Part 35

and that which makes the greatest vernal shoot is apt to make the least autumnal. Authors in general who have met celebrity at starting, have already had their reward; always their utmost due, and often much beyond it. We cannot hope for both celebrity and fame: supremely fortunate are the few who are allowed the liberty of choice between them. We two prefer the strength that springs from exercise and toil, acquiring it gradually and slowly: we leave to others the earlier blessing of that sleep which follows enjoyment. How many at first sight are enthusiastic in their favour! Of these how large a portion come away empty-handed and discontented! like idlers who visit the seacoast, fill their pockets with pebbles bright from the passing wave, and carry them off with rapture. After a short examination at home, every streak seems faint and dull, and the whole contexture coarse, uneven, and gritty: first one is thrown away, then another; and before the week's end the store is gone, of things so shining and wonderful.

_Petrarca._ Allegory, which you named with sonnets and canzonets, had few attractions for me, believing it to be the delight in general of idle, frivolous, inexcursive minds, in whose mansions there is neither hall nor portal to receive the loftier of the Passions. A stranger to the Affections, she holds a low station among the handmaidens of Poetry, being fit for little but an apparition in a mask. I had reflected for some time on this subject, when, wearied with the length of my walk over the mountains, and finding a soft old molehill, covered with grey grass, by the wayside, I laid my head upon it and slept. I cannot tell how long it was before a species of dream or vision came over me.

Two beautiful youths appeared beside me; each was winged; but the wings were hanging down, and seemed ill adapted to flight. One of them, whose voice was the softest I ever heard, looking at me frequently, said to the other:

'He is under my guardianship for the present: do not awaken him with that feather.'

Methought, hearing the whisper, I saw something like the feather on an arrow; and then the arrow itself; the whole of it, even to the point; although he carried it in such a manner that it was difficult at first to discover more than a palm's length of it: the rest of the shaft, and the whole of the barb, was behind his ankles.

'This feather never awakens any one,' replied he, rather petulantly; 'but it brings more of confident security, and more of cherished dreams, than you without me are capable of imparting.'

'Be it so!' answered the gentler ... 'none is less inclined to quarrel or dispute than I am. Many whom you have wounded grievously, call upon me for succour. But so little am I disposed to thwart you, it is seldom I venture to do more for them than to whisper a few words of comfort in passing. How many reproaches on these occasions have been cast upon me for indifference and infidelity! Nearly as many, and nearly in the same terms, as upon you!'

'Odd enough that we, O Sleep! should be thought so alike,' said Love, contemptuously. 'Yonder is he who bears a nearer resemblance to you: the dullest have observed it.' I fancied I turned my eyes to where he was pointing, and saw at a distance the figure he designated. Meanwhile the contention went on uninterruptedly. Sleep was slow in asserting his power or his benefits. Love recapitulated them; but only that he might assert his own above them. Suddenly he called on me to decide, and to choose my patron. Under the influence, first of the one, then of the other, I sprang from repose to rapture, I alighted from rapture on repose ... and knew not which was sweetest. Love was very angry with me, and declared he would cross me throughout the whole of my existence. Whatever I might on other occasions have thought of his veracity, I now felt too surely the conviction that he would keep his word. At last, before the close of the altercation, the third Genius had advanced, and stood near us. I cannot tell how I knew him, but I knew him to be the Genius of Death. Breathless as I was at beholding him, I soon became familiar with his features. First they seemed only calm; presently they grew contemplative; and lastly beautiful: those of the Graces themselves are less regular, less harmonious, less composed. Love glanced at him unsteadily, with a countenance in which there was somewhat of anxiety, somewhat of disdain; and cried: 'Go away! go away! nothing that thou touchest, lives.'

'Say rather, child!' replied the advancing form, and advancing grew loftier and statelier, 'say rather that nothing of beautiful or of glorious lives its own true life until my wing hath passed over it.'

Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his forefinger the stiff short feathers on his arrow-head; but replied not. Although he frowned worse than ever, and at me, I dreaded him less and less, and scarcely looked toward him. The milder and calmer Genius, the third, in proportion as I took courage to contemplate him, regarded me with more and more complacency. He held neither flower nor arrow, as the others did; but, throwing back the clusters of dark curls that overshadowed his countenance, he presented to me his hand, openly and benignly. I shrank on looking at him so near, and yet I sighed to love him. He smiled, not without an expression of pity, at perceiving my diffidence, my timidity: for I remembered how soft was the hand of Sleep, how warm and entrancing was Love's. By degrees, I became ashamed of my ingratitude; and turning my face away, I held out my arms, and felt my neck within his. Composure strewed and allayed all the throbbings of my bosom; the coolness of freshest morning breathed around: the heavens seemed to open above me; while the beautiful cheek of my deliverer rested on my head. I would now have looked for those others; but knowing my intention by my gesture, he said, consolatorily:

'Sleep is on his way to the Earth, where many are calling him; but it is not to these he hastens; for every call only makes him fly farther off. Sedately and gravely as he looks, he is nearly as capricious and volatile as the more arrogant and ferocious one.'

