the Moon's globe 
 
 And the pure stars in their eternal bowers 
 Are cinctured with my power as with a robe : 
 
 Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine, 
 
 Are portions of one power, which is mine. 
 
 I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, 
 Then with unwilling steps I wander down 
 
 Into the clouds of the Atlantic even ; 
 
 For grief that I depart they weep and frown : 
 
 W T hat look is more delightful than the smile 
 
 With which I soothe them from the western isle ? 
 
 I am the eye with which the Universe 
 Beholds itself and knows itself divine ; 
 
 All harmony of instrument or verse, 
 All prophecy, all medicine are mine, 
 
 All light of art or nature ; to my song, 
 
 Victory and praise in their own right belong. 
 
 1820.
 
 CLASSIC POEMS OF NATURE. 175 
 
 HYMN OF PAN. 
 
 FROM the forests and highlands 
 
 We come, we come ; 
 From the river-girt islands, 
 
 Where loud waves are dumb 
 
 Listening to my sweet pipings. 
 The wind in the reeds and the rushes, 
 
 The bees on the bells of thyme, 
 The birds on the myrtle bushes, 
 The cicale above in the lime, 
 And the lizards below in the grass, 
 Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, 
 Listening to my sweet pipings. 
 
 Liquid Peneus was flowing, 
 
 And all dark Tempe lay 
 In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing 
 The light of the dying day, 
 
 Speeded by my sweet pipings. 
 The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, 
 
 And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, 
 To the edge of the moist river-lawns, 
 
 And the brink of the dewy caves, 
 And all that did then attend and follow 
 Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, 
 With envy of my sweet pipings.
 
 1 76 CLASSIC POEMS OF NATURE. 
 
 I sang of the dancing stars, 
 
 I sang of the daedal Earth, 
 And of Heaven and the giant wars, 
 
 And Love, and Death, and Birth, 
 
 And then I changed my pipings, 
 Singing how down the vale of Menalus 
 
 I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed : 
 Gods and men, we are all deluded thus ! 
 
 It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed : 
 All wept, as I think both ye now would, 
 If envy or age had not frozen your blood, 
 
 At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. 
 
 1820. 
 
 THE BIRTH OF PLEASURE. 
 
 Ax the creation of the Earth 
 Pleasure, that divinest birth, 
 From the soil of Heaven did rise, 
 Wrapt in sweet wild melodies 
 Like an exhalation wreathing 
 To the sound of air low-breathing 
 Through ALolian pines, which make 
 A shade and shelter to the lake 
 Whence it rises soft and slow ; 
 Her life breathing [limbs] did flow 
 In the harmony divine 
 Of an ever-lengthening line 
 Which enwrapt her perfect form 
 With a beauty clear and warm. 
 
 1819.
 
 CLASSIC POEMS OF NATURE. 177 
 
 ARETHUSA. 
 
 ARETHUSA arose 
 
 From her couch of snows 
 In the Acroceraunian mountains, 
 
 From cloud and from crag, 
 
 With many a jag, 
 Shepherding her bright fountains. 
 
 She leapt down the rocks, 
 
 With her rainbow locks 
 Streaming among the streams ; 
 
 Her steps paved with green 
 
 The downward ravine 
 Which slopes to the western gleams : 
 
 And gliding and springing 
 
 She went, ever singing, 
 In murmurs as soft as sleep ; 
 
 The Earth seemed to love her, 
 
 And Heaven smiled above her, 
 As she lingered towards the deep. 
 
 Then Alpheus bold, 
 
 On his glacier cold, 
 With his trident the mountains strook ; 
 
 And opened a chasm 
 
 In the rocks ; with the spasm 
 All Erymanthus shook. 
 
 And the black south wind 
 
 It concealed behind 
 The urns of the silent snow, 
 
 And earthquake and thunder 
 
 Did rend in sunder 
 
 N
 
 i 73 CLASSIC POEMS OF NATURE. 
 
 The bars of the springs below : 
 The beard and the hair 
 Of the River-god were 
 
 Seen through the torrent's sweep, 
 As he followed the light 
 Of the fleet nymph's flight 
 
 To the brink of the Dorian deep. 
 
 " Oh, save me ! Oh, guide me ! 
 
 And bid the deep hide me, 
 For he grasps me now by the hair ! " 
 
 The loud Ocean heard, 
 
 To its blue depth stirred, 
 And divided at her prayer ; 
 
 And under the water 
 
 The Earth's white daughter 
 Fled like a sunny beam ; 
 
 Behind her descended 
 
 Her billows, unblended 
 With the brackish Dorian stream : 
 
 Like a gloomy stain 
 
 On the emerald main 
 Alpheus rushed behind, 
 
 As an eagle pursuing 
 
 A dove to its ruin 
 Down the streams of the cloudy wind. 
 
 Under the bowers 
 Where the Ocean Powers 
 Sit on their pearled thrones, 
 Through the coral woods 
 Of the weltering floods,
 
 CLASSIC POEMS OF NATURE. 179 
 
 Over heaps of unvalued stones ; 
 
 Through the dim beams 
 
 Which amid the streams 
 Weave a network of coloured light ; 
 
 And under the caves, 
 
 W'here the shadowy waves 
 Are as green as the forest's night : 
 
 Outspeeding the shark, 
 
 And the sword-fish dark, 
 Under the ocean foam, 
 
 And up through the rifts 
 
 Of the mountain clifts 
 They past to their Dorian home. 
 
 And now from their fountains 
 
 In Enna's mountains, 
 Down one vale where the morning basks, 
 
 Like friends once parted 
 
 Grown single-hearted, 
 They ply their watery tasks. 
 
 At sunrise they leap 
 
 From their cradles steep 
 In the cave of the shelving hill ; 
 
 At noon-tide they flow 
 
 Through the woods below 
 And the meadows of Asphodel ; 
 
 And at night they sleep 
 
 In the rocking deep 
 Beneath the Ortygian shore ; 
 
 Like spirits that lie 
 
 In the azure sky 
 When they love but live no more. 
 
 1820,
 
 i8o CLASSIC POEMS OF NATURE. 
 
 SONG OF PROSERPINE. 
 
 WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA. 
 
 SACRED Goddess, Mother Earth, 
 Thou from whose immortal bosom, 
 
 Gods, and men, and beasts have birth, 
 Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom, 
 
 Breathe thine influence most divine 
 
 On thine own child, Proserpine. 
 
 If with mists of evening dew 
 
 Thou dost nourish these young flowers 
 Till they grow, in scent and hue, 
 
 Fairest children of the hours, 
 Breathe thine influence most divine 
 On thine own child, Proserpine. 
 
 1820.
 
 Poems of f&omc ILtfe. 
 
 TO MARY SHELLEY. 
 
 MARY dear, that you were here 
 With your brown eyes bright and clear, 
 And your sweet voice, like a bird 
 Singing love to its lone mate 
 
 In the ivy bower disconsolate ; 
 
 Voice the sweetest ever heard ! 
 
 And your brow more . . . 
 
 Than the sky 
 
 Of this azure Italy. 
 
 Mary dear, come to me soon, 
 
 1 am not well whilst thou art far ; 
 As sunset to the sphered moon, 
 As twilight to the western star, 
 Thou, beloved, art to me. 
 
 O Mary dear, that you were here ; 
 The Castle echo whispers "Here !" 
 
 1818.
 
 182 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 
 
 TO WILLIAM SHELLEY. 
 
 (With what truth I may say- 
 Roma ! Roma ! Roma ! 
 Non e piu come era prima !) 
 
 MY lost William, thou in whom 
 Some bright spirit lived, and did 
 
 That decaying robe consume 
 Which its lustre faintly hid, 
 
 Here its ashes find a tomb, 
 But beneath this pyramid 
 
 Thou art not if a thing divine 
 
 Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine 
 
 Is thy mother's grief and mine. 
 
 Where art thou, my gentle child ? 
 
 Let me think thy spirit feeds, 
 With its life intense and mild, 
 
 The love of living leaves and weeds, 
 Among these tombs and ruins wild ; 
 
 Let me think that through low seeds 
 Of the sweet flowers and sunny grass, 
 Into their hues and scents may pass 
 
 A portion 
 
 1819. 
 
 TO WILLIAM SHELLEY. 
 
 THY little footsteps on the sands 
 Of a remote and lonely shore ; 
 
 The twinkling of thine infant hands, 
 
 Where now the worm will feed no more 
 
 Thy mingled look of love and glee 
 
 When we returned to gaze on thee.
 
 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 183 
 
 LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 
 
 LEGHORN, Jnly i, 1820. 
 
 THE spider spreads her webs, whether she be 
 
 In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree ; 
 
 The silkworm in the dark green mulberry leaves 
 
 His winding sheet and cradle ever weaves ; 
 
 So I, a thing whom moralists call worm, 
 
 Sit spinning still round this decaying form, 
 
 From the fine threads of rare and subtle thought 
 
 No net of words in garish colours wrought 
 
 To catch the idle buzzers of the day 
 
 But a soft cell, where when that fades away, 
 
 Memory may clothe in wings my living name 
 
 And feed it with the asphodels of fame, 
 
 Which in those hearts which must remember me 
 
 Grow, making love an immortality. 
 
 Whoever should behold me now, I wist, 
 Would think I were a mighty mechanist, 
 Bent with subHme Archimedean art 
 To breathe a soul into the iron heart 
 Of some machine portentous, or strange gin, 
 Which by the force of figured spells might win 
 Its way over the sea, and sport therein ; 
 For round the walls are hung dread engines, such 
 As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch 
 Ixion or the Titan ; or the quick 
 Wit of that man of God, St. Dominic, 
 To convince Atheist, Turk, or Heretic, 

 
 184 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 
 
 Or those in philanthropic council met, 
 
 Who thought to pay some interest for the debt 
 
 They owed to Jesus Christ for their salvation, 
 
 By giving a faint foretaste of damnation 
 
 To Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser and the rest 
 
 Who made our land an island of the blest, 
 
 When lamp-like Spain, who now relumes her fire 
 
 On Freedom's hearth, grew dim with Empire : 
 
 With thumbscrews, wheels, with tooth and spike and 
 
 jag, 
 
 Which fishers found under the utmost crag 
 Of Cornwall and the storm-encompassed isles, 
 Where to the sky the rude sea rarely smiles 
 Unless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn 
 When the exulting elements in scorn 
 Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay 
 Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, 
 As panthers sleep ; and other strange and dread 
 
 Magical forms the brick floor overspread 
 
 Proteus transformed to metal did not make 
 
 More figures, or more strange ; nor did he take 
 
 Such shapes of unintelligible brass, 
 
 Or heap himself in such a horrid mass 
 
 Of tin and iron not to be understood ; 
 
 And forms of unimaginable wood, 
 
 To puzzle Tubal Cain and all his brood : 
 
 Great screws, and cones, and wheels, and grooved 
 
 blocks, 
 
 The elements of what will stand the shocks 
 Of wave and wind and time. Upon the table 
 More knacks and quips there be than I am able 
 To catalogize in this verse of mine : 
 A pretty bowl of wood not full of wine,
 
 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 185 
 
 But quicksilver ; that dew which the gnomes drink 
 When at their subterranean toil they swink, 
 Pledging the demons of the earthquake, who 
 Reply to them in lava cry halloo ! 
 And call out to the cities o'er their head, 
 Roofs, towers and shrines, the dying and the dead, 
 Crash through the chinks of earth and then all 
 
 quaff 
 
 Another rouse, and hold their sides and laugh. 
 This quicksilver no gnome has drunk within 
 The walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin, 
 In colour like the wake of light that stains 
 The Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains 
 The inmost shower of its white fire the breeze 
 Is still blue heaven smiles over the pale seas. 
 And in this bowl of quicksilver for I 
 Yield to the impulse of an infancy 
 Outlasting manhood I have made to float 
 A rude idealism of a paper boat : 
 A hollow screw with cogs Henry will know 
 The thing I mean and laugh at me, if so 
 He fears not I should do more mischief. Next 
 Lie bills and calculations much perplext, 
 With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint 
 Traced over them in blue and yellow paint. 
 Then comes a range of mathematical 
 Instruments, for plans nautical and statical ; 
 A heap of rosin, a queer broken glass 
 With ink in it ; a china cup that was 
 What it will never be again, I think, 
 A thing from which sweet lips were wont to drink 
 The liquor doctors rail at and which I 
 Will quaff in spite of them and when we die
 
 i86 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 
 
 We'll toss up who died first of drinking tea, 
 And cry out, heads or tails ? where'er we be. 
 Near that a dusty paint box, some odd hooks, 
 A half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books, 
 Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms, 
 To great Laplace, from Saunderson and Sims, 
 Lie heaped in their harmonious disarray 
 Of figures, disentangle them who may. 
 Baron de Tott's Memoirs beside them lie, 
 And some odd volumes of old chemistry. 
 Near those a most inexplicable thing, 
 With lead in the middle I'm conjecturing 
 How to make Henry understand ; but no 
 I'll leave, as Spenser says, with many mo, 
 This secret in the pregnant womb of time, 
 Too vast a matter for so weak a rhyme. 
 
 And here like some weird Archimage sit I, 
 Plotting dark spells, and devilish enginery, 
 The self-impelling steam-wheels of the mind 
 Which pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind 
 The gentle spirit of our meek reviews 
 Into a powdery foam of salt abuse, 
 Ruffling the ocean of their self-content ; 
 I sit and smile or sigh as is my bent, 
 But not for them Libeccio rushes round 
 With an inconstant and an idle sound, 
 I heed him more than them the thunder-smoke 
 Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloak 
 Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare ; 
 The ripe corn under the undulating air 
 Undulates like an ocean ; and the vines 
 Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines
 
 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 187 
 
 The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill 
 The empty pauses of the blast ; the hill 
 Looks hoary through the white electric rain, 
 And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain, 
 The interrupted thunder howls ; above 
 One chasm of heaven smiles, like the eye of Love 
 On the unquiet world ; while such things are, 
 How could one worth your friendship heed the war 
 Of worms ? the shriek of the world's carrion jays, 
 Their censure, or their wonder, or their praise ? 
 
 You are not here ! the quaint witch Memory sees 
 In vacant chairs, your absent images, 
 And points where once you sat, and now should be 
 But are not. I demand if ever we 
 Shall meet as then we met ; and she replies, 
 Veiling in awe her second-sighted eyes ; 
 " I know the past alone but summon home 
 My sister Hope, she speaks of all to come," 
 But I, an old diviner, who knew well 
 Every false verse of that sweet oracle, 
 Turned to the sad enchantress once again, 
 And sought a respite from my gentle pain, 
 In citing every passage o'er and o'er 
 Of our communion how on the sea shore 
 We watched the ocean and the sky together, 
 Under the roof of blue Italian weather ; 
 How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm, 
 And felt the transverse lightning linger warm 
 Upon my cheek and how we often made 
 Feasts for each other, where good will outweighed 
 The frugal luxury of our country cheer, 
 As well it might, were it less firm and clear
 
 188 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 
 
 Than ours must ever be ; and how we spun 
 A shroud of talk to hide us from the sun 
 Of this familiar life, which seems to be 
 But is not, or is but quaint mockery 
 Of all we would believe, and sadly blame 
 The jarring and inexplicable frame 
 1 Of this wrong world : and then anatomize 
 The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes 
 Were closed in distant years ; or widely guess 
 The issue of the earth's great business, 
 When we shall be as we no longer are 
 Like babbling gossips safe, who hear the war 
 Of winds, and sigh, but tremble not ; or how 
 You listened to some interrupted flow 
 Of visionary rhyme, in joy and pain 
 Struck from the inmost fountains of my brain, 
 With little skill perhaps ; or how we sought 
 Those deepest wells of passion or of thought 
 Wrought by wise poets in the waste of years, 
 Staining their sacred waters with our tears ; 
 Quenching a thirst ever to be renewed ! 
 Or how I, wisest lady ! then indued 
 The language of a land which now is free, 
 And winged with thoughts of truth and majesty, 
 Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloud, 
 And bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud, 
 " My name is Legion ! " that majestic tongue 
 Which Calderon over the desart flung 
 Of ages and of nations ; and which found 
 An echo in our hearts, and with the sound 
 Startled oblivion ; thou wert then to me 
 As is a nurse when inarticulately 
 A child would talk as its grown parents do.
 
 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 189 
 
 If living winds the rapid clouds pursue, 
 
 If hawks chase cloves through the astherial way, 
 
 Huntsmen the innocent deer, and beasts their prey, 
 
 Why should not we rouse with the spirit's blast i 
 
 Out of the forest of the pathless past 
 
 These recollected pleasures ? 
 
 You are now 
 
 In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow 
 At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore 
 Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. 
 Yet in its depth whaj_jreasures t You will see 
 That which \vas/Godwin^ greater none than he 
 Though fallen and fallen on evil times to stand 
 Among the spirits of our age and land, 
 Before the dread tribunal of to come 
 The foremost, while Rebuke cowers pale and 
 
 dumb. ^ -^ 
 
 You will seefColeridge^ he who sits obscure 
 I n_The "exceeding lust'fe, arid the pure 
 Intense irradiation of a mind, 
 
 - A - i _- 
 
 Which, with its own internal lightning blind, 
 
 ,\earily through darkness and despair 
 A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, 
 A hooded eagle r gnVong blinking owls. 
 
 iYou will see'Tlunt) one_ of those happy souls 
 Which are theTsalt of_the earth, and~ wTtFout jyhom 
 This world would smell like what it is a tomb"; 
 Who "is, ^ what "others' seem ; his room no doubt 
 Is ItlfTaHorhed by many a cast from Shout, 
 With graceful flowers tastefully placed about ; 
 And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, 
 And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung ;
 
 O POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 
 
 The gifts of the most learned among some dozens 
 Of female friends, sisters-in-law and cousins. 
 And there is he with his eternal puns, 
 Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns 
 Thundering for money at a poet's door ; 
 Alas ! it is no use to say, " I'm poor !" 
 Or oft in graver mood, when he will look 
 Things wiser than were ever read in book, 
 Except in Shajtesgeare's wisest tenderness. 
 You will see(liogg,^ and I cannot express 
 His virtues, ""-though I know that they are great, 
 Because he locks, then barricades the gate 
 Within which they inhabit ; of his wit 
 And wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit. 
 He is a pearl within an oyster shell, 
 One of the dcliast-of the deep ; and there 
 Is English/Peacock/with his mountain fair 
 Turned into a FTamingo ; that shy bird 
 That gleams i' the Indian air have you not heard 
 When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo, 
 His best friends hear no more of him ? but you 
 Will see him, and will like him too, I hope, 
 With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope 
 Matched with this cameleopard his fine wit 
 Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it ; 
 A strain too learned for a shallow age, 
 , Too wise for selfish bigots ; let his page 
 Which charms the chosen spirits of the time, 
 Fold itself up for the serener clime 
 Of years to come, and find its recompense 
 In that just expectation. Wit and sense, 
 I Virtue and human knowledge ; all that might 
 \ Make this dull world a business of delight,
 
 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 191 
 
 in(_Horace Smith./ And these, 
 
 lions, which I need not teaxe 
 
 Are all combined 
 
 With some exceptions 
 
 Your patience by descanting on, are all 
 
 You and I know in London. 
 
 I recall 
 
 My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night. 
 As water does a sponge, so the moonlight 
 Fills the void, hollow, universal air 
 What see you ? unpavilioned heaven is fair 
 Whether the moon, into her chamber gone, 
 Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan 
 Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep ; 
 Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep, 
 Piloted by the many-wandering blast, 
 And the rare stars rush through them dim and 
 
 fast : 
 
 All this is beautiful in every land. 
 But what see you beside ? a shabby stand 
 Of Hackney coaches a brick house or wall 
 Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl 
 Of our unhappy politics ; or worse - 
 A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse 
 Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade, 
 You must accept in place of serenade 
 Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring 
 To Henry, some unutterable thing. 
 I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit 
 Built round dark caverns, even to the root 
 Of the living stems that feed them in whose bowers 
 There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers ; 
 Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn 
 Trembles not in the slumbering air, and borne
 
 igz POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 
 
 In circles quaint, and ever changing dance, 
 Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance, 
 Pale in the open moonshine, but each one 
 Under the dark trees seems a little sun, 
 A meteor tamed ; a fixed star gone astray 
 From the silver regions of the milky way ; 
 Afar the Contadino's song is heard, 
 Rude, but made sweet by distance and a bird 
 Which cannot be the Nightingale, and yet 
 I know none else that sings so sweet as it 
 At this late hour ; and then all is still 
 Now Italy or London, which you will ! 
 
 Next winter you must pass with me ; I'll have 
 My house by that time turned into a grave 
 Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care, 
 
 IAnd all the dreams which our tormentors are ; 
 Oh ! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock and Smith were there, 
 With every thing belonging to them fair ! 
 
 We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek ; 
 
 And ask one week to make another week 
 
 As like his father, as I'm unlike mine, 
 
 Which is not his fault, as you may divine. 
 /Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine, 
 () Yet let's be merry : we'll have tea and toast ; 
 
 Custards for supper, and an endless host 
 
 Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies, 
 .And other such lady-like luxuries, 
 i Feasting on which we will philosophize ! 
 
 And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood, 
 
 To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood. 
 
 And then we'll talk ; what shall we talk about ? 
 
 Oh ! there are themes enough for many a bout
 
 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 193 
 
 Of thought-entangled descant ; as to nerves 
 With cones and parallelograms and curves 
 I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare 
 To bother me when you are with me there. 
 And they shall never more sip laudanum, 
 From Helicon or Himeros; well, come, 
 And in despite of God and of the devil, 
 We'll make our friendly philosophic revel 
 Outlast the leafless time ; till buds and flowers 
 Warn the obscure inevitable hours, 
 Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew ; 
 "Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'" 
 
 1820.
 
 194 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 
 
 THE AZIOLA. 
 
 " Do you not hear the Aziola cry ? 
 Methinks she must be nigh," 
 
 Said Mary, as we sate 
 In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought ; 
 
 And I, who thought 
 This Aziola was some tedious woman, 
 
 Asked, "Who is Aziola?" How elate 
 
 I felt to know that it was nothing human, 
 
 No mockery of myself to fear or hate : 
 
 And Mary saw my soul, 
 
 And laughed, and said, " Disquiet yourself not ; 
 'Tis nothing but a little downy owl." 
 
