Part 17

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45 White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May’s eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50

Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55 To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain-- To thy high requiem become a sod. 60

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the Fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75 Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:--do I wake or sleep? 80 _John Keats._

CCXXIII

_ODE TO A SKYLARK._

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 5

Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 10

In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O’er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied Joy whose race is just begun. 15

The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight: 20

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. 25

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; 31 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. 35

Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: 40

Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: 45

Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: 50

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. 55

Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 60

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. 65

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. 70

What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? 75

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. 80

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? 85

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 91 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. 95

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! 100

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! 105 _Percy Bysshe Shelley._

CCXXIV

_‘ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR.’_

’Tis time this heart should be unmoved, Since others it hath ceased to move: Yet, though I cannot be beloved, Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf; 5 The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone!

The fire that on my bosom preys Is lone as some volcanic isle; 10 No torch is kindled at its blaze-- A funeral pile.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care, The exalted portion of the pain And power of love, I cannot share, 15 But wear the chain.

But ’tis not _thus_--and ’tis not _here_-- Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor _now_, Where glory decks the hero’s bier, Or binds his brow. 20

The sword, the banner, and the field, Glory and Greece, around me see! The Spartan, borne upon his shield, Was not more free.

Awake! (not Greece--she _is_ awake!) 25 Awake, my spirit! Think through _whom_ Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, And then strike home!

Tread those reviving passions down, Unworthy manhood!--unto thee 30 Indifferent should the smile or frown Of beauty be.

If thou regret’st thy youth, _why live_? The land of honourable death Is here:--up to the field, and give 35 Away thy breath!

Seek out-- less often sought than found-- A soldier’s grave, for thee the best; Then look around, and choose thy ground, And take thy rest. 40 _Lord Byron._

CCXXV

_PESCHIERA._

What voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? ‘’Tis better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.’

The tricolor--a trampled rag 5 Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track By sentry boxes yellow-black, Lead up to no Italian flag.

I see the Croat soldier stand Upon the grass of your redoubts; 10 The eagle with his black wings flouts The breadth and beauty of your land.

Yet not in vain, although in vain, O men of Brescia, on the day Of loss past hope, I heard you say 15 Your welcome to the noble pain.

You said, ‘Since so it is,--good bye Sweet life, high hope; but whatsoe’er May be, or must, no tongue shall dare To tell, “The Lombard feared to die!”’ 20

You said, (there shall be answer fit,) ‘And if our children must obey, They must; but thinking on this day, ’Twill less debase them to submit.’

You said, (oh, not in vain you said,) 25 ‘Haste, brothers, haste, while yet we may; The hours ebb fast of this one day, When blood may yet be nobly shed.’

Ah! not for idle hatred, not For honour, fame, nor self-applause, 30 But for the glory of the cause, You did, what will not be forgot.

And though the stranger stand, ’tis true, By force and fortune’s right he stands; By fortune, which is in God’s hands, 35 And strength, which yet shall spring in you.

This voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost, ‘’Tis better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.’ 40 _Arthur Hugh Clough._

CCXXVI

_LINES SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE IN A STORM, PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT._

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! 5 So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene’er I looked, thy image still was there; It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! It seemed no sleep, No mood, which season takes away, or brings: 10 I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.

Ah! then, if mine had been the painter’s hand To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, 15 The consecration, and the poet’s dream,--

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile, Amid a world how different from this! Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. 20

Thou should’st have seemed a treasure-house divine Of peaceful years, a chronicle of heaven; Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine The very sweetest had to thee been given.

A picture had it been of lasting ease, 25 Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, Or merely silent Nature’s breathing life.

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such picture would I at that time have made; 30 And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.

So once it would have been,--’tis so no more; I have submitted to a new control: A power is gone, which nothing can restore; 35 A deep distress hath humanized my soul.

Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea, and be what I have been: The feeling of my loss will ne’er be old; This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. 40

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the friend, If he had lived, of him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend; This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

O ’tis a passionate work!--yet wise and well, 45 Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves, 50 --Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time-- The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind! Such happiness, wherever it be known, 55 Is to be pitied; for ’tis surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne! Such sights, or worse, as are before me here:-- Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. 60 _William Wordsworth._

CCXXVII

_ODE ON A GRECIAN URN._

Thou still unravished bride of quietness! Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5 Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15 Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearièd, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25 For ever warm and still to be enjoyed, For ever panting and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea-shore, 35 Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e’er return. 40

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45 When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 50 _John Keats._

CCXXVIII

_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 light: The breath of the moist air is light 5 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 10 With green and purple sea-weeds 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 15 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, 20 Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned-- Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure; Others I see whom these surround; 25 Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, 30 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 35 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; 40 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. 45 _Percy Bysshe Shelley._

CCXXIX

_DESPONDENCY REBUKED._

Say not, the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; 5 It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, 10 Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 15 But westward, look, the land is bright. _Arthur Hugh Clough._

CCXXX

_THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS._

Oft in the stilly night Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears 5 Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimmed and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! 10 Thus in the stilly light Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me.