'And Love!' said I, 'whither is he departed? If not too late, I would propitiate and appease him.'

'He who cannot follow me, he who cannot overtake and pass me,' said the Genius, 'is unworthy of the name, the most glorious in earth or heaven. Look up! Love is yonder, and ready to receive thee.'

I looked: the earth was under me: I saw only the clear blue sky, and something brighter above it.

POEMS

I

She I love (alas in vain!) Floats before my slumbering eyes: When she comes she lulls my pain, When she goes what pangs arise! Thou whom love, whom memory flies, Gentle Sleep! prolong thy reign! If even thus she soothe my sighs, Never let me wake again!

II

Pleasure! why thus desert the heart In its spring-tide? I could have seen her, I could part, And but have sigh'd!

O'er every youthful charm to stray, To gaze, to touch.... Pleasure! why take so much away, Or give so much?

III

Past ruin'd Ilion Helen lives, Alcestis rises from the shades; Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives Immortal youth to mortal maids.

Soon shall Oblivion's deepening veil Hide all the peopled hills you see, The gay, the proud, while lovers hail These many summers you and me.

IV

Ianthe! you are call'd to cross the sea! A path forbidden _me_! Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds Upon the mountain-heads, How often we have watcht him laying down His brow, and dropt our own Against each other's, and how faint and short And sliding the support! What will succeed it now? Mine is unblest, Ianthe! nor will rest But on the very thought that swells with pain. O bid me hope again! O give me back what Earth, what (without you) Not Heaven itself can do, One of the golden days that we have past; And let it be my last! Or else the gift would be, however sweet, Fragile and incomplete.

V

The gates of fame and of the grave Stand under the same architrave.

VI

Twenty years hence my eyes may grow If not quite dim, yet rather so, Still yours from others they shall know Twenty years hence. Twenty years hence tho' it may hap That I be call'd to take a nap In a cool cell where thunder-clap Was never heard, There breathe but o'er my arch of grass A not too sadly sigh'd _Alas_, And I shall catch, ere you can pass, That winged word.

VII

Here, ever since you went abroad, If there be change, no change I see, I only walk our wonted road, The road is only walkt by me.

Yes; I forgot; a change there is; Was it of _that_ you bade me tell? I catch at times, at times I miss The sight, the tone, I know so well.

Only two months since you stood here! Two shortest months! then tell me why Voices are harsher than they were, And tears are longer ere they dry.

VIII

Tell me not things past all belief; One truth in you I prove; The flame of anger, bright and brief, Sharpens the barb of Love.

IX

Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak Four not exempt from pride some future day. Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek Over my open volume you will say, 'This man loved _me_!' then rise and trip away.

X

FIESOLE IDYL

Here, where precipitate Spring, with one light bound Into hot Summer's lusty arms, expires, And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night, Soft airs that want the lute to play with 'em, And softer sighs that know not what they want, Aside a wall, beneath an orange-tree, Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones Of sights in Fiesole right up above, While I was gazing a few paces off At what they seem'd to show me with their nods, Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots, A gentle maid came down the garden-steps And gathered the pure treasure in her lap. I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth To drive the ox away, or mule, or goat, Such I believed it must be. How could I Let beast o'erpower them? When hath wind or rain Borne hard upon weak plant that wanted me, And I (however they might bluster round) Walkt off? 'Twere most ungrateful: for sweet scents Are the swift vehicles of still sweeter thoughts, And nurse and pillow the dull memory That would let drop without them her best stores. They bring me tales of youth and tones of love, And 'tis and ever was my wish and way To let all flowers live freely, and all die (Whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart) Among their kindred in their native place. I never pluck the rose; the violet's head Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank And not reproacht me; the ever-sacred cup Of the pure lily hath between my hands Felt safe, unsoil'd, nor lost one grain of gold. I saw the light that made the glossy leaves More glossy; the fair arm, the fairer cheek Warmed by the eye intent on its pursuit; I saw the foot that, although half-erect From its grey slipper, could not lift her up To what she wanted: I held down a branch And gather'd her some blossoms; since their hour Was come, and bees had wounded them, and flies Of harder wing were working their way thro' And scattering them in fragments under-foot. So crisp were some, they rattled unevolved, Others, ere broken off, fell into shells, For such appear the petals when detacht, Unbending, brittle, lucid, white like snow, And like snow not seen thro', by eye or sun: Yet every one her gown received from me Was fairer than the first. I thought not so, But so she praised them to reward my care. I said, 'You find the largest.' 'This indeed,' Cried she, 'is large and sweet.' She held one forth, Whether for me to look at or to stake She knew not, nor did I; but taking it Would best have solved (and this she felt) her doubt. I dared not touch it; for it seemed a part Of her own self; fresh, full, the most mature Of blossoms, yet a blossom; with a touch To fall, and yet unfallen. She drew back The boon she tender'd, and then, finding not The ribbon at her waist to fix it in, Dropt it, as loath to drop it, on the rest.