 Sad Aziola ! many an eventide 
 
 Thy music I had heard 
 By wood and stream, meadow and mountain side, 
 
 And fields and marshes wide, 
 Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird, 
 
 The soul ever stirred ; 
 Unlike and far sweeter than them all. 
 Sad Aziola ! from that moment I 
 
 Loved thee and thy sad cry. 
 
 1821.
 
 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 195 
 
 THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO. 
 
 OUR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream, 
 
 Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, 
 
 The helm sways idly, hither and thither ; 
 
 Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast 
 And the oars and the sails ; but 'tis sleeping fast, 
 Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. 
 
 The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, 
 And the thin white moon lay withering there, 
 To tower, and cavern, and rift and tree, 
 The owl and the bat fled drowsily. 
 Day had kindled the dewy woods, 
 
 And the rocks above and the stream below, 
 And the vapours in their multitudes, 
 
 And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow, 
 And clothed with light of aery gold 
 The mists in their eastern caves uprolled. 
 
 Day had awakened all things that be, 
 
 The lark and the thrush and the swallow free, 
 
 And the milkmaid's song and the mower's scythe, 
 And the matin-bell and the mountain bee : 
 Fire-flies were quenched on the dewy corn, 
 
 Glow-worms went out on the river's brim, 
 
 Like lamps which a student forgets to trim : 
 The beetle forgot to wind his horn, 
 
 The crickets were still in the meadow and hill : 
 Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun 
 Night's dreams and terrors, every one, 
 Fled from the brains which are their prey 
 From the lamp's death to the morning ray.
 
 I 9 6 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 
 
 All rose to do the task He set to each, 
 
 Who shaped us to his ends and not our own ; 
 The million rose to learn, and one to teach 
 
 What none yet ever knew or can be known. 
 And many rose 
 
 Whose woe was such that fear became desire ; 
 Melchior and Lionel were not among those ; 
 They from the throng of men had stepped aside, 
 And made their home under the green hill side. 
 It was that hill, whose intervening brow 
 
 Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye, 
 Which the circumfluous plain waving below, 
 
 Like a wide lake of green fertility, 
 With streams and fields and marshes bare, 
 
 Divides from thefarApenninejS which Jie 
 Islanded in the immeasurable air. 
 
 " What think you, as she lies in her green cove, 
 
 Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?" 
 
 "If morning dreams are true, why I should guess 
 
 That she was dreaming of our idleness, 
 
 And of the miles of watery way 
 
 We should have led her by this time of day." 
 
 " Never mind," said Lionel, 
 
 " Give care to the winds, they can bear it well 
 
 About yon poplar tops ; and see 
 
 The white clouds are driving merrily, 
 
 And the stars we miss this morn will light 
 
 More willingly our return to-night. 
 
 How it whistles, Dominic's long black hair ! 
 
 List, my dear fellow ; the breeze blows fair : 
 
 Hear how it sings into the air."
 
 POEMS OF HOME LIFE. 197 
 
 The chain is loosed, the sails are spread, 
 
 The living breath is fresh behind, 
 As with dews and sunrise fed, 
 
 Comes the laughing morning wind ; 
 The sails are full, the boat makes head 
 Against the Serchio's torrent fierce, 
 Then flags wi^h intermitting course, 
 
 And hangs upon the wave, and stems 
 
 The tempest of the .... 
 Which fervid from its mountain source 
 Shallow, smooth and strong doth come, 
 Swift as fire, tempestuously 
 It sweeps into the affrighted sea ; 
 In morning's smile its eddies coil, 
 Its billows sparkle, toss and boil, 
 Torturing all its quiet light 
 Into columns fierce and bright. 
 
 The Serchio, twisting forth 
 Between the marble barriers which it clove 
 
 At Ripafratta, leads through the dead chasm 
 The wave that died the death which lovers love, 
 
 Living in what it sought ; as if this spasm 
 Had not yet past, the toppling mountains cling, 
 
 But the clear stream in full enthusiasm 
 Pours itself on the plain, then wandering 
 
 Down one clear path of effluence crystalline, 
 Sends its superfluous waves, that they may fling 
 
 At Arno's feet tribute of corn and wine, 
 Then, through the pestilential desarts wild 
 
 Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted pine, 
 It rushes to the Ocean. 
 
 1821.
 
 I 9 8 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 TO MARY. 
 
 (ON HER OBJECTING TO THE FOLLOWING POEM, UPON THE 
 SCORE OF ITS CONTAINING NO HUMAN INTEREST.) 
 
 How, my dear Mary, are you critic-bitten 
 
 (For vipers kill, though dead), by some review, 
 
 That you condemn these verses I have written, 
 Because they tell no story, false or true ! 
 
 What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten, 
 May it not leap and play as grown cats do, 
 
 Till its claws come ? Prithee, for this one time, 
 
 Content thee with a visionary rhyme. 
 
 What hand would crush the silken-winged fly, 
 The youngest of inconstant April's minions, 
 
 Because it cannot climb the purest sky, 
 
 Where the swan sings, amid the sun's dominions ? 
 
 Not thine. Thou knowest 'tis its doom to die, 
 When day shall hide within her twilight pinions, 
 
 The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile, 
 
 Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 199 
 
 To thy fair feet a winged Vision came, 
 
 Whose date should have been longer than a day, 
 
 And o'er thy head did beat its wings for fame, 
 And in thy sight its fading plumes display ; 
 
 The watery bow burned in the evening flame, 
 
 But the shower fell, the swift sun went his way 
 
 And that is dead. O, let me not believe 
 
 That any thing of mine is fit to live ! 
 
 Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years 
 Considering and retouching Peter Bell ; 
 
 Watering his laurels with the killing tears 
 Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to hell 
 
 Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the 
 
 spheres 
 
 Of heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers ; this 
 well 
 
 May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil 
 
 The over-busy gardener's blundering toil. 
 
 My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature 
 As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise 
 
 Clothes for our grandsons but she matches Peter, 
 Though he took nineteen years, and she three 
 days 
 
 In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre 
 She wears ; he, proud as dandy with his stays, 
 
 Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress 
 
 Like King Lear's "looped and windowed ragged-
 
 200 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow, 
 
 Scorched by Hell's hyperequatorial climate 
 
 Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow : 
 
 A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at ; 
 
 In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello. 
 
 If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate 
 
 Can shrive you of that sin, if sin there be 
 
 In love, when it becomes idolatry.
 
 Ejje 33Hitdj of 
 
 BEFORE these cruel Twins, whom at one birth 
 Incestuous Change bore to her father Time, 
 
 Error and Truth, had hunted from the Earth 
 
 All those bright natures which adorned its prime, 
 
 And left us nothing to believe in, worth 
 The pains of putting into learned rhyme, 
 
 A lady-witch there lived on Atlas' mountain 
 
 Within a cavern, by a secret fountain. 
 
 Her mother was one of the Atlantides : 
 The all-beholding Sun had ne'er beholden 
 
 In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas 
 So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden 
 
 In the warm shadow of her loveliness ; 
 
 He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden 
 
 The chamber of grey rock in which she lay 
 
 She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away. 
 
 'Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour, 
 And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit, 
 
 Like splendour-winged moths about a taper, 
 Round the red west when the sun dies in it : 
 
 And then into a meteor, such as caper 
 On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit : 
 
 Then, into one of those mysterious stars 
 
 Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.
 
 202 THE \S T ITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent 
 Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden 
 
 With that bright sign the billows to indent 
 The sea-deserted sand like children chidden, 
 
 At her command they ever came and went 
 Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden 
 
 Took shape and motion : with the living form 
 
 Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm. 
 
 A lovely lady garmented in light 
 
 From her own beauty deep her eyes, as are 
 Two openings of unfathomable night 
 
 Seen through a Temple's cloven roof her hair 
 Dark the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight, 
 
 Picturing her form ; her soft smiles shone afar, 
 And her low voice was heard like love, and drew 
 All living things towards this wonder new. 
 
 And first the spotted cameleopard came, 
 And then the wise and fearless elephant ; 
 
 Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame 
 Of his own volumes intervolved ; all gaunt 
 
 And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame. 
 They drank before her at her sacred fount ; 
 
 And every beast of beating heart grew bold, 
 
 Such gentleness and power even to behold. 
 
 The brinded lioness led forth her young, 
 
 That she might teach them how they should 
 forego 
 
 Their inborn thirst of death ; the pard unstrung 
 His sinews at her feet, and sought to know
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 205 
 
 With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue 
 
 How he might be as gentle as the doe. 
 The magic circle of her voice and eyes 
 All savage natures did imparadise. 
 
 And old Silenus, shaking a green stick 
 Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew 
 
 Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick 
 Cicadas are, drunk with the noonday dew : 
 
 And Dryope and Faunus followed quick, 
 
 Teazing the God to sing them something new ; 
 
 Till in this cave they found the lady lone, 
 
 Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone. 
 
 And universal Pan, 'tis said, was there, 
 
 And though none saw him, through the adamant 
 Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air, 
 
 And through those living spirits, like a want 
 He past out of his everlasting lair 
 
 Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant, 
 And felt that wondrous lady all alone, 
 And she felt him, upon her emerald throne. 
 
 And every nymph of stream and spreading tree, 
 And every shepherdess of Ocean's flocks, 
 
 Who drives her white waves over the green sea, 
 And Ocean with the brine on his grey locks, 
 
 And quaint Priapus with his company, 
 
 All came, much wondering how the enwombed 
 rocks 
 
 Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth ; 
 
 Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.
 
 204 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came, 
 And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant 
 
 Their spirits shook within them, as a flame 
 Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt : 
 
 Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name, 
 Centaurs and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt 
 
 Wet clefts, -and lumps neither alive nor dead, 
 
 Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed. 
 
 For she was beautiful her beauty made 
 
 The bright world dim, and every thing beside 
 
 Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade : 
 No thought of living spirit could abide, 
 
 Which to her looks had ever been betrayed, 
 On any object in the world so wide, 
 
 On any hope within the circling skies, 
 
 But on her form, and in her inmost eyes. 
 
 Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle 
 And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and 
 three 
 
 Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle 
 The clouds and waves and mountains with ; and she 
 
 As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle 
 In the belated moon, wound skilfully ; 
 
 And with these threads a subtle veil she wove 
 
 A shadow for the splendour of her love. 
 
 The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling 
 
 Were stored with magic treasures sounds of air, 
 
 Which had the power all spirits of compelling, 
 Folded in cells of crystal silence there ;
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 205 
 
 Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling 
 
 Will never die yet ere we are aware, 
 The feeling and the sound are fled and gone, 
 And the regret they leave remains alone. 
 
 And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint, 
 Each in its thin sheath, like a chrysalis, 
 
 Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint 
 With the soft burthen of intensest bliss ; 
 
 It was its work to bear to many a saint 
 
 \Vhose heart adores the shrine which holiest is, 
 
 Even Love's: and others white, green, grey and black, 
 
 And of all shapes and each was at her beck. 
 
 And odours in a kind of aviary 
 
 Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept, 
 
 Clipt in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy 
 
 Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet 
 slept ; 
 
 As bats at the wired window of a dairy, 
 
 They beat their vans ; and each was an adept, 
 
 When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds, 
 
 To stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds. 
 
 And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might 
 Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep, 
 
 And change eternal death into a night 
 
 Of glorious dreams or if eyes needs must weep, 
 
 Could make their tears all wonder and delight, 
 She in her crystal vials did closely keep : 
 
 If men could drink of those clear vials, 'tis said 
 
 The living were not envied of the dead.
 
 206 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device, 
 The works of some Saturnian Archimage, 
 
 Which taught the expiations at whose price 
 Men from the Gods might win that happy age 
 
 Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice ; 
 
 And which might quench the Earth-consuming 
 rage 
 
 Of gold and blood till men should live and move 
 
 Harmonious as the sacred stars above ; 
 
 And how all things that seem untameable, 
 Not to be checked and not to be confined, 
 
 Obey the spells of wisdom's wizard skill ; 
 
 Time, earth and fire the ocean and the wind, 
 
 And all their shapes and man's imperial will ; 
 And other scrolls whose writings did unbind 
 
 The inmost lore of Love let the profane 
 
 Tremble to ask what secrets they contain. 
 
 And wondrous works of substances unknown, 
 To which the enchantment of her father's power 
 
 Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone, 
 Were heaped in the recesses of her bower ; 
 
 Carved lamps and chalices, and vials which shone 
 In their own golden beams each like a flower, 
 
 Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light 
 
 Under a cypress in a starless night. 
 
 At first she lived alone in this wild home, 
 And her own thoughts were each a minister, 
 
 Clothing themselves, or with the ocean foam, 
 Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 207 
 
 To work whatever purposes might come 
 
 Into her mind ; such power her mighty Sire 
 Had girt them with, whether to fly or run, 
 Through all the regions which he shines upon. 
 
 The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades, 
 
 Oreads and Naiads, with long weedy locks, 
 
 Offered to do her bidding through the seas, 
 Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks, 
 
 And far beneath the matted roots of trees, 
 And in the knarled heart of stubborn oaks, 
 
 So they might live for ever in the light 
 
 Of her sweet presence each a satellite. 
 
 " This may not be," the wizard maid replied : 
 " The fountains where the Naiades bedew 
 
 Their shining hair, at length are drained and dried ; 
 The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew 
 
 Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide ; 
 The boundless ocean like a drop of dew 
 
 Will be consumed the stubborn centre must 
 
 Be scattered, like a cloud of summer dust. 
 
 " And ye with them will perish, one by one ; 
 If I must sigh to think that this shall be, 
 
 If I must weep when the surviving Sun 
 
 Shall smile on your decay Oh, ask not me 
 
 To love you till your little race is run ; 
 I cannot die as ye must over me 
 
 Your leaves shall glance the streams in which ye 
 dwell 
 
 Shall be my paths henceforth, and so farewell !"
 
 208 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 She spoke and wept : the dark and azure well 
 Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears, 
 
 And every little circlet where they fell 
 
 Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres 
 
 And intertangled lines of light ; a knell 
 Of sobbing voices came upon her ears 
 
 From those departing Forms, o'er the serene 
 
 Of the white streams and of the forest green. 
 
 All day the wizard lady sate aloof, 
 
 Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity, 
 
 Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof; 
 Or broidering the pictured poesy 
 
 Of some high tale upon her growing woof, 
 
 Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could 
 dye 
 
 In hues outshining Heaven and ever she 
 
 Added some grace to the wrought poesy. 
 
 While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece 
 Of sandal wood, rare gums and cinnamon ; 
 
 Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is 
 Each flame of it is as a precious stone 
 
 Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this 
 Belongs to each and all who gaze upon. 
 
 The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand 
 
 She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand. 
 
 This lady never slept, but lay in trance 
 All night within the fountain as in sleep. 
 
 Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance ; 
 Through the green splendour of the water deep
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 209 
 
 She saw the constellations reel and dance 
 Like fire-flies and withal did ever keep 
 The tenour of her contemplations calm, 
 With open eyes, closed feet and folded palm. 
 
 And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended 
 From the white pinnacles of that cold hill, 
 
 She past at dewfall to a space extended, 
 Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel 
 
 Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended, 
 There yawned an inextinguishable well 
 
 Of crimson fire full even to the brim, 
 
 And overflowing all the margin trim. 
 
 Within the which she lay when the fierce war 
 Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor 
 
 In many a mimic moon and bearded star 
 
 O'er woods and lawns; the serpent heard it 
 flicker, 
 
 In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar 
 And when the windless snow descended thicker 
 
 Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came 
 
 Melt on the surface of the level flame. 
 
 She had a Boat, which some say Vulcan wrought 
 For Venus, as the chariot of her star ; 
 
 But it was found too feeble to be fraught 
 
 With all the ardours in that sphere which are, 
 
 And so she sold it, and Apollo bought 
 And gave it to this daughter : from a car 
 
 Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat 
 
 Which ever upon mortal stream did float. 
 P
 
 2io THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 And others say, that, when but three hours old, 
 
 The first-born Love out of his cradle leapt, 
 And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold, 
 And like a horticultural adept, 
 Stole a strange seed, and wrapt it up in mould, 
 
 And sowed it in his mother's star, and kept 
 Watering it all the summer with sweet dew, 
 And with his wings fanning it as it grew. 
 
 The plant grew strong and green, the snowy flower 
 Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began 
 
 To turn the light and dew by inward power 
 To its own substance ; woven tracery ran 
 
 Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o'er 
 The solid rind, like a leafs veined fan 
 
 Of which Love scooped this boat and with soft 
 motion 
 
 Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean. 
 
 This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit 
 
 A living spirit within all its frame, 
 Breathing the soul of swiftness into it. 
 
 Couched on the fountain like a panther tame, 
 One of the twain at Evan's feet that sit 
 
 Or as on Vesta's sceptre a swift flame 
 Or on blind Homer's heart a winged thought, 
 In joyous expectation lay the boat. 
 
 Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow 
 Together, tempering the repugnant mass 
 
 With liquid love all things together grow 
 
 Through which the harmony of love can pass ;
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 211 
 
 And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow 
 
 A living Image, which did far surpass 
 In beauty that bright shape of vital stone 
 Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion. 
 
 A sexless thing it was, and in its growth 
 It seemed to have developed no defect 
 
 Of either sex, yet all the grace of both, 
 
 In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked ; 
 
 The bosom lightly swelled with its full youth, 
 The countenance was such as might select 
 
 Some artist that his skill should never die, 
 
 Imaging forth such perfect purity. 
 
 From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings, 
 Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere, 
 
 Tipt with the speed of liquid lightnings, 
 Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere : 
 
 She led her creature to the boiling springs 
 
 Where the light boat was moored, and said, " Sit 
 here!" 
 
 And pointed to the prow, and took her seat 
 
 Beside the rudder, with opposing feet. 
 
 And down the streams which clove those mountains 
 vast, 
 
 Around their inland islets, and amid 
 The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast 
 
 Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid 
 In melacholy gloom, the pinnace past ; 
 
 By many a star-surrounded pyramid 
 Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky, 
 And caverns yawning round unfathomably.
 
 212 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 The silver noon into that winding dell, 
 
 With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops, 
 
 Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell : 
 
 A green and glowing light, like that which drops 
 
 From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell, 
 When earth over her face night's mantle wraps ; 
 
 Between the severed mountains lay on high 
 
 Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. 
 
 And ever as she went, the Image lay 
 
 With folded wings and unawakened eyes ; 
 
 And o'er its gentle countenance did play 
 The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies, 
 
 Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay, 
 And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet 
 sighs 
 
 Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain, 
 
 They had aroused from that full heart and brain. 
 
 And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud 
 Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went : 
 
 Now lingering on the pools, in which abode 
 The calm and darkness of the deep content 
 
 In which they paused ; now o'er the shallow road 
 Of white and dancing waters, all besprent 
 
 With sand and polished pebbles : mortal boat 
 
 In such a shallow rapid could not float. 
 
 And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver 
 Their snow-like waters into golden air, 
 
 Or under chasms unfathomable ever 
 
 Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 213 
 
 A subterranean portal for the river, 
 
 It fled the circling sunbows did upbear 
 Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray, 
 Lighting it far upon its lampless way. 
 
 And when the wizard lady would ascend 
 The labyrinths of some many-winding vale, 
 
 Which to the inmost mountain upward tend 
 She called " Hermaphroditus !" and the pale 
 
 And heavy hue which slumber could extend 
 Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale 
 
 A rapid shadow from a slope of grass, 
 
 Into the darkness of the stream did pass. 
 
 And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions, 
 With stars of fire spotting the stream below ; 
 
 And from above into the Sun's dominions 
 Flinging a glory, like the golden glow 
 
 In which spring clothes her emerald- winged 
 
 minions, 
 All interwoven with fine feathery snow 
 
 And moonlight splendour of intensest rime, 
 
 With which frost paints the pines in winter time. 
 
 And then it winnowed the Elysian air 
 Which ever hung about that lady bright, 
 
 With its aetherial vans and speeding there, 
 Like a star up the torrent of the night, 
 
 Or a swift eagle in the morning glare 
 
 Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight, 
 
 The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings, 
 
 Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.
 
 214 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 The water flashed like sunlight by the prow 
 Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven ; 
 
 The still air seemed as if its waves did flow 
 
 In tempest down the mountains ; loosely driven 
 
 The lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro : 
 Beneath, the billows having vainly striven 
 
 Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel 
 
 The swift and steady motion of the keel. 
 
 Or, when the wear)' moon was in the wane, 
 
 Or in the noon of interlunar night, 
 The lady-witch in visions could not chain 
 
 Her spirit ; but sailed forth under the light 
 Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain 
 
 Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite ; 
 She to the Austral waters took her way, 
 Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana. 
 
 Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, 
 Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast 
 shake, 
 
 With the Antarctic constellations paven, 
 
 Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake 
 
 There she would build herself a windless haven 
 "Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make 
 
 The bastions of the storm, when through the sky 
 
 The spirits of the tempest thundered by. 
 
 A haven beneath whose translucent floor 
 The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably, 
 
 And around which the solid vapours hoar, 
 Based on the level waters, to the sky
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 215 
 
 Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore 
 
 Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly 
 Hemmed in with rifts and precipices grey, 
 And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. 
 
 And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash 
 
 Of the wind's scourge, foamed like a wounded 
 thing ; 
 
 And the incessant hail with stony clash 
 
 Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing 
 
 Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash 
 Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering 
 
 Fragment of inky thunder-smoke this haven 
 
 Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven. 
 
 On which that lady played her many pranks, 
 
 Circling the image of a shooting star, 
 Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks 
 
 Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are, 
 In her light boat ; and many quips and cranks 
 
 She played upon the water, till the car 
 Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, 
 To journey from the misty east began. 
 
 And then she called out of the hollow turrets 
 
 Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion, 
 
 The armies of her ministering spirits 
 In mighty legions, million after million, 
 
 They came, each troop emblazoning its merits 
 On meteor flags ; and many a proud pavilion 
 
 Of the intertexture of the atmosphere 
 
 They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.
 
 216 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen 
 
 Of woven exhalations, underlaid 
 With lambent lightning fire, as may be seen 
 
 A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid 
 With crimson silk cressets from the serene 
 
 Hung there, and on the water for her tread 
 A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn, 
 Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon. 
 
 And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught 
 Upon those wandering isles of aery dew, 
 
 Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, 
 She sate, and heard all that had happened new 
 
 Between the earth and moon, since they had 
 
 brought 
 The last intelligence and now she grew 
 
 Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night 
 
 And now she wept, and now she laughed outright. 
 