When I remember all 15 The friends so linked together I’ve seen around me fall Like leaves in wintry weather, I feel like one Who treads alone 20 Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, Whose garlands dead, And all but he departed! Thus in the stilly night 25 Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me. _Thomas Moore._

CCXXXI

_DIRGE._

If thou wilt ease thine heart Of love, and all its smart-- Then sleep, dear, sleep! And not a sorrow Hang any tear on your eyelashes; 5 Lie still and deep, Sad soul, until the sea-wave washes The rim o’ the sun to-morrow In Eastern sky.

But wilt thou cure thine heart 10 Of love, and all its smart-- Then die, dear, die! ’Tis deeper, sweeter, Than on a rose-bank to lie dreaming With folded eye; 15 And then alone, amid the beaming Of love’s stars, thou’lt meet her In Eastern sky. _Thomas Lovell Beddoes._

CCXXXII

_LINES WRITTEN IN MY OWN ALBUM._

Fresh clad from heaven in robes of white, A young probationer of light, Thou wert, my soul, an album bright,

A spotless leaf; but thought, and care, And friend and foe, in foul and fair, 5 Have ‘written strange defeatures’ there;

And Time with heaviest hand of all, Like that fierce writing on the wall, Hath stamped sad dates--he can’t recall.

And error, gilding worst designs-- 10 Like speckled snake that strays and shines-- Betrays his path by crooked lines;

And vice hath left his ugly blot; And good resolves, a moment hot, Fairly began--but finished not; 15

And fruitless, late remorse doth trace-- Like Hebrew lore a backward pace-- Her irrecoverable race.

Disjointed numbers; sense unknit; Huge reams of folly; shreds of wit; 20 Compose the mingled mass of it.

My scalded eyes no longer brook Upon this ink-blurred thing to look-- Go, shut the leaves, and clasp the book. _Charles Lamb._

CCXXXIII

_SONNET._

October’s gold is dim--the forests rot, The weary rain falls ceaseless, while the day Is wrapt in damp. In mire of village-way The hedgerow leaves are stampt, and, all forgot, The broodless nest sits visible in the thorn. 5 Autumn, among her drooping marigolds, Weeps all her garnered fields and empty folds And dripping orchards, plundered and forlorn. The season is a dead one, and I die! No more, no more for me the spring shall make 10 A resurrection in the earth, and take The death from out her heart--O God, I die! The cold throat-mist creeps nearer, till I breathe Corruption. Drop, stark night, upon my death! _David Gray._

CCXXXIV

_SONNET._

Die down, O dismal day, and let me live; And come, blue deeps, magnificently strewn With coloured clouds--large, light, and fugitive-- By upper winds through pompous motions blown. Now it is death in life--a vapour dense 5 Creeps round my window, till I cannot see The far snow-shining mountains, and the glens Shagging the mountain tops. O God! make free This barren shackled earth, so deadly cold-- Breathe gently forth thy spring, till winter flies 10 In rude amazement, fearful and yet bold, While she performs her customed charities. I weigh the loaded hours till life is bare-- O God, for one clear day, a snowdrop, and sweet air! _David Gray._

CCXXXV

_SONNET._

O Winter, wilt thou never, never, go? O Summer, but I weary for thy coming, Longing once more to hear the Luggie flow, And frugal bees, laboriously humming. Now the east wind diseases the infirm, 5 And I must crouch in comers from rough weather; Sometimes a winter sunset is a charm-- When the fired clouds, compacted, blaze together, And the large sun dips red behind the hills. I, from my window, can behold this pleasure; 10 And the eternal moon, what time she fills Her orb with argent, treading a soft measure, With queenly motions of a bridal mood, Through the white spaces of infinitude. _David Gray._

CCXXXVI

_THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER._

When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry, ‘’Weep! ’weep! ’weep! ’weep!’ So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, 5 That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved; so I said, ‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’

And so he was quiet, and that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight; 10 That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, Were all of them locked up in coffins of black:

And by came an angel, who had a bright key, And he opened the coffins, and set them all free; Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run, 15 And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind; And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, He’d have God for his Father, and never want joy. 20

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark, And got with our bags and our brushes to work; Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm: So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm. _William Blake._

CCXXXVII

_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 5 That finds no object worth its constancy? _Percy Bysshe Shelley._

CCXXXVIII

_SONG._

If I had thought thou could’st have died, I might not weep for thee; But I forgot, when by thy side, That thou could’st mortal be. It never through my mind had past 5 That time would e’er be o’er, And I on thee should look my last, And thou should’st smile no more!

And still upon that face I look, And think ’twill smile again; 10 And still the thought I will not brook That I must look in vain. But when I speak thou dost not say, What thou ne’er left’st unsaid; And now I feel, as well I may, 15 Sweet Mary, thou art dead!

If thou would’st stay, e’en as thou art, All cold, and all serene-- I still might press thy silent heart, And where thy smiles have been! 20 While e’en thy chill, bleak corse I have, Thou seemest still mine own; But there--I lay thee in thy grave, And I am now alone!