XI

Ah what avails the sceptred race, Ah what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee.

XII

With rosy hand a little girl prest down A boss of fresh-cull'd cowslips in a rill: Often as they sprang up again, a frown Show'd she disliked resistance to her will: But when they droopt their heads and shone much less, She shook them to and fro, and threw them by, And tript away. 'Ye loathe the heaviness Ye love to cause, my little girls!' thought I, 'And what had shone for you, by you must die.'

XIII

Ternissa! you are fled! I say not to the dead, But to the happy ones who rest below: For, surely, surely, where Your voice and graces are, Nothing of death can any feel or know. Girls who delight to dwell Where grows most asphodel, Gather to their calm breasts each word you speak: The mild Persephone Places you on her knee, And your cool palm smooths down stern Pluto's cheek.

XIV

Various the roads of life; in one All terminate, one lonely way We go; and 'Is he gone?' Is all our best friends say.

XV

Yes; I write verses now and then, But blunt and flaccid is my pen, No longer talkt of by young men As rather clever:

In the last quarter are my eyes, You see it by their form and size; Is it not time then to be wise? Or now or never.

Fairest that ever sprang from Eve! While Time allows the short reprieve, Just look at me! would you believe 'Twas once a lover?

I cannot clear the five-bar gate, But, trying first its timber's state, Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait To trundle over.

Thro' gallopade I cannot swing The entangling blooms of Beauty's spring: I cannot say the tender thing, Be 't true or false,

And am beginning to opine Those girls are only half-divine Whose waists yon wicked boys entwine In giddy waltz.

I fear that arm above that shoulder, I wish them wiser, graver, older, Sedater, and no harm if colder And panting less.

Ah! people were not half so wild In former days, when, starchly mild, Upon her high-heel'd Essex smiled The brave Queen Bess.

XVI

ON SEEING A HAIR OF LUCRETIA BORGIA

Borgia, thou once wert almost too august And high for adoration; now thou'rt dust. All that remains of thee these plaits unfold, Calm hair, meandering in pellucid gold.

XVII

Once, and once only, have I seen thy face, Elia! once only has thy tripping tongue Run o'er my breast, yet never has been left Impression on it stronger or more sweet. Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years, What wisdom in thy levity, what truth In every utterance of that purest soul! Few are the spirits of the glorified I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven.

XVIII

TO WORDSWORTH

Those who have laid the harp aside And turn'd to idler things, From very restlessness have tried The loose and dusty strings. And, catching back some favourite strain, Run with it o'er the chords again.

But Memory is not a Muse, O Wordsworth! though 'tis said They all descend from her, and use To haunt her fountain-head: That other men should work for me In the rich mines of Poesie, Pleases me better than the toil Of smoothing under hardened hand, With Attic emery and oil, The shining point for Wisdom's wand, Like those thou temperest 'mid the rills Descending from thy native hills.

Without his governance, in vain Manhood is strong, and Youth is bold If oftentimes the o'er-piled strain Clogs in the furnace, and grows cold Beneath his pinions deep and frore, And swells and melts and flows no more, That is because the heat beneath Pants in its cavern poorly fed. Life springs not from the couch of Death, Nor Muse nor Grace can raise the dead; Unturn'd then let the mass remain, Intractable to sun or rain.

A marsh, where only flat leaves lie, And showing but the broken sky, Too surely is the sweetest lay That wins the ear and wastes the day, Where youthful Fancy pouts alone And lets not Wisdom touch her zone.

He who would build his fame up high, The rule and plummet must apply, Nor say, 'I'll do what I have plann'd,' Before he try if loam or sand Be still remaining in the place Delved for each polisht pillar's base. With skilful eye and fit device Thou raisest every edifice, Whether in sheltered vale it stand Or overlook the Dardan strand, Amid the cypresses that mourn Laodameia's love forlorn.