 These were tame pleasures ; she would often climb 
 The steepest ladder of the crudded rack 
 
 Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime, 
 And like Arion on the Dolphin's back 
 
 Ride singing through the shoreless air ; oft time 
 Following the serpent lightning's winding track, 
 
 She ran upon the platforms of the wind, 
 
 And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind. 
 
 And sometimes to those streams of upper air 
 Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, 
 
 She would ascend, and win the spirits there 
 To let her join their chorus. Mortals found
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 217 
 
 That on those days the sky was calm and fair, 
 
 And mystic snatches of harmonious sound 
 Wandered upon the earth where'er she past, 
 And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last. 
 
 But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep, 
 To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads 
 
 Egypt and Ethiopia, from the steep 
 Of utmost Axume, until he spreads, 
 
 Like a calm flock of silver fleeced sheep, 
 His waters on the plain : and crested heads 
 
 Of cities and proud temples gleam amid, 
 
 And many a vapour-belted pyramid. 
 
 By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, 
 
 Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors, 
 Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes, 
 
 Or charioteering ghastly alligators, 
 Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes 
 
 Of those huge forms within the brazen doors 
 Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, 
 Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast. 
 
 And where within the surface of the river 
 The shadows of the massy temples lie, 
 
 And never are erased but tremble ever 
 
 Like things which every cloud can doom to die, 
 
 Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever 
 The works of man pierced that serenest sky 
 
 With tombs, and towers, and fanes, 'twas her delight 
 
 To wander in the shadow of the night.
 
 2i8 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 With motion like the spirit of that wind 
 
 Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet 
 
 Past through the peopled haunts of human kind. 
 Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet, 
 
 Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined 
 With many a dark and subterranean street 
 
 Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep 
 
 She past, observing mortals in their sleep. 
 
 A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see 
 Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep. 
 
 Here lay two sister twins in infancy ; 
 
 There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep ; 
 
 Within, two lovers linked innocently 
 
 In their loose locks which over both did creep 
 
 Like ivy from one stem ; and there lay calm 
 
 Old age with snow-bright air and folded palm. 
 
 But other troubled forms of sleep she saw, 
 
 Not to be mirrored in a holy song 
 Distortions foul of supernatural awe, 
 
 And pale imaginings of visioned wrong ; 
 And all the code of custom's lawless law 
 
 Written upon the brows of old and young : 
 " This," said the wizard maiden, " is the strife 
 Which stirs the liquid surface of man's life." 
 
 And little did the sight disturb her soul. 
 We, the weak mariners of that wide lake 
 
 Where'er its shores extend or billows roll, 
 Our course unpiloted and starless make
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 219 
 
 O'er its wild surface to an unknown goal : 
 
 But she in the calm depths her way could take, 
 Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide 
 Beneath the weltering of the restless tide. 
 
 And she saw princes couched under the glow 
 Of sunlike gems ; and round each temple-court 
 
 In dormitories ranged, row after row, 
 
 She saw the priests asleep all of one sort 
 
 For all were educated to be so. 
 
 The peasants in their huts, and in the port 
 
 The sailors she saw cradled on the waves, 
 
 And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. 
 
 And all the forms in which those spirits lay 
 Were to her sight like the diaphanous 
 
 Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array 
 
 Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us 
 
 Only their scorn of all concealment : they 
 Move in the light of their own beauty thus. 
 
 But these and all now lay with sleep upon them, 
 
 And little thought a Witch was looking on them. 
 
 She, all those human figures breathing there, 
 Beheld as living spirits to her eyes 
 
 The naked beauty of the soul lay bare, 
 
 And often through a rude and worn disguise 
 
 She saw the inner form most bright and fair 
 And then she had a charm of strange device, 
 
 Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, 
 
 Could make that spirit mingle with her own.
 
 220 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 Alas ! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given 
 For such a charm when Tithon became grey ? 
 
 Or how much, Venus, of thy silver Heaven 
 Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina 
 
 Had half (oh ! why not all ?) the debt forgiven 
 Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay, 
 
 To any witch who would have taught you it ? 
 
 The Heliad doth not know its value yet. 
 
 'Tis said in after times her spirit free 
 
 Knew what love was, and felt itself alone 
 
 But holy Dian could not chaster be 
 Before she stooped to kiss Endymion, 
 
 Than now this lady like a sexless bee 
 
 Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none, 
 
 Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden 
 
 Past with an eye serene and heart-unladen. 
 
 To those she saw most beautiful, she gave 
 Strange panacea in a crystal bowl : 
 
 They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave, 
 And lived thenceforward as if some controul, 
 
 Mightier than life, were in them ; and the grave 
 Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul, 
 
 Was as a green and overarching bower 
 
 Lit by the gems of many a starry flower. 
 
 For on the night when they were buried, she 
 Restored the embalmers' ruining, and shook 
 
 The light out of the funeral lamps, to be 
 A mimic day within that deathy nook ;
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 221 
 
 And she unwound the woven imagery 
 
 Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took 
 The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche, 
 And threw it with contempt into a ditch. 
 
 And there the body lay, age after age, 
 
 Mute, breathing, beating, warm and undecaying, 
 Like one asleep in a green hermitage, 
 With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing, 
 And living in its dreams beyond the rage 
 
 Of death or life ; while they were still arraying 
 In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind 
 And fleeting generations of mankind. 
 
 And she would write strange dreams upon the brain 
 Of those who were less beautiful, and make 
 
 All harsh and crooked purposes more vain 
 Than in the desart is the serpent's wake 
 
 Which the sand covers, all his evil gain 
 
 The miser in such dreams would rise and shake 
 
 Into a beggar's lap ; the lying scribe 
 
 Would his own lies betray without a bribe. 
 
 The priests would write an explanation full, 
 Translating hieroglyphics into Greek, 
 
 How the god Apis really was a bull, 
 
 And nothing more ; and bid the herald stick 
 
 The same against the temple doors, and pull 
 The old cant down ; they licensed all to speak 
 
 Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese 
 
 By pastoral letters to each diocese.
 
 222 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 
 
 The king would dress an ape up in his crown 
 And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat, 
 
 And on the right hand of the sunlike throne 
 Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat 
 
 The chatterings of the monkey. Ever}' one 
 Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet 
 
 Of their great Emperor, when the morning came, 
 
 And kissed alas, how many kiss the same ! 
 
 The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and 
 Walked out of quarters in somnambulism ; 
 
 Round the red anvils you might see them stand 
 Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm, 
 
 Beating their swords to ploughshares ; in a band 
 The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism 
 
 Free through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis 
 
 To the annoyance of king Amasis. 
 
 And timid lovers who had been so coy, 
 
 They hardly knew whether they loved or not, 
 
 Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, 
 To the fulfilment of their inmost thought ; 
 
 And when next day the maiden and the boy 
 Met one another, both, like sinners caught, 
 
 Blushed at the thing which each believed was done 
 
 Only in fancy till the tenth moon shone ; 
 
 And then the Witch would let them take no ill : 
 Of many thousand schemes which lovers find, 
 
 The Witch found one, and so they took their fill 
 Of happiness in marriage warm and kind.
 
 THE WITCH OF ATLAS. 223 
 
 Friends who, by practice of some envious skill, 
 
 Were torn apart, a wide wound, mind from mind ! 
 She did unite again with visions clear 
 Of deep affection and of truth sincere. 
 
 These were the pranks she played among the cities 
 Of mortal men, and what she did to sprites 
 
 And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties 
 To do her will, and show their subtle slights, 
 
 I will declare another time ; for it is 
 
 A tale more fit for the weird winter nights, 
 
 Than for these garish summer days, when we 
 
 Scarcely believe much more than we can see. 
 
 1820.
 
 (Question, 
 
 THE QUESTION. 
 
 I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, 
 Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, 
 
 And gentle odours led my steps astray, 
 Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring 
 
 Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 
 Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling 
 
 Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 
 
 But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream. 
 
 There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, 
 Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, 
 
 The constellated flower that never sets ; 
 
 Faint oxlips ; tender bluebells, at whose birth 
 
 The sod scarce heaved ; and that tall flower that wets 
 Like a child, hall in tenderness and mirth 
 
 Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, 
 
 When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.
 
 THE QUESTION. 225 
 
 And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, 
 
 'Green cow-biiT3~and tile moonlight-coloured May, 
 
 And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine 
 Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day ; 
 
 And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, 
 
 With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray ; 
 
 And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, 
 
 Fairer than any wakened eyesTjehold. 
 
 And nearer to the river's trembling edge 
 
 There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with 
 white, 
 
 And starry river buds among the sedge, 
 And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, 
 
 Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge 
 
 With moonlight beams of their own watery light ; 
 
 And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green 
 
 As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. 
 
 Methought that of these visionary flowers 
 I made a nosegay, bound in such a way 
 
 That the same hues, which in their natural bowers 
 Were mingled or opposed, the like array 
 
 Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours 
 Within my hand, and then, elate and gay, 
 
 I hastened to the spot whence I had come, 
 
 That I might there present it ! Oh ! to whom ? 
 
 1820.
 
 226 TO EMILIA VIVIANI. 
 
 TO EMILIA VIVIANI. 
 
 MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me 
 
 Sweet basil and mignonette ? 
 Embleming love and health, which never yet 
 In the same wreath might be. 
 
 Alas, and they are wet ! 
 Is it with thy kisses or thy tears ? 
 For never rain or dew 
 Such fragrance drew 
 From plant or flower the very doubt endears 
 
 My sadness ever new, 
 
 The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee. 
 
 1821.
 
 VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFORTUNATE 
 LADY EMILIA VIVIAM, NOW IMPRISONED IN THE 
 CONVENT OF ST. ANNE, PISA. 
 
 L'anima am.inte si slancia fuori del create, e si crea nel infinite un 
 Mondo tutto per essa, diverse assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro. 
 Her own -words. 
 
 MY Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few 
 Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning, 
 Of such hard matter dost thou entertain ; 
 "Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring 
 Thee to base company (as chance may do), 
 Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, 
 I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again, 
 My last delight ! tell them that they are dull, 
 And bid them own that thou art beautiful. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 [BY SHELLEY.] 
 
 THE writer of the following lines died at Florence, as he was 
 preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, 
 which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins 
 of an old building, and where it was his hope to have 
 realised a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier and 
 better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly 
 practicable in this. His life was singular ; less on account 
 of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the 
 ideal tinge which it received from his own character and 
 feelings. The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, 
 is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without 
 a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it re-
 
 228 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 lates ; and to a certain other class it must ever remain incom- 
 prehensible, from a defect of a common organ of perception 
 for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that, gran vergvgna 
 sarebbe a colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o di colore 
 rettorico : e domandato non safesse denudare le sue parole da 
 cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendimento. 
 
 The present poem appears to have been intended by the 
 writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on 
 the opposite page is almost a literal translation from Dante's 
 famous Canzone 
 
 Vot, cH intendendo, il terzo del movete, etc. 
 The presumptuous application of the concluding lines to his 
 own composition will raise a smile at the expense of my 
 unfortunate friend : be it a smile not of contempt, but pity. 
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 SWEET Spirit ! Sister of that orphan one, 
 Whose empire is the name thou weepest on, 
 In my heart's temple I suspend to thee 
 These votive wreaths of withered memory. 
 
 Poor captive bird ! who, from thy narrow cage, 
 Pourest such music, that it might assuage 
 The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee, 
 Were they not deaf to all sweet melody : 
 This song shall be thy rose : its petals pale 
 Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale ! 
 But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom, 
 And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom. 
 
 High, spirit-winged Heart ! who dost for ever 
 Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour, 
 Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed 
 It over-soared this low and worldly shade,
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 229 
 
 Lie shattered ; and thy panting, wounded breast 
 Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest ! 
 I weep vain tears : blood would less bitter be, 
 Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee. 
 
 Seraph of Heaven ! too gentle to be human, 
 Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman 
 All that is insupportable in thee 
 Of light, and love, and immortality ! 
 Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse ! 
 Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe ! 
 Thou Moon beyond the clouds ! Thou living Form 
 Among the Dead ! Thou Star above the Storm ! 
 Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror ! 
 Thou Harmony of Nature's art ! Thou Mirror 
 In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, 
 All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on ! 
 Aye, even the dim words which obscure thee now 
 Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow ; 
 I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song 
 All of its much mortality and wrong, 
 With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew 
 From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through, 
 Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy : 
 Then smile on it, so that it may not die. 
 
 I never thought before my death to see 
 Youth's vision thus made perfect. Emily, 
 I love thee ; though the world by no thin name 
 Will hide that love, from its unvalued shame. 
 Would we two had been twins of the same mother ! 
 Or, that the name my heart lent to another
 
 230 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 Could be a sister's bond for her and thee, 
 
 Blending two beams of one eternity ! 
 
 Yet were one lawful and the other true, 
 
 These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due, 
 
 How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me ! 
 
 I am not thine : I am a part of thee. 
 
 Sweet Lamp ! my moth-like Muse has burnt its 
 
 wings ; 
 
 Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings, 
 Young Love should teach Time, in his own grey style, 
 All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile, 
 A lovely soul formed to be blest and bless ? 
 A well of sealed and secret happiness, 
 Whose waters like blithe light and music are, 
 Vanquishing dissonance and gloom ? A Star 
 Which moves not in the moving Heavens, alone ? 
 A smile amid dark frowns ? a gentle tone 
 Amid rude voices ? a beloved light ? 
 A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight ? 
 A Lute, which those whom love has taught to play 
 Make music on, to soothe the roughest day 
 And lull fond grief asleep ? a buried treasure ? 
 A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure ? 
 A violet-shrouded grave of Woe ? I measure 
 The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, 
 And find alas ! mine own infirmity. 
 
 She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way, 
 And lured me towards sweet Death ; as Night by Day, 
 Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, 
 Led into light, life, peace. An antelope, 
 In the suspended impulse of its lightness, 
 Were less setherially light : the brightness
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 231 
 
 Of her divinest presence trembles through 
 
 Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew 
 
 Embodied in the windless Heaven of June 
 
 Amid the splendour-winged stars, the Moon 
 
 Burns, inextinguishably beautiful : 
 
 And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full 
 
 Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops, 
 
 Killing the sense with passion ; sweet as stops 
 
 Of planetary music heard in trance. 
 
 In her mild lights the starry spirits dance, 
 
 The sun-beams of those wells which ever leap 
 
 Under the lightnings of the soul too deep 
 
 For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. 
 
 The glory of her being, issuing thence, 
 
 Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade 
 
 Of unentangled intermixture, made 
 
 By Love, of light and motion : one intense 
 
 Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence, 
 
 Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing 
 
 Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing 
 
 With the unintermitted blood, which there 
 
 Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air 
 
 The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,) 
 
 Continuously prolonged, and ending never, 
 
 Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled 
 
 Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world ; 
 
 Scarce visible from extreme loveliness. 
 
 Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress, 
 And her loose hair ; and where some heavy tress 
 The air of her own speed has disentwined, 
 The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind ;
 
 J2 .EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 And in the soul a wild odour is felt, 
 Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt 
 
 Into the bosom of a frozen bud. 
 
 See where she stands ! a mortal shape indued 
 With love and life and light and deity, 
 And motion which may change but cannot die j 
 An image of some bright Eternity ; 
 A shadow of some golden dream ; a Splendour 
 Leaving the third sphere pilotless ; a tender 
 Reflection of the eternal Moon of Love 
 Under whose motions life's dull billows move ; 
 A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning ; 
 A Vision like incarnate April, warning, 
 With smiles and tears, Frost the Anatomy 
 Into his summer grave. 
 
 Ah, woe is me ! 
 
 What have I dared ? where am I lifted ? how 
 Shall I descend, and perish not ? I know 
 That Love makes all things equal : I have heard 
 By mine own heart this joyous truth averred : 
 The spirit of the worm beneath the sod 
 In love and worship, blends itself with God. 
 
 Spouse ! Sister ! Angel ! Pilot of the Fate 
 Whose course has been so starless ! O too late 
 Beloved ! O too soon adored, by me ! 
 For in the fields of immortality 
 My spirit should at first have worshipped thine, 
 A divine presence in a place divine ; 
 Or should have moved beside it on this earth, 
 A shadow of that substance, from its birth ; 
 But not as now : I love thee ; yes, I feel 
 That on the fountain of my heart a seal
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 233 
 
 Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright 
 
 For thee, since in those tears thou hast delight. 
 
 We are we not formed, as notes of music are, 
 
 For one another, though dissimilar ; 
 
 Such difference without discord, as can make 
 
 Those sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake 
 
 As trembling leaves in a continuous air ? 
 
 Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare 
 Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wreckt. 
 I never was attached to that great sect, 
 Whose doctrine is, that each one should select 
 Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, 
 And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend 
 To cold oblivion, though it is in the code 
 Of modern morals, and the beaten road 
 Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread, 
 Who travel to their home among the dead 
 By the broad highway of the world, and so 
 With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, 
 The dreariest and the longest journey go. 
 
 True Love in this differs from gold and clay 
 That to divide is not to take away. 
 Love is like understanding, that grows bright, 
 Gazing on many truths ; 'tis like thy light, 
 Imagination ! which from earth and sky, 
 And from the depths of human phantasy, 
 As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills 
 The Universe with glorious beams, and kills 
 Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow 
 Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow
 
 234 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, 
 The life that wears, the spirit that creates 
 One object, and one form, and builds thereby 
 A sepulchre for its eternity. 
 
 Mind from its object differs most in this : 
 Evil from good ; misery from happiness ; 
 The baser from the nobler ; the impure 
 And frail, from what is clear and must endure. 
 If you divide suffering and dross, you may 
 Diminish till it is consumed away ; 
 If you divide pleasure and love and thought, 
 Each part exceeds the whole ; and \ve know not 
 How much, while any yet remains unshared, 
 Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared : 
 This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw 
 The unenvied light of hope ; the eternal law 
 By which those live, to whom this world of life 
 Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife 
 Tills for the promise of a later birth 
 The wilderness of this Elysian earth. 
 
 There was a Being whom my spirit oft 
 Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, 
 In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn, 
 Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn, 
 Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves 
 Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves 
 Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor 
 Paved her light steps ; on an imagined shore, 
 Under the grey beak of some promontory 
 She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, 
 That I beheld her not. In solitudes 
 Her voice came to me through the whispering woods,
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 235 
 
 And from the fountains, and the odours deep 
 
 Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep 
 
 Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there, 
 
 Breathed but of her to the enamoured air ; 
 
 And from the breezes whether low or loud, 
 
 And from the rain of every passing cloud, 
 
 And from the singing of the summer-birds, 
 
 And from all sounds, all silence. In the words 
 
 Of antique verse and high romance, in form, 
 
 Sound, colour in whatever checks that Storm 
 
 Which with the shattered present chokes the past ; 
 
 And in that best philosophy, whose taste 
 
 Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom 
 
 As glorious as a fiery martyrdom ; 
 
 Her Spirit was the harmony of truth. 
 
 Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth 
 I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire, 
 And towards the loadstar of my one desire, 
 I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight 
 Is as a dead leafs in the owlet light, 
 When it would seek in Hesper's setting sphere 
 A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre, 
 As if it were a lamp of earthly flame. 
 But She, whom prayers or tears then could not tame, 
 Past, like a God throned on a winged planet, 
 Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it, 
 Into the dreary cone of our life's shade ; 
 And as a man with mighty loss dismayed, 
 I would have followed, though the grave between 
 Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen : 
 When a voice said : " O Thou of hearts the weakest, 
 The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest."
 
 236 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 Then I "where?" the world's echo answered 
 
 " where !" 
 
 And in that silence, and in my despair, 
 I questioned every tongueless wind that flew 
 Over my tower of mourning, if it knew 
 Whither 'twas fled, this soul out of my soul ; 
 And murmured names and spells which have 
 
 controul 
 
 Over the sightless tyrants of our fate ; 
 But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate 
 The night which closed on her ; nor uncreate 
 That world within this Chaos, mine and me, 
 Of which she was the veiled Divinity, 
 The world I say of thoughts that worshipped her : 
 And therefore I went forth, with hope and fear 
 And every gentle passion sick to death, 
 Feeding my course with expectation's breath, 
 Into the wintry forest of our life ; 
 And struggling through its error with vain strife, 
 And stumbling in my weakness and my haste, 
 And half bewildered by new forms, I past 
 Seeking among those untaught foresters 
 If I could find one form resembling hers, 
 In which she might have masked herself from me. 
 There, One, whose voice was venomed melody 
 Sate by a well, under blue night-shade bowers ; 
 The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers, 
 Her touch was as electric poison, flame 
 Out of her looks into my vitals came, 
 And from her living cheeks and bosom flew 
 A killing air, which pierced like honey-dew 
 Into the core of my green heart, and lay 
 Upon its leaves ; until, as hair grown grey
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 237 
 
 O'er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime 
 With ruins of unseasonable time. 
 
 In many mortal forms I rashly sought 
 The shadow of that idol of my thought. 
 And some were fair but beauty dies away : 
 Others were wise but honeyed words betray : 
 And One was true oh ! why not true to me ? 
 Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee, 
 I turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay, 
 Wounded and weak and panting ; the cold day 
 Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain. 
 When, like a noon-day dawn, there shone again 
 Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed 
 As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed, 
 As is the Moon, whose changes ever run 
 Into themselves, to the eternal Sun ; 
 The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven's bright 
 
 isles, 
 
 Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles, 
 That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame 
 Which ever is transformed, yet still the same, 
 And warms not but illumines. Young and fair 
 As the descended Spirit of that sphere, 
 She hid me, as the moon may hide the night 
 From its own darkness, until all was bright 
 Between the Heaven and Earth of my calm mind, 
 And, as a cloud charioted by the wind, 
 She led me to a cave in that wild place, 
 And sate beside me, with her downward face 
 Illumining my slumbers, like the Moon 
 Waxing and waning o'er Endymion. 
 And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, 
 And all my being became bright or dim
 
 238 EPIPSYCHIDIOX. 
 
 As the Moon's image in a summer sea, 
 According as she smiled or frowned on me ; 
 And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed : 
 Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead : 
 For at her silver voice came Death and Life, 
 Unmindful each of their accustomed strife, 
 Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother, 
 The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother, 
 And through the cavern without wings they flew, 
 And cried "Away, he is not of our crew." 
 I wept, and though it be a dream, I weep. 
 
