If words he found those inmost thoughts to tell;
If not, he smiled or wept; and his weak foes
He neither spurned nor hated, though with fell
And mortal hate their thousand voices rose,
They past like aimless arrows from his ear-
Nor did his heart or mind its portal close
To those, or them, or any, whom life's sphere
May comprehend within its wide array.
What sadness made that vernal spirit sere?
He knew not. Though. his life day after day,
Was failing like an unreplenished stream,
Though in his eyes a cloud and burthen lay,
Through which his soul, like Vesper's serene beamm
Piercing the cha sms of ever rising clouds,
Shone, softly burning; though his lips did seem
Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods;
And through his sleep, and o'er each waking hour,
Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes,
Were driven within him, by some secret power,
Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar,
Like lights and sounds, from haunted tower to tower,
O'er castled mountains borne, when tempest's war
Islevied by the night-contending winds,
And the pale dalesmen watch with eager ear;-
Though such were in his spirit, as the fiends
Which wake and feed on everliving woe,-
What was this grief, which ne'er in other minds
A mirror found, he knew not-none could know
But on whoe'er might question him he turned
The light of his frank eyes, as if to show
He knew not of the grief within that burned,
But asked forbearance with a mournful look;
Or spoke in words from which none ever learned
The cause of his disquietude; or shook
With spasms of silent passion; or turned pale:
So that his friends soon rarely undertook
To stir his secret pain without avail ;-
For all who knew and loved him then perceived
That there was drawn an adamantine veil
Between his heart and mind,--both unrelieved
Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife.
Some said that he was mad, others believed
That memories of an antenatal life
Made this, where now he dwelt, a penal hell t
And others said that such mysterious grief
From God's displeasure, like a darkness, fell
On souls like his whichowned no higher law
Than love; love calm, steadfast, invincible
By mortal fear or supernatural awe;
And others,-" 'Tis the shadow of a dream
Which the veiled eye of memory never saw
"But through the soul's abyss, like some dark stream Through shattered mines and caverns underground Rolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam
"Of joy may rise, but it is quenched and drowned
In the dim whirlpools of this dream obscure,
Soon its exhausted waters will have found
"Alair of rest beneath thy spirit pure,
O Athanase!--in one so good and great,
Evil or tumult cannot long endure."
So spake they: idly of another's state
Babbling vain words and fond philosophy;
This was their consolation; such debate
Men held with one another; nor did he
Like one who labours with a human woe
Decline this talk; as if its theme might be
Another, not himself, he to and fro
Questioned and canvassed it with subtlest wit,
And none but those who loved him best could know
That which he knew not, how it galled and bit
His weary mind, this converse vain and cold;
For like an eyeless night-mare grief did sit
Upon his being; a snake which fold by fold
Pressed out the life of life, a clinging fiend
Which clenched him if he stirred with deadlier hold; -
And so his grief remained-let it remain untold.*
* The Author was pursuing a fuller development of the ideal character of Athanase, when it struck him that in an attempt at extreme refinement and analysis, his conceptions might be betrayed into the assuming a morbid character. The reader will judge whether he is a loser or gainer by this difference. Author's Note.
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 an 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 theu lulled all things, brooded upon mine.
The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baiæ with the enthusiasın excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has gi. ven a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which depicture these scenes, and some of the majestic feel. ings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event.Author's Note.
Then gentle winds arose
With many a mingled close
Of wild Æolian 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 ne 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 æther; heaven stript bare
Its depths over Elysium, where the prow
Made the invisible water white as snow;
From that Typhæan mount, Inarime
There streamed a sunlike vapour, like the standard
Of some ethereal 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!
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