We both have run o'er half the space Listed for mortal's earthly race; We both have crost life's fervid line, And other stars before us shine: May they be bright and prosperous As those that have been stars for us! Our course by Milton's light was sped, And Shakespeare shining overhead: Chatting on deck was Dryden too, The Bacon of the rhyming crew; None ever crost our mystic sea More richly stored with thought than he; Tho' never tender nor sublime, He wrestles with and conquers Time. To learn my lore on Chaucer's knee, I left much prouder company; Thee gentle Spenser fondly led, But me he mostly sent to bed.

I wish them every joy above That highly blessed spirits prove, Save one: and that too shall be theirs, But after many rolling years, When 'mid their light thy light appears.

XIX

TO CHARLES DICKENS

Go then to Italy; but mind To leave the pale low France behind; Pass through that country, nor ascend The Rhine, nor over Tyrol wend: Thus all at once shall rise more grand The glories of the ancient land. Dickens! how often, when the air Breath'd genially, I've thought me there, And rais'd to heaven my thankful eyes To see three spans of deep blue skies. In Genoa now I hear a stir, A shout ... _Here comes the Minister!_ Yes, thou art he, although not sent By cabinet or parliament: Yes, thou art he. Since Milton's youth Bloom'd in the Eden of the South, Spirit so pure and lofty none Hath heavenly Genius from his throne Deputed on the banks of Thames To speak his voice and urge his claims. Let every nation know from thee How less than lovely Italy Is the whole world beside; let all Into their grateful breasts recall How Prospero and Miranda dwelt In Italy: the griefs that melt The stoniest heart, each sacred tear One lacrymatory gathered here; All Desdemona's, all that fell In playful Juliet's bridal cell. Ah! could my steps in life's decline Accompany or follow thine! But my own vines are not for me To prune, or from afar to see. I miss the tales I used to tell With cordial Hare and joyous Gell, And that good old Archbishop whose Cool library, at evening's close (Soon as from Ischia swept the gale And heav'd and left the dark'ning sail), Its lofty portal open'd wide To me, and very few beside: Yet large his kindness. Still the poor Flock round Taranto's palace door, And find no other to replace The noblest of a noble race. Amid our converse you would see Each with white cat upon his knee, And flattering that grand company: For Persian kings might proudly own Such glorious cats to share the throne. Write me few letters: I'm content With what for all the world is meant; Write then for all: but, since my breast Is far more faithful than the rest, Never shall any other share With little Nelly nestling there.

XX

TO BARRY CORNWALL

Barry! your spirit long ago Has haunted me; at last I know The heart it sprung from: one more sound Ne'er rested on poetic ground. But, Barry Cornwall! by what right Wring you my breast and dim my sight, And make me wish at every touch My poor old hand could do as much? No other in these later times Has bound me in so potent rhymes. I have observed the curious dress And jewelry of brave Queen Bess, But always found some o'ercharged thing, Some flaw in even the brightest ring, Admiring in her men of war, A rich but too argute guitar. Our foremost now are more prolix, And scrape with three-fell fiddlesticks, And, whether bound for griefs or smiles, Are slow to turn as crocodiles. Once, every court and country bevy Chose the gallant of loins less heavy, And would have laid upon the shelf Him who could talk but of himself. Reason is stout, but even Reason May walk too long in Rhyme's hot season. I have heard many folks aver They have caught horrid colds with her. Imagination's paper kite, Unless the string is held in tight, Whatever fits and starts it takes, Soon bounces on the ground, and breaks. You, placed afar from each extreme, Nor dully drowse nor wildly dream, But, ever flowing with good-humour, Are bright as spring and warm as summer. Mid your Penates not a word Of scorn or ill-report is heard; Nor is there any need to pull A sheaf or truss from cart too full, Lest it o'erload the horse, no doubt, Or clog the road by falling out. We, who surround a common table, And imitate the fashionable, Wear each two eyeglasses: _this_ lens Shows us our faults, _that_ other men's. We do not care how dim may be _This_ by whose aid our own we see, But, ever anxiously alert That all may have their whole desert, We would melt down the stars and sun In our heart's furnace, to make one Thro' which the enlighten'd world might spy A mote upon a brother's eye.

XXI

TO ROBERT BROWNING

There is delight in singing, tho' none hear Beside the singer: and there is delight In praising, tho' the praiser sit alone And see the prais'd far off him, far above. Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's, Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee, Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, No man hath walkt along our roads with step So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue So varied in discourse. But warmer climes Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the breeze Of Alpine highths thou playest with, borne on Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

XXII

AGE