 What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep, 
 Blotting that Moon, whose pale and waning lips 
 Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse ; 
 And how my soul was as a lampless sea, 
 And who was then its Tempest ; and when She, 
 The Planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost 
 Crept o'er those waters, till from coast to coast 
 The moving billows of my being fell 
 Into a death of ice, immovable ; 
 And then what earthquakes made it gape and split, 
 The white Moon smiling all the while on it, 
 These words conceal : If not, each word would be 
 The key of staunchless tears. Weep not for me ! 
 
 At length, into the obscure Forest came 
 The Vision I had sought through grief and shame. 
 Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns 
 Flashed from her motion splendour like the Morn's, 
 And from her presence life was radiated 
 Through the grey earth and branches bare and dead ; 
 So that her way was paved, and roofed above 
 With flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love ;
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 239 
 
 And music from her respiration spread 
 
 Like light, all other sounds were penetrated 
 
 By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound, 
 
 So that the savage winds hung mute around ; 
 
 And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair 
 
 Dissolving the dull cold in the frore air : 
 
 Soft as an Incarnation of the Sun, 
 
 When light is changed to love, this glorious One 
 
 Floated into the cavern where I lay, 
 
 And called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay 
 
 Was lifted by the thing that dreamed below 
 
 As smoke by fire, and in her beauty's glow 
 
 I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night 
 
 Was penetrating me with living light : 
 
 I knew it was the Vision veiled from me 
 
 So many years that it was Emily. 
 
 Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth, 
 This world of love, this me; and into birth 
 Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart 
 Magnetic might into its central heart ; 
 And lift its billows and its mists, and guide 
 By everlasting laws, each wind and tide 
 To its fit cloud, and its appointed cave ; 
 And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave 
 Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers 
 The armies of the rain-bow-winged showers ; 
 And, as those married lights, which from the towers 
 Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering 
 
 globe 
 
 In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe ; 
 And all their many-mingled influence blend, 
 If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end ;
 
 240 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway 
 
 Govern my sphere of being, night and day ! 
 
 Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might ; 
 
 Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light ; 
 
 And, through the shadow of the seasons three, 
 
 From Spring to Autumn's sere maturity, 
 
 Light it into the Winter of the tomb, 
 
 Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom. 
 
 Thou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce, 
 
 Who drew the heart of this frail Universe 
 
 Towards thine own ; till, wreckt in that convulsion, 
 
 Alternating attraction and repulsion, 
 
 Thine went astray and that was rent in twain ; 
 
 Oh, float into our azure heaven again ! 
 
 Be there love's folding-star at thy return ; 
 
 The living Sun will feed thee from its urn 
 
 Of golden fire ; the Moon will veil her horn 
 
 In thy last smiles ; adoring Even and Morn 
 
 Will worship thee with incense of calm breath 
 
 And lights and shadows ; as the star of Death 
 
 And Birth is worshipped by those sisters wild 
 
 Called Hope and Fear upon the heart are piled 
 
 Their offerings, of this sacrifice divine 
 
 A World shall be the altar. 
 
 Lady mine, 
 
 Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth 
 Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth 
 Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes, 
 Will be as of the trees of Paradise. 
 
 The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me. 
 To whatsoe'er of dull mortality
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 241 
 
 Is mine, remain a vestal sister still ; 
 
 To the intense, the deep, the imperishable, 
 
 Not mine but me, henceforth be thou united 
 
 Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. 
 
 The hour is come : the destined Star has risen 
 
 \Vhich shall descend upon a vacant prison. 
 
 The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set 
 
 The sentinels but true love never yet 
 
 Was thus constrained : it overleaps all fence : 
 
 Like lightning, with invisible violence 
 
 Piercing its continents ; like Heaven's free breath, 
 
 Which he who grasps can hold not ; liker Death, 
 
 Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way 
 
 Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array 
 
 Of arms : more strength has Love than he or they ; 
 
 For it can burst his charnel, and make free 
 
 The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, 
 
 The soul in dust and chaos. 
 
 Emily, 
 
 A ship is floating in the harbour now, 
 A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow ; 
 There is a path on the sea's azure floor, 
 No keel has ever ploughed that path before ; 
 The halcyons brood around the foamless isles ; 
 The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles ; 
 The merry mariners are bold and free : 
 Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me ? 
 Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest 
 Is a far Eden of the purple East ; 
 And we between her wings will sit, while Night 
 And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight, 
 Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, 
 Treading each other's heels, unheededly. 
 R
 
 242 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 It is an isle under Ionian skies, 
 
 Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise, 
 
 And, for the harbours are not safe and good, 
 
 This land would have remained a solitude 
 
 But for some pastoral people native there, 
 
 Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air 
 
 Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, 
 
 Simple and spirited ; innocent and bold. 
 
 The blue ygean girds this chosen home, 
 
 With ever-changing sound and light and foam, 
 
 Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar ; 
 
 And all the winds wandering along the shore 
 
 Undulate with the undulating tide : 
 
 There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide ; 
 
 And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, 
 
 As clear as elemental diamond, 
 
 Or serene morning air ; and far beyond, 
 
 The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer 
 
 (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year,) 
 
 Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls 
 
 Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls 
 
 Illumining, with sound that never fails 
 
 Accompany the noon-day nightingales ; 
 
 And all the place is peopled with sweet airs ; 
 
 The light clear element which the isle wears 
 
 Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, 
 
 Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, 
 
 And falls upon the eye-lids like faint sleep ; 
 
 And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, 
 
 And dart their arrowy odour through the brain 
 
 Till you might faint with that delicious pain. 
 
 And every motion, odour, beam, and tone, 
 
 With that deep music is in unison :
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 243 
 
 Which is a soul within the soul they seem 
 
 Like echoes of an antenatal dream. 
 
 It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, 
 
 Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity ; 
 
 Bright as that wandering Eden Lucifer, 
 
 Washed by the soft blue Oceans of young air. 
 
 It is a favoured place. Famine or Blight, 
 
 Pestilence, War and Earthquake, never light 
 
 Upon its mountain-peaks ; blind vultures, they 
 
 Sail onward far upon their fatal way : 
 
 The winged storms, chaunting their thunder-psalm 
 
 To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm 
 
 Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, 
 
 From which its fields and woods ever renew 
 
 Their green and golden immortality. 
 
 And from the sea there rise, and from the sky 
 
 There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, 
 
 Veil after veil, each hiding some delight, 
 
 Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside, 
 
 Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride 
 
 Glowing at once with love and loveliness, 
 
 Blushes and trembles at its own excess : 
 
 Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less 
 
 Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, 
 
 An atom of th' Eternal, whose own smile 
 
 Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen 
 
 O'er the grey rocks, blue waves, and forests green, 
 
 Filling their bare and void interstices. 
 
 But the chief marvel of the wilderness 
 
 Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how 
 
 None of the rustic island-people know : 
 
 'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height 
 
 It overtops the woods ; but, for delight,
 
 244 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime 
 
 Had been invented, in the world's young prime, 
 
 Reared it, a wonder of that simple time, 
 
 An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house 
 
 Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. 
 
 It scarce seems now a wreck of human art, 
 
 But, as it were Titanic ; in the heart 
 
 Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown 
 
 Out of the mountains, from the living stone, 
 
 Lifting itself in caverns light and high : 
 
 For all the antique and learned imagery 
 
 Has been erased, and in the place of it 
 
 The ivy and the wild-vine interknit 
 
 The volumes of their many twining stems ; 
 
 Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems 
 
 The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky 
 
 Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery 
 
 With Moon-light patches, or star atoms keen, 
 
 Or fragments of the day's intense serene ; 
 
 Working mosaic on their Parian floors. 
 
 And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers 
 
 And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem 
 
 To sleep in one another's arms, and dream 
 
 Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we 
 
 Read in their smiles, and call reality. 
 
 This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed 
 Thee to be lady of the solitude. 
 And I have fitted up some chambers there 
 Looking towards the golden Eastern air, 
 And level with the living winds, which flow 
 Like waves above the living waves below.
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 245 
 
 I have sent books and music there, and all 
 
 Those instruments with which high spirits call 
 
 The future from its cradle, and the past 
 
 Out of its grave, and make the present last 
 
 In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, 
 
 Folded within their own eternity. 
 
 Our simple life wants little, and true taste 
 
 Hires not the pale drudge Luxury, to waste 
 
 The scene it would adorn, and therefore still, 
 
 Nature, with all her children, haunts the hill. 
 
 The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet 
 
 Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit 
 
 Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance 
 
 Between the quick bats in their twilight dance ; 
 
 The spotted deer bask in the fresh moon-light 
 
 Before our gate, and the slow, silent night 
 
 Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. 
 
 Be this our home in life, and when years heap 
 
 Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay, 
 
 Let us become the over-hanging day, 
 
 The living soul of this Elysian isle, 
 
 Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile 
 
 We two will rise, and sit, and walk together, 
 
 Under the roof of blue Ionian weather, 
 
 And wander in the meadows, or ascend 
 
 The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend 
 
 With lightest winds, to touch their paramour ; 
 
 Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore, 
 
 Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea 
 
 Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy, 
 
 Possessing and possest by all that is 
 
 Within that calm circumference of bliss, 
 
 And by each other, till to love and live 
 
 Be one : or, at the noontide hour, arrive
 
 246 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep 
 The moonlight of the expired night asleep, 
 Through which the awakened day can never peep ; 
 A veil for our seclusion, close as Night's, 
 Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights ; 
 Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain 
 Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. 
 And we will talk, until thought's melody 
 Become too sweet for utterance, and it die 
 In words, to live again in looks, which dart 
 With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart, 
 Harmonizing silence without a sound. 
 Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, 
 And our veins beat together ; and our lips 
 With other eloquence than words, eclipse 
 The soul that burns between them, and the wells 
 Which boil under our being's inmost cells, 
 The fountains of our deepest life, shall be 
 Confused in passion's golden purity, 
 As mountain-springs under the morning Sun. 
 We shall become the same, we shall be one 
 Spirit within two frames, oh ! wherefore two ? 
 One passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew, 
 Till like two meteors of expanding flame, 
 Those spheres instinct with it become the same, 
 Touch, mingle, are transfigured ; ever still 
 Burning, yet ever inconsumable : 
 In one another's substance finding food, 
 Like flames too pure and light and unimbued 
 To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, 
 Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away : 
 One hope within two wills, one will beneath 
 Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death,
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 247 
 
 One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality, 
 
 Arid one annihilation; Avoe is me Y 
 
 The winged 1 words on which my soul would pierce 
 
 Into the height of love's rare Universe, 
 
 Are chains of lead around its flight of fire. 
 
 I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire ! 
 
 Weak Verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, 
 And say : " We are the masters of thy slave ; 
 What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine?" 
 Then call your sisters from Oblivion's cave, 
 All singing loud : " Love's very pain is sweet, 
 But its reward is in the' world divine 
 Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave." 
 So shall ye live when I am there. Then haste 
 Over the hearts of men, until ye meet 
 Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest, 
 And bid them love each other and be blest : 
 And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, 
 And come and be my guest, for I am Love's. 
 
 1820. 
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 
 Is it that in some brighter sphere 
 We part from friends we meet with here ? 
 Or do we see the Future pass 
 Over the Present's dusky glass ? 
 Or what is that that makes us seem 
 To patch up fragments of a dream, 
 Part of which comes true, and part 
 Beats and trembles in the heart ? 
 
 1819.
 
 foetus to fLifartg, (mce, antr 
 
 ODE TO NAPLES. 
 EPODE I. a. 
 
 I STOOD within the city disinterred ; 
 
 And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls 
 Of spirits passing through the streets ; and heard 
 
 The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals 
 
 Thrill through those roofless halls ; 
 The oracular thunder penetrating shook 
 
 The listening soul in my suspended blood ; 
 I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke 
 
 I felt, but heard not : through white columns 
 
 glowed 
 
 The isle-sustaining Ocean-flood, 
 A plane of light between two Heavens of azure : 
 
 Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre 
 Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure 
 Were to spare Death, had never made erasure ; 
 
 But every living lineament was clear 
 
 As in the sculptor's thought ; and there 
 The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine, 
 
 Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow, 
 
 Seemed only not to move and grow 
 Because the crystal silence of the air 
 
 Weighed on their life ; even as the Power divine 
 
 Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 249 
 
 EPODE II. a. 
 
 Then gentle winds arose 
 With many a mingled close 
 
 Of wild yEolian sound and mountain-odour keen ; 
 And where the Baian ocean 
 Welters with airlike motion, 
 Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, 
 Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves 
 Even as the ever stormless atmosphere 
 
 Floats o'er the Elysian realm, 
 It bore me like an Angel, o'er the waves 
 
 Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air 
 No storm can overwhelm ; 
 I sailed, where ever flows 
 Under the calm Serene 
 A spirit of deep emotion 
 From the unknown graves 
 Of the dead kings of Melody. 
 Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm 
 The horizontal aether ; heaven stript bare 
 Its depths over Elysium, where the prow 
 Made the invisible water white as snow ; 
 From that Typhasan mount, Inarime 
 
 There streamed a sunlight vapour, like the 
 standard 
 
 Of some aetherial host ; 
 Whilst from all the coast, 
 Louder and louder, gathering round, there 
 
 wandered 
 
 Over the oracular woods and divine sea 
 Prophesyings which grew articulate 
 They seize me I must speak them be they fate !
 
 250 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 
 
 STROPHE a. i. 
 
 Naples ! thou Heart of men which ever pantest 
 
 Naked, beneath the lidless eye of heaven ! 
 Elysian city which to calm inchantest 
 
 The mutinous air and sea : they round thee, even 
 
 As sleep round Love, are driven ! 
 Metropolis of a ruined paradise 
 
 Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained ! 
 Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice, 
 
 Which armed Victory offers up unstained 
 
 To Love, the flower-enchained ! 
 Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, 
 Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free, 
 
 If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail, 
 Hail, hail, all hail ! 
 
 STROPHE ft. 2. 
 
 Thou youngest giant birth 
 
 Which from the groaning earth 
 Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale ! 
 
 Last of the Intercessors ! 
 
 Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors 
 Pleadest before God's love ! Arrayed in Wisdom's 
 mail, 
 
 Wave thy lightning lance in mirth 
 
 Nor let thy high heart fail, 
 
 Though from their hundred gates the leagued 
 Oppressors, 
 
 With hurried legions move ! 
 
 Hail, hail, all hail !
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 251 
 
 ANTISTROPHE a. 
 
 What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme 
 
 Freedom and thee ? thy shield is as a mirror 
 To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam 
 
 To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer ; 
 
 A new Actaeon's error 
 
 Shall theirs have been devoured by their own 
 hounds ! 
 
 Be thou like the Imperial Basilisk 
 Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds ! 
 
 Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk 
 
 Aghast she pass from the Earth's disk : 
 Fear not, but gaze for freemen mightier grow, 
 And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe ; 
 
 If Hope and Truth and Justice may avail, 
 
 Thou shall be great. All hail ! 
 
 ANTISTROPHE /5. 2. 
 
 From Freedom's form divine, 
 
 From Nature's inmost shrine, 
 Strip every impious gawd, rend Error veil by veil : 
 
 O'er Ruin desolate, 
 
 O'er Falsehood's fallen state, 
 Sit thou sublime, unawed ; be the Destroyer pale ! 
 
 And equal laws be thine, 
 
 And winged words let sail, 
 Freighted with truth even from the throne of God : 
 
 That wealth, surviving fate, 
 
 Be thine. All hail !
 
 252 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 
 
 ANTISTROPHE a. y. 
 
 Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling 
 
 paean 
 
 From land to land re-echoed solemnly, 
 Till silence became music ? From the /Eaean 
 To the cold Alps, eternal Italy 
 Starts to hear thine ! The Sea 
 Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs 
 
 In light and music ; widowed Genoa wan 
 By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs, 
 Murmuring, where is Doria ? fair Milan, 
 
 Within whose veins long ran 
 The viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel 
 To bruise his head. The signal and the seal 
 (If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail) 
 Art Thou of all these hopes. O hail ! 
 
 ANTISTROPHE ft. y. 
 
 Florence ! beneath the sun, 
 
 Of~cities fairest one, 
 Blushes vvitfiin her bower for Freedom's expectation 
 
 From eyes of quenchless hope 
 
 Rome tears the priestly cope, 
 As ruling once by power, so now by admiration, 
 
 As athlete stript to run 
 
 From a remoter station 
 
 For the high prize lost on Philippi's shore : 
 As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail, 
 So now may Fraud and Wrong ! O hail !
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 253 
 
 EPODE I. /3. 
 
 Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms 
 
 Arrayed against the ever-living Gods ? 
 The crash and darkness of a thousand storms 
 Bursting their inaccessible abodes 
 
 Of crags and thunder clouds ? 
 See ye the banners blazoned to the day, 
 
 Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride? 
 Dissonant threats kill Silence far away, 
 
 The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide 
 
 With iron light is dyed, 
 The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions 
 
 Like Chaos o'er creation, uncreating ; 
 An hundred tribes nourished on strange religions 
 And lawless slaveries, down the aerial regions 
 Of the white Alps, desolating, 
 Famished wolves that bide no waiting, 
 Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory, 
 Trampling our columned cities into dust, 
 
 Their dull and savage lust 
 On Beauty's corse to sickness satiating 
 They come ! The fields they tread look black and 
 
 hoary 
 With fire from their red feet the streams run gory ! 
 
 EPODE II. /?. 
 
 Great Spirit, deepest Love ! 
 Which rulest and dost move 
 
 All things which live and are, within the Italian shore ; 
 Who spreadest heaven around it, 
 Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it ;
 
 254 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 
 
 Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor, 
 Spirit of beauty ! at whose soft command 
 
 The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison 
 
 From the Earth's bosom chill ; 
 O bid those beams be each a blinding brand 
 
 Of lightning ! bid those showers be dews of poison ! 
 Bid the Earth's plenty kill ! 
 Bid thy bright Heaven above, 
 Whilst light and darkness bound it, 
 Be their tomb who planned 
 To make it ours and thine ! 
 Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill 
 And raise thy sons, as o'er the prone horizon 
 Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire 
 Be man's high hope and unextinct desire, 
 The instrument to work thy will divine ! 
 
 Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from 
 
 leopards, 
 
 And frowns and fears from Thee, 
 Would not more swiftly flee 
 
 Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds. 
 Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine 
 Thou yieldest or withholdest, Oh let be 
 This city of thy worship ever free ! 
 
 August 25, 1820.
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 255 
 
 GREECE TO SLAVERY. 
 
 LET there be light ! said Liberty, 
 Arid Tike sunrise from the sea, 
 Athens arose ! Around her born, 
 Shone like mountains in the morn 
 Glorious states ; and are they now 
 Ashes, wrecks, oblivion ? Go, 
 Where Thermae and Asopus swallowed 
 Persia, as the sand does foam. 
 Deluge upon deluge followed, 
 Discord, Macedon, and Rome : 
 And lastly thou ! Temples and towers, 
 Citadels and marts, and they 
 Who live and die there, have been ours, 
 And may be thine, and must decay ; 
 But Greece and her foundations are 
 Built below tne tide ot war, 
 Based on the crystalline sea 
 Of thought and its eternity; 
 Her citizens, imperial spirits, 
 Rute'tlie present from the past, 
 ( 'n all this world of men inherits 
 Their seal is set. 
 
 Hellas.
 
 256 FOEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 In the great morning of thejvorld, 
 The" spirit 'of God'wTtTTmight unfurled 
 The flag of Freedom over Chaos, 
 
 And all its banded anarchs fled, 
 Like vultures frighted from Imaus, 
 
 Before an earthquake's tread. 
 So from Time's tempestuousjiawn 
 Freedom's splendour burst and shone : 
 ThermopyLi- and Marathon 
 Caught, like mountains beacon-lighted, 
 
 The springing Fire. The winged glory 
 On Philippi half alighted, 
 
 Like an eagle on a promontory. 
 Its unwearied wings could fan 
 The quenchless ashes of Milan. 
 From age to age, from man to man, 
 
 It lived ; and lit from land to land, 
 
 Florence, Albion, Switzerland. 
 Then night fell ; and, as from night, 
 Re-assuming fiery flight, 
 From the West swift Freedom came, 
 
 Against the course of heaven and doom, 
 A second sun arrayed in flame, 
 
 To burn, to kindle, to illume. 
 From far Atlantis its young beams 
 Chased the shadows and the dreams. 
 France, with all her sanguine steams,
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 257 
 
 Hid, but quenched it not ; again 
 
 Through clouds its shafts of glory rain 
 
 From utmost Germany to Spain. 
 As an eagle fed with morning 
 Scorns the embattled tempest's warning, 
 When she seeks her aerie hanging 
 
 In the mountain-cedar's hair, 
 And her brood expect the clanging 
 
 Of her wings through the wild air, 
 Sick with famine : Freedom, so 
 To what of Greece remaineth now 
 Returns ; her hoary ruins glow 
 Like orient mountains lost in day ; 
 
 Beneath the safety of her wings 
 Her renovated nurslings prey, 
 
 And in the naked lightnings 
 Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes. 
 Let Freedom leave where'er she flies, 
 A Desart, or a Paradise : 
 
 Let the beautiful and the brave 
 
 Share her glory, or a grave. 
 
 Hellas.
 
 258 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Worlds on worlds are rolling ever 
 
 From creation to decay, 
 Like the bubbles on a river 
 
 Sparkling, bursting, borne away. 
 But they are still immortal 
 Who, through birth's orient portal 
 And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro, 
 Clothe their unceasing flight 
 In the brief dust and light 
 Gathered around their chariots as they go ; 
 New shapes they still may weave, 
 New gods, new laws receive, 
 Bright or dim are they as the robes they last 
 On Death's bare ribs had cast. 
 
 A power from the unknown God, 
 
 A Promethean conqueror came ; 
 Like a triumphal path he trod 
 The thorns of death and shame. 
 A mortal shape to him 
 Was like the vapour dim 
 Which the orient planet animates with light ; 
 Hell, Sin, and Slavery came, 
 Like blood-hounds mild and tame, 
 Nor preyed, until their Lord had taken flight; 
 The moon of Mahomet 
 Arose, and it shall set : 
 
 While blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon 
 The cross leads generations on.
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 259 
 
 Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep 
 
 From one whose dreams are Paradise 
 Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep, 
 
 And day peers forth with her blank eyes ; 
 
 So fleet, so faint, so fair, 
 
 The Powers of earth and air 
 Fled from the folding star of Bethlehem : 
 
 Apollo, Pan, and Love, 
 
 And even Olympian Jove 
 Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them ; 
 
 Our hills and seas and streams 
 
 Dispeopled of their dreams, 
 Their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears, 
 
 Wailed for the golden years. 
 
 Hellas.
 
 260 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The world's great age begins anew, 
 
 The golden years return, 
 The earth doth like a snake renew 
 
 Her winter weeds outworn : 
 Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, 
 Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 
 
 A brighter Hellas rears its mountains 
 
 From waves serener far ; 
 A new Peneus rolls his fountains 
 
 Against the morning-star. 
 Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 
 Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. 
 
 A loftier Argo cleaves the main, 
 Jb "raught "wftlTa" later "pri ze ; 
 
 Another Orpheus sings again, 
 
 And loves, and weeps, and dies. 
 A new Ulysses leaves once more 
 CaTypso for his native shore. 
 
 O, write no more the tale of Troy, 
 If earth Death's scroll must be ! 
 
 Nor mix with Laian rage the joy 
 Which dawns upon the free : 
 
 Although a subtler Sphinx renew 
 
 Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 261 
 
 Another Athens shall arise, 
 
 And to remoter time 
 Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, 
 
 The splendour of its prime ; 
 And leave, if nought so bright may live, 
 All earth can take or Heaven can give. 
 
 Saturn and Love their long repose 
 Shall burst, more bright and good 
 
 Than all who fell, than One who rose, 
 Than many unsubdued : 
 
 Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers 
 
 But votive tears and symbol flowers. 
 
 O cease ! must hate and death return ? 
 
 Cease ! must men kill and die ? 
 Cease ! drain not to its dregs the urn 
 
 Of bitter prophecy. 
 The world is weary of the past, 
 O might it die or rest at last ! 
 
 Hellas.
 
 262 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 
 
 THE NEW WORLD. 
 DEMOGORGON. 
 
 THOU, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul, 
 Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies, 
 
 Beautiful orb ! gathering as thou dost roll 
 
 The love which paves thy path along the skies : 
 
 THE EARTH. 
 I hear : I am as a drop of dew that dies. 
 
 DEMOGORGON. 
 
 Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth 
 With wonder, as it gazes upon thee ; 
 
 Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth 
 Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony ; 
 
 THE MOON. 
 I hear : I am a leaf shaken by thee ! 
 
 DEMOGORGON. 
 
 Ye kings of suns and stars, Daemons and Gods, 
 
 ^Etherial Dominations, who possess 
 Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes 
 
 Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness :
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 263 
 
 A VOICE FROM ABOVE. 
 Our great Republic hears, we are blest, and bless. 
 
 DEMOGORGON. 
 
 Ye happy dead, whom beams of brightest verse 
 Are clouds to hide, not colours to pourtray, 
 
 Whether your nature is that universe 
 Which once ye saw and suffered 
 
 A VOICE FROM BENEATH. 
 
 Or as they 
 Whom we have left, we change and pass away. 
 
 DEMOGORGON. 
 
 Ye elemental Genii, who have homes 
 
 From man's high mind even to the central stone 
 Of sullen lead ; from Heaven's star-fretted domes 
 
 To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on : 
 
 A CONFUSED VOICE. 
 We hear : thy words waken Oblivion. 
 
 DEMOGORGON. 
 
 Spirits, whose homes are flesh : ye beasts and birds, 
 Ye worms, and fish ; ye living leaves and buds ; 
 
 Lightning and wind ; and ye untameable herds, 
 Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes :
 
 264 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 
 
 A VOICE. 
 Thy voice to us is wind among still woods. 
 
 DEMOGORGON. 
 
 Man, who wert once a despot and a slave ; 
 
 A dupe and a deceiver ; a decay ; 
 A traveller from the cradle to the grave 
 
 Through the dim night of this immortal day : 
 
 ALL. 
 Speak : thy strong words may never pass away. 
 
 DEMOGORGON. 
 
 This is the day, which down the void abysm 
 
 At theEarth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism, 
 
 And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep : 
 Love, from its awful throne of patient power 
 In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour 
 
 Of dead endurance, from the slippery, steep, 
 And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs 
 And folds over the world its healing wings. 
 
 Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, 
 These are the seals of that most firm assurance, 
 
 Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength ; 
 And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, 
 Mother of many acts and hours, should free 
 
 The serpent that would clasp her with his length ; 
 These are the spells by which to re-assume 
 An empire o'er the disentangled doom.
 
 POEMS TO LIBERTY, GREECE, & ITALY. 265 
 
 To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ; 
 To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ; 
 
 "To defy Power, which seems omnipotent ; 
 To love, and bear ; to hope till Hope creates 
 From Its own wreck the thing it contemplates ; 
 
 Neither to change, nor faulter, nor repent ; 
 This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be 
 Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free ; 
 This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory. 
 
 Prom. Unbound. 1820. 
 
 LIFE may change, but it may fly not ; ' 
 Hope may vanish, but can die not ; 
 Truth be veiled, but still it burneth ; 
 Love repulsed, but it returneth ! 
 
 Yet were Life a charnel where 
 Hope lay coffined with Despair ; 
 Yet were truth a sacred lie, 
 Love were lust if Liberty 
 
 Sent not life its soul of light, 
 Hope its iris of delight, 
 Truth its prophet's robe to wear, 
 Love its power to give and bear. 
 
 Hellas.
 
 -Sensitibe 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew, 
 And the young winds fed it with silver dew, 
 And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, 
 And closed them beneath the kisses of night. 
 
 And the Spring arose on the garden fair, 
 Like the Spirit of Love felt every where ; 
 And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast 
 Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 
 
 But none ever trembled and panted with bliss 
 In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, 
 Like a doe in the noon-tide with love's sweet want, 
 As the companionless Sensitive Plant. 
 
 The snow-drop, and then the violet, 
 
 Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, 
 
 And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent 
 
 From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 
 
 Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, 
 And narcissi, the fairest among them all, 
 Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, 
 Till they die of their own dear loveliness ;
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 267 
 
 And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, 
 Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, 
 That the light of its tremulous bells is seen 
 Through their pavilions of tender green ; 
 
 And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, 
 Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
 Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, 
 It was felt like an odour within the sense ; 
 
 And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, 
 Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 
 Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
 The soul of her beauty and love lay bare : 
 
 And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, 
 As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup, 
 Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 
 Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky ; 
 
 And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, 
 The sweetest flower for scent that blows ; 
 And all rare blossoms from every clime 
 Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 
 
 And on the stream whose inconstant bosom 
 Was prankt under boughs of embowering blossom, 
 With golden and green light, slanting through 
 Their heaven of many a tangled hue, 
 
 Broad water lilies lay tremulously, 
 
 And starry river-buds glimmered by, 
 
 And around them the soft stream did glide and dance 
 
 With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.
 
 268 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, 
 Which led through the garden along and across, 
 Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, 
 Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees, 
 
 Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells 
 As fair as the fabulous asphodels, 
 And flowrets which drooping as day drooped too 
 Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, 
 To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew. 
 
 And from this undefiled Paradise 
 The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes 
 Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet 
 Can first lull, and at last must awaken it,) 
 
 When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them, 
 As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, 
 Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one 
 Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun ; 
 
 For each one was interpenetrated 
 With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, 
 Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear 
 Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere. 
 
 But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit 
 Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, 
 Received more than all, it loved more than ever, 
 Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver, 
 
 For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower ; 
 Radiance and odour are not its dower ; 
 It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, 
 It desires what it has not, the beautiful !
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 269 
 
 The light winds which from unsustaining wings 
 Shed the music of many murmurings ; 
 The beams which dart from many a star 
 Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar ; 
 
 The plumed insects swift and free, 
 Like golden boats on a sunny sea, 
 Laden with light and odour, which pass 
 Over the gleam of the living grass ; 
 
 The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie 
 Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, 
 Then wander like spirits among the spheres, 
 Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears ; 
 
 The quivering vapours of dim noontide, 
 Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, 
 In which every sound, and odour, and beam, 
 Move, as reeds in a single stream ; 
 
 Each and all like ministering angels were 
 For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, 
 Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by 
 Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky. 
 
 And when evening descended from heaven above, 
 And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love, 
 And delight, tho' less bright, was far more deep, 
 And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep, 
 
 And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were 
 
 drowned 
 
 In an ocean of dreams without a sound ; 
 Whose waves never mark, tho' they ever impress 
 The light sand which paves it, consciousness ;
 
 270 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 (Only over head the sweet nightingale 
 
 Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, 
 
 And snatches of its Elysian chant 
 
 Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant). 
 
 The Sensitive Plant was the earliest 
 Up-gathered into the bosom of rest ; 
 A sweet child weary of its delight ; 
 The feeblest and yet the favourite, 
 Cradled within the embrace of night. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 There was a Power in this sweet place, 
 An Eve in this Eden ; a ruling grace 
 Which to the flowers did they waken or dream, 
 Was as God is to the starry scheme. 
 
 A Lady, the wonder of her kind, 
 Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind 
 Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion 
 Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean, 
 
 Tended the garden from morn to even : 
 And the meteors of that sublunar heaven, 
 Like the lamps of the air when night walks forth, 
 Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth ! 
 
 She had no companion of mortal race, 
 But her tremulous breath and her flushing face 
 Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes 
 That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise :
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 271 
 
 As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake 
 
 Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake, 
 
 As if yet around her he lingering were, 
 
 Tho' the veil of daylight concealed him from her. 
 
 Her step seemed to pity the grass it prest ; 
 You might hear by the heaving of her breast, 
 That the coming and going of the wind 
 Brought pleasure there and left passion behind. 
 
 And wherever her airy footstep trod, 
 Her trailing hair from the grassy sod 
 Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep ; 
 Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep. 
 
 I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet 
 Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet ; 
 I doubt not they felt the spirit that came 
 From her glowing fingers thro' all their frame. 
 
 She sprinkled bright water from the stream 
 On those that were faint with the sunny beam ; 
 And out of the cups of the heavy flowers 
 She emptied the rain of the thunder showers. 
 
 She lifted their heads with her tender hands, 
 And sustained them with rods and ozier bands ; 
 If the flowers had been her own infants she 
 Could never have nursed them more tenderly. 
 
 And all killing insects and gnawing worms, 
 And things of obscene and unlovely forms 
 She bore in a basket of Indian woof, 
 Into the rough woods far aloof,
 
 272 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 In a basket, of grasses and wild flowers full, 
 The freshest her gentle hands could pull 
 For the poor banished insects, whose intent, 
 Although they did ill, was innocent. 
 
 But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris 
 Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss 
 The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she 
 Make her attendant angels be. 
 
 And many an antenatal tomb, 
 Where butterflies dream of the life to come, 
 She left clinging round the smooth and dark 
 Edge of the odorous cedar bark. 
 
 This fairest creature from earliest spring 
 Thus moved through the garden ministering 
 All the sweet season of summer tide, 
 And ere the first leaf looked brown she died ! 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 Three days the flowers of the garden fair, 
 Like stars when the moon is awakened, were, 
 Or the waves of Baiae, ere luminous 
 She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius. 
 
 And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant 
 Felt the sound of the funeral chaunt, 
 And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow, 
 And the sobs of the mourners deep and low ;
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 273 
 
 The weary sound and the heavy breath, 
 And the silent motions of passing death, 
 And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, 
 Sent through the pores of the coffin plank ; 
 
 The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, 
 Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass ; 
 From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, 
 And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan. 
 
 The garden, once fair, became cold and foul, 
 Like the corpse of her who had been its soul, 
 Which at first was lovely as if in sleep, 
 Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap 
 To make men tremble who never weep. 
 
 Swift summer into the autumn flowed, 
 And frost in the mist of the morning rode, 
 Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright, 
 Mocking the spoil of the secret night. 
 
 The rose leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, 
 Paved the turf and the moss below. 
 The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, 
 Like the head and the skin of a dying man. 
 
 And Indian plants, of scent and hue 
 The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, 
 Leaf after leaf, day after day, 
 Were massed into the common clay. 
 
 And the leaves, brown, yellow, and grey, and red, 
 And white with the whiteness of what is dead, 
 Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind past ; 
 Their whistling noise made the birds aghast. 
 T
 
 274 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds 
 Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds, 
 Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem, 
 Which rotted into the earth with them. 
 
 The water-blooms under the rivulet 
 Fell from the stalks on which they were set ; 
 And the eddies drove them here and there, 
 As the winds did those of the upper air. 
 
 Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks, 
 Were bent and tangled across the walks ; 
 And the leafless net-work of parasite bowers 
 Massed into ruin ; and all sweet flowers. 
 
 Between the time of the wind and the snow, 
 
 All loathliest weeds began to grow, 
 
 Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, 
 
 Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back. 
 
 And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank, 
 And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank, 
 Stretched out its long and hollow shank, 
 And stifled the air till the dead wind stank. 
 
 And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, 
 Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth, 
 Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, 
 Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. 
 
 And agarics and fungi, with mildew and mould 
 Started like mist from the wet ground cold ; 
 Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead 
 With a spirit of growth had been animated !
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 275 
 
 Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake, 
 Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, 
 Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high, 
 Infecting the winds that wander by. 
 
 Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, 
 
 Made the running rivulet thick and dumb 
 
 And at its outlet flags huge as stakes 
 
 Dammed it up with roots knotted like water snakes. 
 
 And hour by hour, when the air was still, 
 The vapours arose which have strength to kill : 
 At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt, 
 At night they were darkness no star could melt. 
 
 And unctuous meteors from spray to spray 
 Crept and flitted in broad noon-day 
 Unseen ; every branch on which they alit 
 By a venomous blight was burned and bit. 
 
 The Sensitive Plant like one forbid 
 Wept, and the tears within each lid 
 Of its folded leaves which together grew 
 Were changed to a blight of frozen glue. 
 
 For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon 
 By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn ; 
 The sap shrank to the root through every pore 
 As blood to a heart that will beat no more. 
 
 For Winter came : the wind was his whip : 
 One choppy finger was on his lip : 
 He had torn the cataracts from the hills 
 And they clanked at his girdle like manacles ;
 
 276 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
 
 His breath was a chain which without a sound 
 The earth, and the air, and the water bound ; 
 He came, fiercely driven, in his chariot-throne 
 By the tenfold blasts of the arctic zone. 
 
 Then the weeds which were forms of living death 
 Fled from the frost to the earth beneath. 
 Their decay and sudden flight from frost 
 Was but like the vanishing of a ghost ! 
 
 And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant 
 The moles and the dormice died for want : 
 The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air 
 And were caught in the branches naked and bare. 
 
 First there came down a thawing rain 
 And its dull drops froze on the boughs again, 
 Then there steamed up a freezing dew 
 Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew ; 
 
 And a northern whirlwind, wandering about 
 Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, 
 Shook the boughs thus laden and heavy and stiff, 
 And snapped them off with his rigid griff. 
 
 When winter had gone and spring came back 
 
 The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck ; 
 
 But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and 
 
 darnels, 
 Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels.
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 277 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that 
 Which within its boughs like a spirit sat 
 Ere its outward form had known decay, 
 Now felt this change, I cannot say. 
 
 Whether that lady's gentle mind, 
 No longer with the form combined 
 Which scattered love, as stars do light, 
 Found sadness, where it left delight, 
 
 I dare not guess ; but in this life 
 Of error, ignorance, and strife, 
 Where nothing is, but all things seem, 
 And we the shadows of the dream, 
 
 It is a modest creed, and yet 
 Pleasant if one considers it, 
 To own that death itself must be, 
 Like all the rest, a mockery. 
 
 That garden sweet, that lady fair, 
 And all sweet shapes and odours there, 
 In truth have never past away : 
 'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed ; not they. 
 
 For love, and beauty, and delight, 
 There is no death nor change : their might 
 Exceeds our organs, which endure 
 No light, being themselves obscure. 
 
 1820.
 
 3Last ILofce 
 
 TO EDWARD WILLIAMS. 
 
 THE serpent is shut out from paradise. 
 
 The wounded deer must seek the herb no more 
 
 In which its heart-cure lies : 
 The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower 
 Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs 
 
 Fled in the April hour. 
 I too must seldom seek again 
 Near happy friends a mitigated pain. 
 
 Of hatred I am proud, with scorn content ; 
 
 Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown 
 
 Itself indifferent. 
 
 But, not to speak of love, pity alone 
 Can break a spirit already more than bent. 
 
 The mberable one 
 
 Turns the mind's poison into food, 
 Its medicine is tears, its evil good. 
 
 Therefore, if now I see you seldomer, 
 
 Dear friends, dear friend/ know that I only fly 
 
 Your looks, because they stir 
 Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot 
 die:
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS. 279 
 
 The very comfort that they minister 
 
 I scarce can bear, yet I, 
 So deeply is the arrow gone, 
 Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn. 
 
 When I return to my cold home, you ask 
 Why I am not as I have ever been. 
 
 You spoil me for the task 
 Of acting a forced part in life's dull scene, 
 Of wearing on my brow the idle mask 
 
 Of author, great or mean, 
 In the world's carnival. I sought 
 Peace thus, and but in you I found it not. 
 
 Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot 
 
 With various flowers, and every one still said, 
 
 " She loves me loves me not." 
 
 And if this meant a vision long since fled 
 If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought 
 
 If it meant, but I dread 
 To speak what you may know too well : 
 Still there was truth in the sad oracle. 
 
 The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home ; 
 No bird so wild but has its quiet nest, 
 
 When it no more would roam ; 
 The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast 
 Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam, 
 
 And thus at length find rest. 
 Doubtless there is a place of peace 
 Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease.
 
 280 LAST LOVE POEMS. 
 
 I asked her, yesterday, if she believed 
 
 That I had resolution. One who had 
 
 Would ne'er have thus relieved 
 His heart with words, but what his judgment 
 
 bade 
 Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved. 
 
 These verses are too sad 
 To send to you, but that I know, 
 Happy yourself, you feel another's woe. 
 
 1821. 
 
 /SONG. 
 RARELY, rarely, comest thou, 
 
 Spirit of Delight ! 
 Wherefore hast thou left me now 
 
 Many a day and night ? 
 Many a weary night and day 
 'Tis since thou art fled away. 
 
 How shall ever one like me 
 
 Win thee back again ? 
 With the joyous and the free 
 
 Thou wilt scoff at pain. 
 Spirit false ! thou hast forgot 
 All but those who need thee not. 
 
 As a lizard with the shade 
 
 Of a trembling leaf, 
 Thou with sorrow art dismayed ; 
 
 Even the sighs of grief 
 Reproach thee, that thou art not near, 
 And reproach thou wilt not hear.
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS. 281 
 
 Let me set my mournful ditty 
 
 To a merry measure, 
 Thou wilt never come for pity, 
 
 Thou wilt come for pleasure. 
 Pity then will cut away 
 Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. 
 
 I love all that thou lovest, 
 
 Spirit of Delight ! 
 The fresh Earth in new leaves drest, 
 
 And the starry night ; 
 Autumn evening, and the morn 
 When the golden mists are born. 
 
 I love snow, and all the forms 
 
 Of the radiant frost ; 
 I love waves, and winds, and storms, 
 
 Every thing almost 
 Which is Nature's, and may be 
 Untainted by man's misery. 
 
 I love tranquil solitude, 
 
 And such society 
 As is quiet, wise and good ; 
 
 Between thee and me 
 What difference ? but thou dost possess 
 The things I seek, not love them less. 
 
 I love Love though he has wings, 
 
 And like light can flee, 
 But above all other things, 
 
 Spirit, I love thee 
 Thou art love and life ! O come, 
 Make once more my heart thy home. 
 
 1821.
 
 282 LAST LOVE POEMS. 
 
 A LAMENT. 
 
 OH, world ! oh, life ! oh, time ! 
 On whose last steps I climb 
 
 Trembling at that where I had stood before ; 
 When will return the glory of your prime ? 
 No more O, never more ! 
 
 Out of the day and night 
 A joy has taken flight ; 
 
 Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, 
 Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight 
 No more O, never more ! 
 
 1821. 
 
 A DIRGE. 
 
 ROUGH wind, that meanest loud 
 
 Grief too sad for song ; 
 Wild wind, when sullen cloud 
 
 Knells all the night long ; 
 Sad storm, whose tears are vain, 
 Bare woods, whose branches stain, 
 Deep caves and dreary main, 
 
 Wail, for the world's wrong ! 
 
 1822.
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS. 
 
 TO 
 
 ONE word is too often profaned 
 
 For me to profane it, 
 One feeling too falsely disdained 
 
 For thee to disdain it. 
 One hope is too like despair 
 
 For prudence to smother, 
 And pity from thee more dear 
 
 Than that from another. 
 
 I can give not what men call love, 
 
 But wilt thou accept not 
 The worship the heart lifts above 
 
 And the Heavens reject not, 
 The desire of the moth for the star, 
 
 Of the night for the morrow, 
 The devotion to something afar 
 
 From the sphere of our sorrow ? 
 
 1821. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 WHEN the lamp is shattered 
 The light in the dust lies dead 
 
 When the cloud is scattered 
 The rainbow's glory is shed. 
 
 When the lute is broken, 
 Sweet tones are remembered not 
 
 When the lips have spoken, 
 Loved accents are soon forgot. 
 
 ,
 
 284 LAST LOVE POEMS. 
 
 As music and splendour 
 Survive not the lamp and the lute, 
 
 The heart's echoes render 
 No song when the spirit is mute : 
 
 No song but sad dirges, 
 Like the wind through a ruined cell, 
 
 Or the mournful surges 
 That ring the dead seaman's knell. 
 
 When hearts have once mingled 
 Love first leaves the well-built nest, 
 
 The weak one is singled 
 To endure what it once possest. 
 
 O, Love ! who bewailest 
 The frailty of all things here, 
 
 Why choose you the frailest 
 For your cradle, your home and your bier ? 
 
 Its passions will rock thee 
 As the storms rock the ravens on high : 
 
 Bright reason will mock thee, 
 Like the sun from a wintry sky. 
 
 From thy nest every rafter 
 Will rot, and thine eagle home 
 
 Leave thee naked to laughter, 
 When leaves fall and cold winds come. 
 
 1822. 
 
 TO - . 
 
 WHEN passion's trance is overpast, 
 If tenderness and truth could last 
 Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep 
 Some mortal slumber, dark and deep, 
 I should not weep, I should not weep !
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS. 285 
 
 It were enough to feel, to see, 
 
 Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly, 
 
 And dream the rest and burn and be 
 
 The secret food of fires unseen, 
 
 Couldst thou but be as thou hast been. 
 
 After the slumber of the year 
 The woodland violets re-appear, 
 All things revive in field or grove, 
 And sky and sea, but two, which move, 
 And form all others, life and love. 
 
 1821. 
 
 WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE. 
 
 ARIEL to Miranda. Take 
 This slave of Music, for the sake 
 Of him who is the slave of thee, 
 And teach it all the harmony 
 In which thou canst, and only thou, 
 Make the delighted spirit glow, 
 Till joy denies itself again, 
 And, too intense, is turned to pain ; 
 For by permission and command 
 Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 
 Poor Ariel sends this silent token 
 Of more than ever can be spoken ; 
 Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who, 
 From life to life, must still pursue 
 Your happiness ; for thus alone 
 Can Ariel ever find his own. 
 From Prospero's inchanted cell, 
 As the mighty verses tell,
 
 286 LAST LOVE POEMS. 
 
 To the throne of Naples, he 
 
 Lit you o'er the trackless sea, 
 
 Flitting on, your prow before, 
 
 Like a living meteor. 
 
 When you die, the silent Moon, 
 
 In her interlunar swoon, 
 
 Is not sadder in her cell 
 
 Than deserted Ariel. 
 
 When you live again on earth, 
 
 Like an unseen star of birth, 
 
 Ariel guides you o'er the sea 
 
 Of life from your nativity. 
 
 Many changes have been run, 
 
 Since Ferdinand and you begun 
 
 Your course of love, and Ariel still 
 
 Has tracked your steps, and served your will ; 
 
 Now, in humbler, happier lot, 
 
 This is all remembered not ; 
 
 And now, alas ! the poor sprite is 
 
 Imprisoned, for some fault of his, 
 
 In a body like a grave ; 
 
 From you he only dares to crave, 
 
 For his service and his sorrow, 
 
 A smile to-day, a song to-morrow. 
 
 The artist who this idol wrought, 
 To echo all harmonious thought, 
 Felled a tree, while on the steep 
 The woods were in their winter sleep, 
 Rocked in that repose divine 
 On the wind-swept Apennine ; 
 And dreaming, some of Autumn past, 
 And some of Spring approaching fast,
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS. 287 
 
 And some of April buds and showers, 
 
 And some of songs in July bowers, 
 
 And all of love ; and so this tree, 
 
 O that such our death may be ! 
 
 Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 
 
 To live in happier form again : 
 
 From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star, 
 
 The artist wrought this loved Guitar, 
 
 And taught it justly to reply, 
 
 To all who question skilfully, 
 
 In language gentle as thine own ; 
 
 Whispering in enamoured tone 
 
 Sweet oracles of woods and dells, 
 
 And summer winds in sylvan cells ; 
 
 For it had learnt all harmonies 
 
 Of the plains and of the skies, 
 
 Of the forests and the mountains, 
 
 And the many-voiced fountains ; 
 
 The clearest echoes of the hills, 
 
 The softest notes of falling rills, 
 
 The melodies of birds and bees, 
 
 The murmuring of summer seas, 
 
 And pattering rain, and breathing dew, 
 
 And airs of evening ; and it knew 
 
 That seldom-heard mysterious sound, 
 
 Which, driven on its diurnal round, 
 
 As it floats through boundless day, 
 
 Our world enkindles on its way 
 
 All this it knows, but will not tell 
 
 To those who cannot question well 
 
 The spirit that inhabits it ; 
 
 It talks according to the wit 
 
 Of its companions ; and no more
 
 288 LAST LOVE POEMS. 
 
 Is heard than has been felt before, 
 By those who tempt it to betray 
 These secrets of an elder day : 
 But sweetly as its answers will 
 Flatter hands of perfect skill, 
 It keeps its highest, holiest tone 
 For our beloved Jane alone. 
 
 1822. 
 
 TO JANE THE INVITATION. 
 
 BEST and brightest, come away ! 
 Fajrer_jarJ:5ar^ this lair Day, 
 Which, like thee to those in sorrow, 
 Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow 
 To the rough Year just awake 
 In its cradle on the brake. 
 The brightest hour of unborn Spring, 
 Through the winter wandering, 
 Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn 
 To hoar February born ; 
 Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, 
 It kissed the forehead of the Earth, 
 And smiled upon the silent sea, 
 And bade the frozen streams be free, 
 And waked to music all their fountains, 
 And breathed upon the frozen mountains, 
 And like a prophetess of May 
 Strewed flowers upon the barren way, 
 Making the wintry world appear 
 Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS. 289 
 
 Away, away, from men and towns, 
 To the wild wood and the downs 
 To the silent wilderness 
 Where the soul need not repress 
 Its music lest it should not find 
 An echo in another's mind, 
 While the touch of Nature's art 
 Harmonizes heart to heart. 
 
 Radiant Sister of the Day, 
 Awake ! arise ! and come away ! 
 To the wild woods and the plains, 
 And the pools where winter rains 
 Image all their roof of leaves, 
 Where the pine its garland weaves 
 Of sapless green and ivy dun 
 Round stems that never kiss the sun ; 
 Where the lawns and pastures be, 
 And the sandhills of the sea ; 
 Where the melting hoar-frost wets 
 The daisy-star that never sets, 
 And wind-flowers, and violets, 
 Which yet join not scent to hue, 
 Crown the pale year weak and new ; 
 When the night is left behind 
 In the deep east, dun and blind, 
 And the blue noon is over us, 
 And the multitudinous 
 Billows murmur at our feet, 
 Where the earth and ocean meet, 
 And all things seem only one 
 In the universal sun. 
 
 1822.
 
 290 LAST LOVE POEMS. 
 
 TO JANE THE RECOLLECTION. 
 
 Now the last day of many days, 
 All beautiful and bright as thou, 
 
 The loveliest and the last, is dead, 
 Rise, Memory, and write its praise ! 
 Up to thy wonted work ! come, trace 
 
 The epitaph of glory fled, 
 For now the Earth has changed its face, 
 A frown is on the Heaven's brow. 
 
 We wandered to the pine forest 
 
 That skirts the ocean's foam, 
 The lightest wind was in its nest, 
 
 The tempest in its home. 
 The whispering waves were half asleep, 
 
 The clouds were gone to play, 
 And on the bosom of the deep, 
 
 The smile of Heaven lay ; 
 It seemed as if the hour were one 
 
 'Sent from beyond the skies, 
 Which scattered from above the sun 
 
 A light of Paradise. 
 
 We paused amid the pines that stood 
 
 The giants of the waste, 
 Tortured by storms to shapes as rude 
 
 As serpents interlaced, 
 And soothed by every azure breath, 
 
 That under heaven is blown, 
 To harmonies and hues beneath, 
 
 As tender as its own ;
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS. 391 
 
 Now all the tree-tops lay asleep, 
 Like green waves on the sea, 
 
 As still as in the silent deep 
 The ocean woods may be. 
 
 How calm it was ! -the silence there 
 
 By such a chain_was Bound 
 That even the busy woodpecker 
 
 Made stiller by her sound 
 The inviolable quietness ; 
 
 The breath of peace we drew 
 With its soft motion made not less 
 ""The calm that round us grew. 
 There seemed from the remotest seat 
 
 Of the white mountain waste, 
 To the soft flower beneath our feet, 
 
 A magic circle traced, 
 
 A spirit interfused around, 
 
 A thrilling silent life, 
 To momentary peace it bound 
 
 Our mortal nature's strife ; 
 And still I felt the centre of 
 
 The magic circle there, 
 Was one fair form that filled with love 
 
 The lifeless atmosphere. 
 
 We paused beside the pools that lie 
 
 Under the forest bough, 
 Each seemed as 'twere a little sky 
 
 Gulphed in a world below ; 
 A firmament of purple light, 
 
 Which in the dark earth lay,
 
 292 LAST LOVE POEMS. 
 
 More boundless than the depth of night, 
 And purer than the day 
 
 In which the lovely forests grew 
 As in the upper air, 
 
 More perfect both in shape and hue 
 Than any spreading there. 
 
 There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, 
 
 And through the dark green wood 
 The white sun twinkling like the dawn 
 
 Out of a speckled cloud. 
 Sweet views which in our world above 
 
 Can never well be seen, 
 Were imaged by the water's love 
 
 Of that fair forest green. 
 And all was interfused beneath 
 
 With an elysian glow, 
 An atmosphere without a breath, 
 
 A softer day below. 
 
 Like one beloved the scene had lent 
 
 To the dark water's breast, 
 Its every leaf and lineament 
 
 With more than truth exprest ; 
 Until an envious wind crept by, 
 
 Like an unwelcome thought, 
 Which from the mind's too faithful eye 
 
 Blots one dear image out. 
 Though thou art ever fair and kind, 
 
 The forests ever green, 
 Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind, 
 
 Than calm in waters seen. 
 
 1822.
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS. 293 
 
 REMEMBRANCE. 
 
 SWIFTER far than summer's flight 
 Swifter far than youth's delight 
 Swifter far than happy night, 
 
 Art thou come and gone 
 As the wood when leaves are shed, 
 As the night when sleep is fled, 
 As the heart when joy is dead, 
 I am left lone, alone. 
 
 The swallow summer comes again 
 The owlet night resumes his reign 
 But the wild-swan youth is fain 
 
 To fly with thee, false as thou. 
 My heart each day desires the morrow ; 
 Sleep itself is turned to sorrow ; 
 Vainly would my winter borrow 
 
 Sunny leaves from any bough. 
 
 Lilies for a bridal bed 
 Roses for a matron's head 
 Violets for a maiden dead 
 
 Pansies let my flowers be : 
 On the living grave I bear 
 Scatter them without a tear 
 Let no friend, however dear, 
 
 Waste one hope, one fear for me. 
 
 1821.
 
 294 LAST LOVE POEMS. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI. 
 
 SHE left me at the silent time 
 
 When the moon had ceased to climb 
 
 The azure path of Heaven's steep, 
 
 And like an albatross asleep, 
 
 Balanced on her wings of light, 
 
 Hovered in the purple night, 
 
 Ere she sought her ocean nest 
 
 In the chambers of the West. 
 
 She left me, and I staid alone 
 
 Thinking over every tone 
 
 Which, though silent to the ear, 
 
 The enchanted heart could hear, 
 
 Like notes which die when born, but still 
 
 Haunt the echoes of the hill ; 
 
 And feeling ever O too much ! 
 
 The soft vibration of her touch, 
 
 As if her gentle hand, even now, 
 
 Lightly trembled on my brow ; 
 
 And thus, although she absent were, 
 
 Memory gave me all of her 
 
 That even Fancy dares to claim : 
 
 Her presence had made weak and tame 
 
 All passions, and I lived alone 
 
 In the time which is our own ; 
 
 The past and future were forgot, 
 
 As they had been, and would be, not. 
 
 But soon, the guardian angel gone, 
 
 The daemon reassumed his throne 
 
 In my faint heart. I dare not speak 
 
 My thoughts, but thus disturbed and weak
 
 LAST LOVE POEMS. 295 
 
 I sat and saw the vessels glide 
 
 Over the ocean bright and wide, 
 
 Like spirit-winged chariots sent 
 
 O'er some serenest element 
 
 For ministrations strange and far ; 
 
 As if to some Elysian star 
 
 Sailed for drink to medicine 
 
 Such sweet and bitter pain as mine. 
 
 And the wind that winged their flight 
 
 From the land came fresh and light, 
 
 And the scent of winged flowers, 
 
 And the coolness of the hours 
 
 Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day, 
 
 Were scattered o'er the twinkling bay. 
 
 And the fisher with his lamp 
 
 And spear about the low rocks damp 
 
 Crept, and struck the fish which came 
 
 To worship the delusive flame. 
 
 Too happy they, whose pleasure sought 
 
 Extinguishes all sense and thought 
 
 Of the regret that pleasure leaves, 
 
 Destroying life alone, not peace ! 
 
 1822. 
 
 TO 
 
 Music, when soft voices die, 
 Vibrates in the memory ; 
 Odours, when sweet violets sicken, 
 Live within the sense they quicken ; 
 
 Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, 
 Are heaped for the beloved's bed ; 
 And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, 
 Love itself shall slumber on. 
 
 1821
 
 gfoonate ; 
 
 AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS. 
 
 'Affrljp irpiv [iv Xa/i5m evl fwouriv ^os. 
 NDv 5t Oavuv \d/jurfis Zcrirepos fv <f>6ifj.ei>OLS. 
 
 PLATO. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IT is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this 
 poem a. criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to 
 be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have 
 adorned our age. My known repugnance to the narrow 
 principles of taste on which several of his earlier compositions 
 were modelled, prove, at least that I am an impartial judge. 
 I consider the fragment of Hyperion as second to nothing 
 that was ever produced by a writer of the same years. 
 
 John Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty- 
 fourth year, on the of 1821 ; and was buried in 
 
 the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that 
 city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and 
 the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, 
 which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery 
 is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with 
 violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, 
 to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place. 
 
 The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I 
 have dedicated these unworthy verses, was not less delicate 
 and fragile than it was beautiful ; and where cankerworms 
 abound, what wonder, if its young flower was blighted in
 
 ADONAIS. 297 
 
 the bud ? The savage criticism on his Endymion, which 
 -appeared in the Quarterly Review, produced the most violent 
 effect on his susceptible mind ; the agitation thus originated 
 ended in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs ; a rapid 
 consumption ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgments 
 from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers, 
 were uneffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted. 
 
 It may be well said, that these wretched men know not 
 what they do. They scatter their insults and their slanders 
 without heed as to whether the poisoned shaft lights on a 
 heart made callous by many blows, or one, like Keats's, 
 composed of more penetrable stuff. One of their associates, 
 is, to my knowledge, a most base and unprincipled calum- 
 niator. As to " Endymion ;" was it a poem, whatever 
 might be its defects, to be treated contemptuously by those 
 who had celebrated with various degrees of complacency and 
 panegyric, " Paris," and " Woman," and a " Syrian Tale," 
 and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Howard Payne, 
 and a long list of the illustrious obscure ? Are these the 
 men, who in their venal good nature, presumed to draw a 
 parallel between the Rev. Mr. Mihnan and Lord Byron? 
 What gnat did they strain at here, after having swallowed 
 all those camels ? Against what woman taken in adultery, 
 dares the foremost of these literary prostitutes to cast his 
 opprobrious stone ? Miserable man ! you, one of the mean- 
 est, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of 
 the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse, that 
 murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but used 
 none. 
 
 The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's 
 life were not made known to me until the Elegy was ready 
 for the press. I am given to understand that the wound 
 which his sensitive spirit had received from the criticism of 
 Endymion, was exasperated by the bitter sense of unrequited 
 benefits ; the poor fellow seems to have been hooted from 
 the stage of life, no less by those on whom he had wasted 
 the promise of his genius, than those on whom he had 
 lavished his fortune and his care. He was accompanied to
 
 298 ADONAIS. 
 
 Rome, and attended in his last illness by Mr. Severn, a 
 young artist of the highest promise, who, I have been 
 informed, "almost risked his own life, and sacrificed every 
 prospect to unwearied attendance upon his dying friend." 
 Had I known these circumstances before the completion of 
 my poem, I should have been tempted to add my feeble 
 tribute of applause to the more solid recompense which the 
 virtuous man finds in the recollection of his own motives. 
 Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from "such stuff 
 as dreams are made of." His conduct is a golden augury 
 of the success of his future career may the unextinguished 
 Spirit of his illustrious friend animate the creations of the 
 pencil, and plead against Oblivion for his name ! 
 
 *L 
 
 I WEEP for Adonais he is dead ! 
 O, weep ToP2[3miaIsT"t1iough~c>ur tears 
 Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! 
 And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
 To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 
 And teach them thine own sorrow, say : with me 
 Died Adonais ; till the Future dares 
 Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
 An echo and a lightimto eternity ! 
 
 Where wert thou^jmghty Mother, when he lay, 
 
 When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
 
 In darkness ? where was lorn Urania 
 
 When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 
 
 'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise 
 
 She sate, while one, with soft enarnouredbreath, 
 
 Rekindled all the fading melodies, 
 
 With which, like flowers that mock the corse be- 
 
 neath, 
 He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.
 
 *tip 
 
 NAIS. 
 
 299 
 
 O, weep for Adonais-^-he is dead ! 
 Wafce7 meTanch"oIy Mother~wake and weep ! 
 Yet wherefore ? Quench within their burning bed 
 Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep 
 Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 
 For he is gone, where all things wise and fair 
 Descend ; oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 
 Will yet restore him to the vital air ; 
 Death feeds on his mut,voice, and laughs at our 
 despair. ~*ff 
 
 
 
 Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 
 Lament anew, Urania ! He died, 
 Who was the Sire of an immortalstrain, 
 Blir^T^ST^iTd^Tongl^whgn his~country;s pride, 
 The priest, the slaveTan3^TheJiberticid^ 
 Trampled ali3^mocCe3^witirmany a loathed rite 
 Of~lusTand^Blpod ; he_went, unterrified, 
 I n1o^n^^uiroTjejtH7~bijt TiTs^cJgarlSprite 
 Yet reignT c^er earth; the third among the sons of 
 "^ ~~ 
 
 mourners, 
 
 Most musical of mtfurners, weep anew ! 
 Not all to that bright station dared to climb ; 
 And happier they their happiness who knew, 
 Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 
 In which suns perished ; others more sublime, 
 Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, 
 Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; 
 And some yet live, treading the thorny road, 
 Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene 
 abode.
 
 ^rfUO 
 I 
 
 300 
 
 But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished, 
 The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew, 
 Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished, 
 And fed with true love tears, instead of dew ; 
 Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
 Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last, 
 The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blew 
 Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ; 
 The broken lily lies-ptffe storm is overpast. 
 
 " 
 
 rice of purest breath, 
 ~ 
 
 He came ; and bought, with 
 A~grave among the 
 
 rfasteTwhfle the ^vauTToTDlue Italian day 
 Is yet his fitting charnel-roof ! while still 
 He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay ; 
 Awake him not ! surely he Jakes his fill 
 Of deep and liouidrest.DrgeIf'ul "of all ill. 
 
 He will awake no rrrorfe, oh, never more ! 
 Within the twilight chamber spreads apace, 
 The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
 Invisible Corruption waits to trace 
 His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place ; 
 The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
 Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 
 So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law 
 Of change, shall o'er hjp*jleep the mortal curtain draw. 
 
 j/^O, 
 
 TH 
 
 O, weep for Adonais4^-The quick(Dreams^ 
 THe^assloifwTnge"d Ministers orthought,
 
 ADONAIS. 301 
 
 The love^which^vasjts music, wander not, 
 Wander no more, from kindlmg~brain to brain, 
 But droop there, whence they sprung ; and mourn 
 
 their lot 
 
 Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, 
 They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again, 
 
 jL^ 
 
 And one with tremblrfig hands clasps his cold head, 
 And fans him with her moonlight wings and cries ; 
 " Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; 
 See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 
 Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 
 A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." 
 Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise ! 
 ShTTk'new not 'twas her own ; as with no stain 
 She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 
 
 "' 
 
 One from a lucid urii of starry dew 
 Washed his light limbs as if embalming them ; 
 Another dipt her profuse locks, and threw 
 The wreath upon him, like an anadem, 
 Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 
 Another in her wilful grief would break 
 Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
 A greater loss with one which was more weak ; 
 And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. 
 
 Another Splendour, on his mouth alit, 
 That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath 
 Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, 
 And pass into the panting heart beneath
 
 302 ADONAIS. 
 
 With lightning and with music : the damp death 
 Quenched its caress upon his icy lips ; 
 And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath 
 Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, 
 It flushed through his pale limbs, and past to its 
 eclipse. 
 
 And others carne._j^_^e_ 
 \Vmge~d Pe7suasions~andveiled 
 
 Of hoipes and fears, and twilight Phantasies ; 
 An3~5orrow/\vi th T\er^faWly~l3i r Sigfis^ 
 AncTPteasure, blind with tearsTled by the gleam 
 
 . - ,_ -, i f - _ --- - -- * -* - _ ^^_ _ 
 
 Of her owndying smile instead of eyes, 
 
 Like pageantry of mist o 
 
 All he had loved, aper" moulded into thought, 
 From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound, 
 Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 
 Her eastern watchtoweT, and her hair unbound, 
 Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, 
 Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day ; 
 Afar the melancholy thunder moaned, 
 Pale Oceaji in unquiet slumber lay, 
 And the wild windsflew^atmd, sobbing in their dismay. 
 
 Lost Echo sits amitHhe voiceless mountains, 
 And fee3s her grief with his remembered lay, 
 And will no more reply to winds or fountains, 
 Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray,
 
 ADONAIS. 303 
 
 Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day ; 
 Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear 
 Than those for whose disdain she pined away 
 Into a shadow of all sounds : a drear 
 Murmur, between their songspis all the woodmen hear. 
 
 Grief made the young^Spring wild, and she threw 
 
 down 
 
 Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, 
 Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is flown 
 For whom should she have waked the sullen year ? 
 To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear 
 Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both 
 Thou Adonais : wan they stand and sere 
 Amid the faint companions of their youth, 
 With dew all turned to tears ; odour, to sighing ruth. 
 
 X V 
 
 Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale 
 Mourns not her mate with sucn melodious pain ; 
 Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
 Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
 Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, 
 Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 
 As Albjojj wails for thee : the curse ofCain 
 Light on his head who pierced_thy_innocent breast, 
 And "scaf^TtHe'^angel soul th^rwasitr~ 
 
 Ah woe is me ! WinteHs_coiiie_and^gone, 
 But grief returns withtherevolving year ; 
 
 ^nd~s^earns^rene\v their joyous tone ; 
 
 Theantvlhj3ees7^ 
 
 FresTTe^eT^ivdr^owers ^deck^the^ead Seasons' 
 bier ;
 
 34 
 
 ADOXATS. 
 
 And the green Hzard7aiidthieJol3en^snaKe7 
 Like "unimprisoned 
 
 Through wood and 
 Dceari 
 
 m and field and hill and 
 
 A quickening life from tfa Earth's hearthas^urst 
 lTeveTTIo'ne, with change and motion, 
 ^ of the '" 
 
 _ 
 he" lamps~bTllelivn flash witn"a'"sfter light 
 
 The leprous corpse *CT3ched by this spirit tender 
 Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath ; 
 Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 
 Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death 
 And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath ; 
 Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which 
 
 knows 
 
 Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
 By sightless lightning ? th' intense atom glows 
 A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 
 
 Alas ! that all we loved of him should be, 
 But for our grief, as if it had not been, 
 And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! 
 Whence are we, and why are we ? of what scene 
 The actorror spectators? Great lmcT mean
 
 ADONAIS. 305 
 
 Meet massed in death, who lends what life must 
 
 borrow. 
 
 As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, 
 Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, 
 Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to 
 
 sorrow. 
 
 He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 
 "Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, rise 
 Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core, 
 A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs," 
 And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes, 
 And all the cTioes whom their sister's song 
 Had held in Tic5ty"silence, cried : " Arise ! " 
 Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung, 
 From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. 
 
 She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs 
 Out of the East, and follows wild and drear 
 The golden Day, which, on eternal wings, 
 Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, 
 Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear 
 So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania ; 
 So saddened round her like an atmosphere 
 Of stormy mist ; so swept her on her way 
 Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. 
 
 Out of her secret Paradise she sped, 
 
 Through camps and cities rough with stone, and 
 
 steel, 
 
 And human hearts, which to her aery tread 
 Yielding not, wounded the invisible 
 Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell : 
 x
 
 306 ADONAIS. 
 
 And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than 
 
 they 
 
 Rent the soft Form they never could repel, 
 Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May 
 Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. 
 
 < s * >k V 
 In the death chamber for a moment Death 
 
 Shamed by the presence of that living Might 
 Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 
 Revisited those lips, and life's pale light 
 Flashed through those limbs, so late herdeardelight. 
 " Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless, 
 As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 
 Leave me not !" cried Urania : her distress 
 Roused Death : Death rose and smiled, and met her 
 vain caress. ^ 
 
 " Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again ; 
 Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live ; 
 And in my heartless breast and burning brain 
 That word, that kiss shall all thoughts else survive, 
 With food of saddest memory kept alive, 
 Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 
 Of thee, my Adonais ! I would give 
 All that I am to be as thou now art ! 
 But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart ! 
 
 7W 
 
 " Oh gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 
 Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 
 Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart 
 Dare the unpastured dragon in his den ? 
 Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then 
 Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear ? 
 Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when
 
 ADONAIS. 307 
 
 Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, 
 The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like 
 deer. 
 
 " The herded wolves, bold only to pursue ; 
 
 The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead ; 
 
 The vultures to the conqueror's banner true 
 
 Who feed where Desolation first has fed, 
 
 And whose wings rain contagion ; how they fled, 
 
 When like Apollo, from his golden bo"w^ 
 
 TrTe'Fy'n i i1aTi"Sftri'e v a^e i Ofii6 > arrow "sped 
 
 And smiled ! The spoilers tempt no second blow, 
 
 They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low. 
 v - 
 
 " The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn ; 
 He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
 Is gathered into death without a dawn, 
 And the immortal stars awake again ; 
 So is it in the world 01' living men : 
 A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 
 Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when 
 It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 
 
 Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night 
 
 ." -<* 
 
 Thus ceased she : and the mountain shepherds came, / 
 
 Their garlands sere, their magic fnahTles "rent ; 
 
 The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame / 
 
 OverTus living neacT Tike tieaven Is bent, 
 
 An~early jaut KHdUnngmonultignt, "" 
 
 Carrie, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
 
 In sorrow ; from her wilds Terne sent 
 
 The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, 
 
 fall like music from his tongu
 
 308 
 
 Midst others of less note, came one frail Form, 
 A phantom among men ; companionless 
 As the last cloud of an expiring storm 
 
 1 Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, 
 Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, 
 Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray 
 With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, 
 And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, 
 
 Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their 
 prey. 
 
 A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift 
 A Love iri desolation mssicea ; a Power 
 Girt round with weakness ; it can scarce uplift 
 The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 
 It is.ajjyjng lamrj^ja. Jailiag.Jah.ower, 
 A 'breaking billow ; even whilst we speak 
 I s~IFnoF bf olcefi" ? On the withering flower 
 The killing sun smiles brightly : on a cheek 
 he life can burn in blood, even while the heart may 
 break. 
 
 , 
 
 His head was bound with pansies overblown, 
 And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue ; 
 And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, 
 Round whose rude shaft dark ivy tresses grew 
 Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, 
 Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 
 Shook the weak hand that grasped it ; of that 
 
 crew 
 
 He came the last, neglected and apart ; 
 herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart.
 
 ADONAIS. 309 
 
 All stood aloof, and at his partial moan 
 
 Smiled through their tears ; well knew that gentle 
 
 band 
 
 Who in another's fate now wept his own ; 
 As in the accents of an unknown land, 
 He sung new sorrow ; sad Urania scanned 
 The Stranger's mien, and murmured : " Who art 
 
 thou?" 
 
 He answered not, but with a sudden hand 
 Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 
 Which was like Cain's or Christ's Oh ! that it should 
 
 be so! 
 
 What softer voice is hushed over the dead ? 
 Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? 
 What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, 
 In mockery of monumental stone, 
 The heavy heart heaving without a moan ? 
 If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise, 
 Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one 
 Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs 
 . The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 
 
 ^. 
 
 Our Adonais has drunk poison oh ! 
 What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 
 Life's early cup with such a draught of woe ? 
 The nameless worm would now itself disown : 
 It lelt, yet coura escape the magic tone 
 Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, 
 But what was howling in one breast alone, 
 Silent with expectatioji^of-tJie_song, 
 Whose rr^ster^haj^^s^jC^Idj^whjgs^silyer lyje 
 unstrung.
 
 ADONAIS. 
 
 310 
 
 Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 
 Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me, 
 Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! 
 But be thyselfj^nd know thyself to be ! 
 And ever at thy season be thou free 
 To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow : 
 Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee 
 Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
 And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt 
 now. 
 
 Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
 Far from these carrion kites that scream below 
 He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
 Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. 
 Dust to the dust ! but_the__pjrrespirit shall flow 
 Back to the burning fountain whence itjcame, 
 of tIre-EteTn5l71v 
 
 ThTmigli'~tTrn"e"'and ^Tange, unquenchably the same, 
 
 Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth notjsleej 
 HeTiaTtr 
 
 And in mad trance, strike witl 
 IiivulnerableTTothings. We decay 
 Like corpses nTaTcHarnel ; fear and grief 
 Convulse us and consume us day by day, 
 And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living 
 clay.
 
 ADONAIS. 
 
 XL- 
 
 Hehasoutsoared the shadow of our night ; 
 Envy^and 
 
 _ 
 
 Andlhat rniTesTwhiclrnien^misralii delight, 
 Ca'ri~touchTrTim noflmg'To'fture rioT again'; 
 Fro^r the^"gontagToiroTtKe Tvorldjs'slow stain 
 Heis^securej_and now can never mourn 
 A ^iegrtgrown^coj37j~he^"grown grey in vain ; 
 Nor^ whejijth^^pirTtVse]has^ceas^ to biirn, 
 With sparklessashes load anunlamented urn. 
 
 #tl 
 
 He lives, jie wakes 'tis Death is dead, not he ; 
 Mourn notfor Afldnais. TrTou young Dawn 
 TurhairTny dew to splendour, for from thee 
 The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ; 
 Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! 
 Cease ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou 
 
 Air 
 
 Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown 
 O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare 
 Even to the joyous stars which smile on its 
 
 despair ! 
 
 M.H 
 
 He is made one with Nature : there is heard 
 
 the moan 
 
 Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird ; 
 He is a presence to be felt and known 
 In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 
 Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 
 Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 
 Which wields the world with never wearied 
 
 love, 
 Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
 
 He is a portjon^f^h^Joveliness 
 \\^icH^onceJi^ade_moreloyely : he doth bear 
 Hfsfpart, while the one^Spirif r s plastic stress 
 Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling 
 
 there, 
 
 All new successions to the forms they wear ; 
 Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight 
 To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; 
 And bursting in its beauty and its might 
 From trees and beasts and men into the Heavens' light. 
 
 The splendours of the firmament of time 
 May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ; 
 Like stars to their appointed height they climb 
 And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
 The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
 Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, 
 And love and life contend in it, for what 
 Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there 
 And move like winds of light on dark and stormy 
 air. 
 
 The inheritors of jinfulfilled renown 
 
 juuTTJeyond mortal 
 
 Rose from their^ 
 
 ~" thought,""" 
 Far iiTtHe U napparent Ghatterton 
 Rose pale, his_soIernV agjnhaTot 
 
 _ 
 
 Yejjaaed frorrT^mrp^d^ney, asjefought 
 And as he fell a!KTas~T^Iived~!ma7Toved 
 
 Sublimely Tnil3,'a~Spirit without spot, 
 Arose ; Und LucanTTay" his death approved : 
 OblivToiTas tHeyTose^sHrank like a thing reproved.
 
 ADONAIS. 
 
 3,3 
 
 _ are dark 
 
 But whosetransmitted^efflueiice carmoTcIIe 
 SoT^g^asJiroutirveslHe^arent spark", 
 
 " Thou aft~Become as one oTus," they cry, 
 " It was foFthee yon kingless~sphere has long 
 S \vu ng "blip d urunascenjedjnajesty. 
 Silent alone, ajriid a Heaven of Song. 
 Assumejhyjvjn^MlHrone, thoiTVesper of our throng ! " 
 
 Who mourns for Adonais ? oh come forth 
 Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright. 
 Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth ; 
 As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
 Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
 Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 
 Even to a point within our day and night ; 
 And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink 
 When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the 
 brink. 
 
 Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre 
 O, not of him, but of our joy : 'tis nought 
 That ages, empires, and religions there 
 Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; 
 For such as he can lend, they borrow not 
 Glory from those who made the world their prey ; 
 And he is gathered to the kings of thought 
 Who waged contention with their time's decay, 
 And of the past are all that cannot pass away.
 
 3M 
 
 Go thou to Rome, at once the Paradise, 
 The grave, the city, and the wilderness ; 
 And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, 
 And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress 
 The bones of Desolation's nakedness 
 Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead 
 Thy footsteps to a slope of green access 
 Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, 
 A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. 
 
 L 
 
 And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
 Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 
 And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 
 Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 
 This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
 Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath, 
 A field is spread, on which a newer band 
 Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death 
 Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished 
 breath. 
 
 .1 
 
 / Here pause : these graves are all too young as yet 
 To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
 Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set, 
 Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind, 
 Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 
 Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, 
 Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
 Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
 
 L What Adonais is, why fear we to become ?
 
 ADOXA1S. 315 
 
 The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
 Heaven's light forever shines, .Earth's shadows fly ; 
 Life, like a 
 
 Stains~the~white'~radiance^o Eternity^ 
 UntTTDeath jjjunpjesTiTto fragments. Die, 
 If tfiou wouIdsTbe \vitK~that which~thou dost seek ! 
 Follow where all is fled ! Rome's azure sky, 
 Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak 
 The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 
 
 Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart ? 
 Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here 
 They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! 
 A light is past from the revolving year, 
 And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
 Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
 The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near ; 
 'Tis Adonais calls ! oh, hasten thither, 
 No more let Life divide what Death can join together. 
 
 That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
 That Beauty in which all things work and move, 
 That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 
 Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
 Which through the web of being blindly wove 
 By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 
 Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
 The fire for which all thirst ; now beams on me, 
 Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
 
 316 ADOKAIS. 
 
 The breath whose might I have invoked in_song 
 Descends on me~7 rny^ggmTTTSalTrTs driven^ 
 FaTfrom^e~^h^r^7arTromthe trembling throng 
 Wh~ose~sails were never to the temgestjjiyen ; 
 
 I am borne darkly, fearfullj/jjifar ; 
 
 of Adonais, like a star, 
 BeaconTTrmirtKe abo3e~wHereThe Eternal 
 
 1821.
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 317 
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 
 
 O, WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 
 Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
 Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 
 
 Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 
 Pestilence-stricken multitudes : O, thou, 
 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 
 
 The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 
 Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
 Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow 
 
 Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 
 (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
 With living hues and odours plain and hill : 
 
 Wild Spirit, which art moving every where ; 
 Destroyer and preserver ; hear, O, hear ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion 
 Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, 
 Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 
 
 Angels of rain and lightning : there are spread 
 On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 
 Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
 
 318 ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 
 
 Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge 
 
 Of the horizon to the zenith's height 
 
 The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 
 
 Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
 Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 
 Vaulted with all thy congregated might 
 
 Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 
 
 Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst : O, hear ! 
 
 ill. 
 
 Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 
 The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 
 Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, 
 
 Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 
 And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
 Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 
 
 All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 
 
 So sweet, the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 
 
 For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 
 
 Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
 The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
 The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 
 
 Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, 
 And tremble and despoil themselves : O, hear ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; 
 If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; 
 
 .^- - " 
 
 A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 319 
 
 The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
 Than thou, O, uncontroulable ! If even 
 I were as in my boyhood, and could be 
 
 The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 
 
 As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 
 
 Scarce seemed a vision ; I would ne'er have striven ! 
 
 As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
 Oh ! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
 I fall upon the thoTnTof iTIeT I bTee?! 
 
 A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 
 One too like thee : tameless, and swift, and proud. 
 
 v. 
 
 Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
 What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 
 The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 
 
 Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, 
 Sweet thought in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, 
 My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 
 
 Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 
 Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ! 
 And, by the incantation of this verse, 
 
 Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
 Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
 Be through my lips to unawakened earth 
 
 The trumpet of a prophecy ! O, wind, 
 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ? 
 .._. 1819.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE i. p. i. 
 
 THE Hymn to Intellectual Beauty is placed first in this 
 book, not only because it pictures Shelley's earliest aspira- 
 tions, but also because Shelley has not added in this hymn, 
 as he has done in other poems, any "mortal image" to his 
 expression of the Platonic doctrine of the love of the Idea 
 of Beauty. To understand the poem the reader ought to refer 
 to that passage in Shelley's translation of the Symposium of 
 Plato which begins Diotima is represented as speaking : 
 " Your own meditation, Socrates, might perhaps have initi- 
 ated you in all these things which I have already taught you 
 on the subject of Love," and continue to the close of the 
 speech of Diotima. See Essays, vol. i. pp. 118-122. 
 
 NOTE ii. p. 6. 
 
 " Shelley . . . was at a loss for a title, and I proposed 
 that which he adopted Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude. 
 The Greek word, dXavrup, is an evil genius, Ka.KoSaifj.wi', 
 . . . The poem treated the spirit of solitude as a spirit of 
 evil." This statement of Mr. Peacock's is supported not 
 only by the poem, but also by the Preface, especially by the 
 words " The poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by 
 the Furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy 
 ruin." See also the lines 
 
 " The spirit of sweet human love has sent 
 A vision to the sleep of Aim who spurned 
 Her choicest gifts." 
 
 Y
 
 322 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE iii. p. 12. 
 
 " Her voice was like the voice of his own soul 
 Heard in the calm of thought." 
 
 The Hymn to Intellectual Beauty represents the pure 
 Platonic conception of Love, and of that which it loves. In 
 Alastor, in Prince Athanase, in many of the lyrics, Shelley 
 retreats from this conception, and amalgamating two thoughts 
 in the Symposium, invents a conception of his own. In that 
 dialogue Aristophanes tells an amusing myth of the original 
 human-being divided into man and woman, and of each part 
 of this man-woman ever afterwards passionately seeking the 
 other. The serious element in this is, "that the loves of 
 this world are an indistinct anticipation of an ideal union 
 which is not yet realised," or perhaps that each human being 
 has its complement, and strives to find it. That is one element 
 in Shelley's conception. The other is taken from the re- 
 presentation made by Diotima of the lover of absolute Beauty 
 seeking for its image in mortal forms, and his loving of these 
 images when found, as one of the steps whereby he ascends 
 to the love of ideal Beauty. Throwing these two together, 
 Shelley forms a new conception. He conceives of the arche- 
 typal Beauty, that Beauty which is the model and source of all 
 other beauty, as embodied somewhere beyond this material 
 world in the other half of his own soul. In visions he sees 
 this Being, and pursues her incessantly, but is always driven by 
 a weakness in his nature to try and find her image in real 
 women. His ideal love continually glides back into a desire 
 of realising itself on earth. He is thus, as he calls himself in 
 Adonais, a "power_girt round with weakness." Alastor re- 
 cords the corning of the Vision, and the agony of not finding 
 it realised. Unable to be content with the love of Ideal 
 Beauty alone, unable to find it realised to the sense on earth, 
 the poet, beaten between and tortured by these two inabilities, 
 dies of the pain. Epipsychidion records a moment when he 
 thought that he had found realised in Emilia this " soul out 
 of his soul." Had Prince Athanase been finished, it would 
 have recorded the vicissitudes of this pursuit.
 
 NOTES. 323 
 
 The personal element in Love, which is only a step 
 towards the higher Love in Plato, is a distinct part of it in 
 Shelley. And it was his profound feeling of the necessity 
 of this for him that made him create, as part of his idea of 
 Love, an ideal image of his own soul, a heightened, external- 
 ised personality of himself, whom he felt in Knowledge, in 
 Woman, and in Nature, and to absolute union with whom, 
 such union as is described in the latter part of Epipsychiilion, 
 he passionately aspired. But it is best to refer to Shelley 
 himself for this invention, for this addition to the Platonic 
 theory of Love. He expresses it fully enough in his Essay 
 on Love. See the sentences beginning " Thou demandest 
 What is Love ?" They illustrate passage after passage in 
 Alastor and in the other poems. See, also, verses 3, 4, and 
 5 of the poem of The Zucca. 
 
 NOTE iv. p. 1 8, 19. 
 
 There can be no reason for these unearthly and unnatural 
 scenes, except the wish to illustrate a temper of mind as 
 unearthly and unnatural. They are the image of a mind 
 tossed by the waves of impossible desire, and so maddened 
 that only the quiet of death can follow. And so it is. The 
 gentle stream follows, and the profound forest, and the ideal 
 landscape, evening and death. 
 
 NOTE v. p. 25. 
 
 " On every side now rose 
 Rocks which, in unimaginable forms, 
 Lifted their black and barren pinnacles 
 In the light of evening, and its precipice, 
 Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above 
 'Mid toppling stones." 
 
 I cannot but think that the easiest explanation of this 
 disputed passage is to read the for its. The precipice is 
 mentioned afterwards in two or three passages, but in these 
 passages it is spoken of as it is seen on the other side of the 
 valley, beyond the gap, where it falls downwards to the
 
 324 NOTES. 
 
 plain. What the poet sees now are, first, the sides of the 
 valley rising with pinnacles of rock ; and, secondly, in front 
 of him, the towering sides sweeping round and closing up 
 the valley in a precipitous curve, which, because it is between 
 him and the descending sun, obscures the ravine where he is 
 walking. This precipice, which shuts in the valley in front 
 of him, opens its stony jaws ('the abrupt mountain breaks'), is 
 disclosed, at first above, and afterwards below, as he walks 
 on. He then sees the gate of the hills, and passing through 
 it by the side of the stream, among the toppling stones, 
 beholds the mighty landscape far below, in the light of 
 evening and of the descending moon. But I am inclined to 
 think that its is right. Its may either be carelessly used, as 
 if he had mentioned the mountain, when he has only men- 
 tioned rocks, or, by one of those tortuous constructions, not 
 uncommon in Shelley, its stands for its own its own precipice 
 obscuring the ravine. 
 
 NOTE vi. p. 25. 
 
 This wonderful description of a vast landscape is one of 
 the many instances in Shelley of Nature presenting herself to 
 him as she presented herself to the landscape-painter Turner. 
 
 NOTE vii. p. 28, last line. 
 
 The application of the adjectives has been discussed. 
 But it seems plain enough. It is quite in Shelley's manner, 
 as in the "Ode to the West Wind," in "When the lamp 
 is shattered," and in many other poems, to go back to and 
 bring together his illustrations. Here the poet's frame is a 
 lute, a bright stream, a dream of youth. The lute is still, 
 the stream is dark and dry, the dream is unremembered. 
 
 NOTE viii. p. 31, 33. 
 
 These two poems are inserted here from their striking the 
 same note as the last scene in Alastor.
 
 NOTES. 325 
 
 NOTE ix. p. 40. 
 
 This is part of the introduction of Hellas. The first and 
 third verses are sung by a chorus of Greek captive women 
 while Mahmud is sleeping, the second and fourth verses by 
 the Indian slave who sits beside his couch. 
 
 NOTE x. p. 42, 43. 
 
 This is a splendid example of that highly wrought 
 painting of cloud and sky in which Shelley stands almost 
 alone among English poets. There are fine examples in 
 Wordsworth and Byron, but they have neither the de- 
 tail, nor the splendour, nor the subtilty of colour that 
 Shelley puts into his skies. This might be a description of 
 one of Turner's storm skies. The long trains of tremulous 
 mist that precede the tempest, the cleft in the storm-clouds, 
 and seen through it, high above, the space of blue sky, fretted 
 with fair clouds, the pallid semicircle of the moon with mist 
 on its upper horn, the flying rack of clouds below the serene 
 spot all are as Turner saw them ; but painting cannot give 
 what Shelley gives the growth and progress of the changes 
 of the storm. 
 
 NOTE xi. p. 47. 
 
 I have only inserted the Mask, and left out its explana- 
 tion. That explanation, in its two parts, has seemed to me 
 to trouble, as all explanations do, and especially an artist's, 
 the work of art. 
 
 NOTE xii. p. 83. 
 
 This is another of those pictured skies in which Shelley 
 excels. They are almost the only aspects of Nature which 
 he sees with absolute clearness, and describes with absolute 
 directness. This could be painted from, but then only 
 Turner could have painted it, or would have cared to 
 paint it. 
 
 NOTE xiii. p. 93. 
 
 " The inmost purple spirit of light, and made 
 Their peaks transparent."
 
 326 NOTES. 
 
 Nothing can be more accurate. In certain states of 
 atmosphere, when the sun sinks over those hills in autumn, 
 they change as it were into violet vapour, and seem no less 
 transparent to the eye. 
 
 In this poem, Julian and Maddalo, Shelley employs, he 
 says, a certain familiar style of language. It is not grace- 
 fully or easily employed, nor is the language familiar. In 
 the narrative parts it actually resembles the style of Shelley's 
 novels Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne, and is prosaic beyond any- 
 thing in Wordsworth. 
 
 " My dear friend, 
 
 Said Maddalo, my judgment will not bend 
 
 To your opinion, though I think you might 
 
 Make such a system refutation-tight 
 
 As far as words go." 
 
 That is prose, and bad prose, and it does not stand alone. 
 
 In the descriptive parts, the poem is, of course, not familiar, 
 but highly imaginative. In the tale of the Madman, its pas- 
 sion lifts it wholly out of the familiar. Excellent indeed as 
 Julian and Maddalo is, its note is peculiar and unequal, nor 
 are its elements kindly mixed. And this partly arises from 
 Shelley having put so much of himself into the Madman, 
 that the character is not separated from his own, that is, 
 from Julian's, with sufficient sharpness. Julian and the 
 Madman grow into one another as we read. 
 
 NOTE xiv. p. in. 
 
 It is interesting to compare with Mont Blanc, Letter iv. to 
 Peacock. It contains the germ of many of the images used, 
 and of the thoughts expressed in the poem. 
 
 NOTE xv. p. 119. 
 
 I saw once, from a tower that overlooked two rookeries, 
 this very thing. The moment the sun's disk had fully 
 climbed over the edge of a distant wood, the whole band of 
 rooks, from both their homes, silent before, rose, all the
 
 NOTES. 327 
 
 birds together, with a great "hail" into the air, and hover- 
 ing together for a second or two, streamed down the wind 
 towards the sun. 
 
 NOTE xvi. p. 132. 
 
 I have put in this extract from Rosalind and Helen, that 
 its feebler work may be compared with Shelley's treatment 
 of the same subject, under the influence of passion, in the 
 Recollection. 
 
 NOTE xvii. p. 134. 
 
 This is the same subject as The Zucca of the poems. In 
 this form it occurs in an unfinished drama, and is more in 
 the special manner of Shelley than is the poem itself. The 
 subject, thus twice treated, and alluded to also in the Witch 
 of Atlas (p. 210, line 5), grew out of a real incident which is 
 described in one of the Shelley letters. 
 
 NOTE xviii. p. 146, lines 15, 16. 
 
 This is the second time that Shelley borrows this phrase 
 from Wordsworth ; from the Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a 
 picture of Peele Castle. 
 
 " Whene'er I looked, thy image still was there ; 
 It trembled, but it never passed away." 
 
 NOTE xix. p. 148. 
 
 The poems of the preceding section I have called Poems 
 of Nature and Man, because in them, as in some others 
 elsewhere placed in this book, Shelley has mixed up Nature 
 with human feeling, chiefly with his own feeling. In some of 
 these poems, which I have called Poems of pure Nature, he 
 writes of Nature as his special form of Pantheism, if I may 
 call it that, urged him. He writes of her apart from Man, as 
 the outward image of an all-sustaining, all-pervading Love, 
 whom he embodied in the creation of Asia. Nay, he some- 
 times writes of this Love alone, and seems to forget that 
 there is any image of her in the outward world. She is
 
 328 NOTES. 
 
 when he conceives her best, alive, and has her own separate 
 pleasures and pains. And below her, and deriving life from 
 her, is Panthea, the whole of the phenomenal universe. But 
 he writes also in these poems of certain distinct individualities 
 in Nature, without any reference to a spiritual life in which 
 they are contained. The Cloud, the Apennine, the sphere 
 of vapour sucked by the sun from the forest pool, the Moon, 
 the Earth, have each and all their own distinct life, their 
 own living spirit ; be, and have, and do of their own will. 
 
 NOTE xx. p. 155. 
 
 I have left out the last verse of this song to Asia, because 
 it is mixed up with the events of the Drama. The song is, 
 in this book, better without it. If Asia is the embodiment 
 of that Love by which the universe is, and who, in loving, 
 makes the universe, this song seems to conceive that there is 
 a something behind and greater than this Love ; a central 
 source of Being and Power the Demogorgon of the Pro- 
 metheus Unbound. Yet to call Demogorgon the central 
 source of being, would say more, perhaps, than Shelley 
 meant. If he had been asked himself what he meant, he 
 might have replied, I conceive of a vast Perception, and no 
 more. Nevertheless, the Thought and the Song may be 
 compared with Goethe's conception of the Mothers in the 
 second part of Faust, and of Faust's descent to find them. 
 
 NOTE xxi. p. 158, 164. 
 
 The last stanza is omitted of the Echo Song. 
 
 At page 164 the answer of the Earth to the first stanza of 
 the Moon's song to him is omitted, and also the long series 
 of stanzas which follow the Earth's, " It interpenetrates my 
 granite mass," partly because they are mixed up with the 
 ethical end of the Drama, partly because they are, if one may 
 dare to say so, less good than the rest. 
 
 I have changed the common punctuation at the end of 
 the line, " Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst," 
 because it seems plain that Shelley meant the Moon to take up
 
 NOTES. 329 
 
 the answering song, and to carry out herself that which the 
 Earth was about to say. In the same way the earth takes 
 up and finishes for the Moon what she was about to say 
 after the lines 
 
 " When the sunset sleeps 
 Upon its snow " 
 
 so that each toss to and fro their thoughts of each other. 
 The concluding lines which follow the verse, " Through isles 
 for ever calm," seem to me to spoil, by their fierceness of note, 
 those that precede them. I have, therefore, as one may in 
 selections, been bold enough to leave them out. 
 
 NOTE xxii. p. 181. 
 
 These few poems which are apart from those on Nature, 
 and on Man, and on Shelley's phases of passion outside his 
 home, are called Poems of Home Life, for want of a better 
 title. At page 196, though the Eton remembrances are 
 interesting, the new matter lately discovered is not inserted. 
 
 NOTE xxiii. p. 201. 
 
 Whom or what Shelley meant by his Witch of Atlas is 
 scarcely worth asking. She keeps her own secret. But 
 I have sometimes thought that its germ may be found in 
 the line in Mont Blanc 
 
 " In the still cave of the Witch, Poesy ;" 
 
 and her birth from Apollo, and the beasts that come to her 
 as to Orpheus' song, and many other things, fit that Witch. 
 
 NOTE xxiv. p. 227. 
 
 Shelley translates his title in the line 
 
 " Whither 'twas fled this soul out of my soul ;" 
 
 and the word Epipsychidion is coined by him to express 
 the idea of that line. It might mean "something which is 
 placed on a soul," as if to complete or crown it. Or it 
 might be, and more probably was, intended by Shelley to be
 
 330 NOTES. 
 
 a diminutive of endearment, from Epipsyche. There is no 
 such Greek word as lin-\j/vx^- But Epipsyche would mean 
 " a soul upon a soul," just as Epicycle, in the Ptolemaic 
 astronomy, meant "a circle upon a circle." Such a "soul 
 on a soul" might be paraphrased as "a soul which is the 
 complement of, or responsive to, another soul," i.e., to the soul 
 of the poet, so that each soul seeks to be united with that 
 other to be in harmony wherewith it has been created. 
 This idea, many suggestions of which may be found in Plato, 
 seems most clearly expressed in the lines near the end of 
 the poem beginning 
 
 " One passion in two hearts." 
 
 As in the Vita Nuova, Dante writes sometimes of Beatrice 
 herself, and sometimes of the absolute Love and Wisdom whom 
 she represents, and at other times seems to write of both to- 
 gether, as if the earthly and the heavenly passion were 
 wrought into one, so here Shelley (p. 229-33) speaks now of 
 Emilia alone, and now of that Epipsychidion whom he feels 
 through her, and who is veiled in her. The phrases change 
 from being personal and passionate to being impersonal and 
 passionate. The image and the thing imaged are frequently 
 fused into one. Yet in the end, he ascends through Emilia 
 to the "Divinity of the world of his own thoughts." Who 
 that was he describes " There was a Being whom my spirit 
 oft." It is the Spirit of the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. 
 " Her spirit was the harmony of truth." Then he describes 
 the search for her, repeating the motive and the story of 
 Alastor. In the midst of this we come on that thought, not 
 contained in Alastor, which is found in the notes to Prince 
 Athanase. He meets " one whose voice is venomed melody." 
 This is the image of sensual Love of Beauty Aphrodite 
 Pandemos and the description of this lower love may be 
 compared with that dwelt on in Shakspere's later sonnets 
 to which Shelley, afterwards speaking of this poem, refers. 
 
 Shelley now turns away from his youthful experience in 
 Alastor to speak of how he sought to find in mortal women 
 the shadow of that celestial substance of his Epipsychidion.
 
 NOTES. 331 
 
 The one "who was true (p. 237), but not true to him," 
 is Harriet Grove. I conjecture that the "comet, beauti- 
 ful and fierce," is that woman of whose love for Shelley 
 we have so many hints, and who swept, as it were like a 
 comet, across the orbit of his life in London, Switzerland, and 
 Naples. Mary Godwin is the Moon of the passage. I 
 imagine that the lines which tell of her only speak of the 
 first years of his union with her, and that the " storms which 
 then lashed the ocean of his sleep " image the troubled feel- 
 ings which we find in the lines written to her in 1814, 
 and the misery he felt on hearing of his wife's death. 
 In that case, " She, the Planet of that hour," who was 
 " quenched," and who is not represented as in any way one 
 of the images of his ideal soul, would be the only allusion to 
 Harriet Westbrook, and one sufficiently obscure not to be un- 
 becoming. The strange thing is that, under the symbolism of 
 the text, Mary Godwin and here the later experience of his 
 married life enters the poem is certainly represented as not 
 having sufficiently kindled or warmed his life. When the 
 earthquakes broke up the "death of ice," she, the white Moon, 
 smiled all the while, ignorant as she was at Naples of the 
 passion that then, as is thought, made him dejected. There 
 are other passages in his poems that support the view that 
 though he was happy in his marriage he was not contented. 
 Then Emilia is described, " Soft as an Incarnation of the 
 Sun," in whom at last he finds life. For a short space Shelley 
 mingles together Sun and Moon, bright regents of his life, in 
 alternate sway, and then the Moon and Mary disappear. 
 The rest of the Poem, though it seems especially personal, 
 is not intended to be so. He slips again and again into 
 phrases of personal passion, because of his " error of seeking 
 in a mortal image the likeness of what is perhaps eternal," 
 but he is always striving, in intention, to speak only of the 
 vision of his youth, of her who is his second soul, the spiritual 
 substance of all his ideals, of all the Knowledge and Love and 
 Beauty and Nature which he perceives. Of this Emilia is only 
 the shadow. And the Ionian Isle and all else are meant 
 to be impalpable ; images of an immaterial world. He says
 
 332 NOTES. 
 
 that no keel has ever ploughed the sea-path to the island. 
 It is itself cradled 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, and is 
 never visited by the scourges that afflict the earth. The 
 passionate description of his life there with Emilia is the 
 description of Shelley at last united to that other far-off half 
 of his being, and the incorporation of the two into one 
 is as ideal as the rest. It is love reaching its perfect aim, 
 but it has clasped its reality so wholly in the immaterial 
 world of pure thought, that he, with that weakness, as he 
 thought it, which unfitted him for continuance in this 
 etherial region, cannot live in it save for a moment. Earth 
 claims him again. 
 
 " Woe is me 
 
 The winged words on which my soul would pierce 
 
 Into the heights of Love's rare universe 
 
 Are chains of lead around its flight of fire 
 
 I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire." 
 
 (Compare some lines in the last verse of the Ode to the 
 West Wind.} 
 
 The fault of the poem as an exposition of the Platonic 
 theory of Love, even with Shelley's addition thereto, is per- 
 haps the very root of its excellence as poetry. It is mixed, 
 consciously or unconsciously, with some love for the woman 
 herself, and this love rising through the intellectual imagery 
 and setting it on fire, redeems it from the cold abstractness of 
 the philosophy, and makes it passionate poetry. Yet the pas- 
 sion for Emilia was truly an ideal one. Shelley himself com- 
 pared it, when it had died in another and less ideal love, to 
 the love of Ixion for the cloud, and he could not look with 
 much pleasure on this poem, its offspring. He had not then 
 enough of love to absorb or to give substance to his ideal philo- 
 sophy. Of this idealism of love Epipsychidion was the last 
 result. He expressed it all in that poem, and finished with 
 it. Whatever love came afterwards was real, for a woman 
 herself, not for her as the shadow of a spiritual substance. 
 " It is a part of me," said Shelley, speaking of this poem, 
 " which is already dead." There is not a trace of this
 
 NOTES. 333 
 
 philosophy of Love in the poems written to Mrs. Williams. 
 It is true that the verses, 3, 4, 5, I have already alluded to, 
 in The Zucca (1822) of the Poems, were written after Epip- 
 sychidion, and describe, more clearly than elsewhere, his 
 imagined love. But they are verses that look back to what 
 has been rather than on what is. At their beginning, the 
 past tense, / laved, is used, and even when the present tense 
 is used, the things said have the note of the past. 
 
 The main motive of the poem is again taken up with dif- 
 ferent colouring and imagery in the fable, Una Favola, which 
 has been published by Mr. Garnet in his Relics of Skelley. 
 That Fable is dated 1820, but I should conjecture from its 
 peculiar note, and from its being written in Italian, that it 
 was composed after his meeting with Emilia Viviani. At 
 any rate many of its images and expressions are repeated in 
 Epipsychitiion. The cave where death and life are, and their 
 flight, the obscure forest into which Emilia comes, are both 
 in the Fable, and many other things. So, also, he who cares 
 for Epipsychidion would do well to read the first canzone of 
 Dante's Convito, the last stanza of which is translated by 
 Shelley as an introduction to this poem. 
 
 NOTE xxv. p. 248. 
 
 " The author has connected many recollections of his visit 
 to Pompeii and Baiae, with the enthusiasm exerted by the pro- 
 clamation of a constitutional Government at Naples. This 
 has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to 
 the introductory Epodes, which depicture the scenes, and 
 some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with 
 the scene of this animating event. 
 
 " ' The viper's palsying venom.'' The viper was the armo- 
 rial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan." Shelley's Note. 
 
 NOTE xxvi. p. 255. 
 
 I have printed this, as also " Life may change, but it may 
 fly not," at p. 265, without the divisions made by the alter- 
 nating semichorus.
 
 334 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE xxvii. p. 262. 
 
 This is the close of Prometheus Unbound. It has been 
 included in this book, not for the sake of its poetical quality, 
 which is inferior to other passages in the Drama which 
 might have been inserted, but for its importance as a declara- 
 tion, not only of what Shelley thought Man would become, 
 but also of how he thought Man should act now in order to 
 arrive at the Golden Age. The two last verses embody the 
 main motives of the Revolt of Islam. 
 
 NOTE xxviii. p. 266. 
 
 The Sensitive Plant is inserted in this place as an intro- 
 duction to the love poems which belong to Mrs. Williams, 
 because Shelley said that Mrs. Williams was the exact antitype 
 of the lady depicted in it. The Sensitive Plant is, of course, 
 Shelley himself, "companionless," as he makes himself in 
 Adonais, "desiring what it has not, the beautiful." 
 
 NOTE xxix. p. 282. 
 
 " Wild wind, when sullen cloud 
 Knells all the night long." 
 
 We may compare in order to explain the term 
 
 " As the last cloud of an expiring storm 
 Whose thunder is its knell." (Adonais.) 
 
 "Bare woods, whose branches stain" must be strain, as 
 many have conjectured. All the things spoken of are sound- 
 ing. The wind moans, the cloud knells, the caves and sea 
 wail, and there are few sounds so in tune with the tempest 
 of this poem as the groaning of branches straining in a storm. 
 
 NOTE xxx. p. 289. 
 
 I have left out the lines which, however interesting per- 
 sonally, are out of harmony with the rest of the poem.
 
 NOTES. 335 
 
 NOTE xxxi. p. 290. 
 
 The four lines omitted by Shelley in the Recollection 
 deserve insertion here. 
 
 " Were not the crocuses that grew 
 
 Under the ilex tree 
 As beautiful in scent and hue 
 As ever fed the bee ?" 
 
 NOTE xxxii. p. 296. 
 The Greek motto is translated elsewhere by Shelley. 
 
 " Thou wert the morning star among the living, 
 
 Ere thy fair light had fled ; 
 Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving 
 New splendour to the dead." 
 
 NOTE xxxiii. p. 307, 308. 
 
 The Pilgrim of Eternity is Byron. lerne is Ireland, and 
 her lyrist, Moore. 
 
 No analysis of Shelley's nature can excel or equal the self- 
 description of the three verses of p. 308. Leigh Hunt is 
 the last of the mountain shepherds alluded to, p. 309. 
 
 The lines 
 
 " And his own thoughts, along that rugged way 
 
 Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey." 
 
 are Shelley's reminiscence of two lines in a poem of Words- 
 worth's. 
 
 " And his own mind did like a tempest strong 
 
 Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along." 
 
 It is interesting to compare them. They speak volumes 
 of both poets.
 
 336 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE xxxiv. p. 313. 
 
 " And flowery weeds and fragrant copses dress 
 The bones of Desolation's nakedness." 
 
 Nothing but the bones are there now ; and what have we 
 gained ? 
 
 NOTE xxxv. p. 317. 
 
 " This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood 
 that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that 
 tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and 
 animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the 
 autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset, with 
 a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magni- 
 ficent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cis-alpine 
 regions. 
 
 "The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third 
 stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the 
 bottom of the sea, of rivers and of lakes, sympathises with 
 that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently 
 influenced by the winds that announce it. " Shelley's Note. 
 
 It is characteristic of Shelley's pleasure in repeating an 
 image or a thought that pleased him, that he makes use of 
 this "phenomenon" at least three times in different poems.
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A glorious people vibrated again 56 
 
 Alas ! Italian winds are mild ........ 133 
 
 Amid the desolation of a city ........ 145 
 
 And like a dying lady, lean and pale 147 
 
 An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king 54 
 
 Arethusa arose 177 
 
 Ariel to Miranda. Take 285 
 
 rt thou pale for weariness 129 
 
 A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew 266 
 
 As I lay asleep in Italy 47 
 
 At the creation of the Earth 176 
 
 A widow bird sate mourning for her love 82 
 
 A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune . . . .142 
 
 Before these cruel Twins, whom at one birth 201 
 
 Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist 116 
 
 Best and brightest, come away ! . . . . . . . 288 
 
 Brother mine, calm wanderer 164 
 
 Daylight on its last purple cloud 141 
 
 " Do you not hear the A ziola cry? 194 
 
 Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood 7 
 
 Echoes we : listen ! 158 
 
 Even whilst we speak 159 
 
 False friend, wilt thou smile or weep 39 
 
 From the forests and highlands 175 
 
 Z
 
 338 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hail to thee, blithe spirit 137 
 
 ^ Her voice did quiver as we parted 84 
 
 How, my dear Mary, are you critic-bitten 198 
 
 I arise from dreams of thee 78 
 
 I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers .... 149 
 
 I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way 224 
 
 -x-I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden 79 
 
 If I walk in Autumn's even 74 
 
 I loved alas ! our life is love 80 
 
 I loved, I love, and when I love no more 81 
 
 I met a traveller from an antique land 66 
 
 In silence then they took the way 132 
 
 In the great morning of the world 256 
 
 f^ I rode one evening with Count Maddalo 90 
 
 I saw two little dark-green leaves 134 
 
 Is it that in some brighter sphere 247 
 
 I stood within the city disinterred 248 
 
 It was a bright and cheerful afternoon 70 
 
 It was the azure time of June 69 
 
 . I weep for Adonais he is dead ! 298 
 
 Let there be light ! said Liberty 255 
 
 Life may change, but it may fly not 265 
 
 Life of Life ! thy lips enkindle 156 
 
 Lift not the painted veil which those who live 37 
 
 Like the ghost of a dear friend dead 75 
 
 Listen, listen, Mary mine 148 
 
 Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me 226 
 
 Many a green isle needs must be 117 
 
 Men of England, wherefore plough 53 
 
 Music, when soft voices die 295 
 
 My coursers are fed with the lightning 152 
 
 My faint spirit was sitting in the light 78 
 
 My lost William, thou in whom 182 
 
 Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame 55 
 
 Now the last day of many days 290 
 
 Oh, world ! oh, life ! oh, time ! 282 
 
 Old winter was gone 38 
 
 O Mary dear, that you were here 181
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 339 
 
 PAGE 
 
 a poet's lips I slept 5 
 
 One word is too often profaned 283 
 
 Orphan hours, the year is dead 72 
 
 O thou, who plumed with strong desire 31 
 
 Our boat is asleep on Serchio's stream 195 
 
 O, wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being . . . 317 
 
 Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know 41 
 
 Rarely, rarely, comest thou 280 
 
 Rough wind, that meanest loud 282 
 
 Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth 180 
 
 She left me at the silent time 294 
 
 She saw me not she heard me not alone 82 
 
 Sweet Spirit ! Sister of that orphan one 228 
 
 Swifter far than summer's flight 293 
 
 Swiftly walk over the western wave 86 
 
 Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light 129 
 
 That time is dead for ever, child 76 
 
 The awful shadow of some unseen Power i 
 
 The babe is at peace within the womb ...... 37 
 
 The blasts of Autumn drive the winged seeds 67 
 
 The cold earth slept below 33 
 
 The everlasting universe of things in 
 
 The flower that smiles to-day 73 
 
 The fountains mingle with the river 77 
 
 The golden gates of Sleep unbar 87 
 
 The pale stars are gone 152 
 
 The path thro' which that lovely twain 169 
 
 The rude wind is singing 37 
 
 The season was the childhood of sweet June 85 
 
 The serpent is shut out from paradise 278 
 
 The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie 173 
 
 The spider spreads her webs, whether she be 183 
 
 The sun is set ; the swallows are asleep 146 
 
 The sun is warm, the sky is clear 130 
 
 The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing . . . .71 
 
 The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere .... 35 
 
 The world's great age begins anew 260 
 
 The young moon has fed 153 
 
 Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all 154
 
 340 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul 262 
 
 Thy little footsteps on the sands 182 
 
 To the deep, to the deep 155 
 
 "Twas at the season when the Earth upsprings .... 68 
 
 Unfathomable Sea ! whose waves are years 67 
 
 [We] look on that which cannot change the One .... 4 
 
 We strew these opiate flowers 40 
 
 When passion's trance is overpast 284 ' 
 
 When soft and sunny skies 147 
 
 When the lamp is shattered 283 
 
 When the last hope of trampled France had failed .... 42 
 
 Where art thou, beloved To-morrow 74 
 
 Wilt thou forget the happy hours 75 
 
 Worlds on worlds are rolling over 258 
 
 Ye gentle visitations of calm thought 131 
 
 Ye hasten to the dead ! What seek ye there 36
 
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