Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms The crash and darkness of a thousand storms Of crags and thunder-clouds? See ye the banners blazon'd to the day, Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride? The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions 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! Exa, the Island of Circe. The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan. EPODE II. 6. Great Spirit, deepest Love! All things which live and are, within the Italian shore; Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it; O bid those beams be each a blinding brand Bid thy bright Heaven above, To make it ours and thine! Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards, Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.— September, 1820. THE CLOUD. I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, I bear light shades for the leaves when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rock'd to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. In a cavern under is fetter'd the thunder, Lured by the love of the genii that move Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 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, Higher still and higher, 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 brightening, 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, In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 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 overflow'd. 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 light of thought, Till 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 Soul 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 aërial hue And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the 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, Match'd with thine would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 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? | With thy clear keen joyance Langour 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! Teach me half the gladness The world should listen then, as I am listening now. AN EXHORTATION. CAMELEONS feed on light and air; Poets' food is love and fame: If in this wide world of care Poets could but find the same With as little toil as they, Would they ever change their hue Suiting it to every ray Poets are on this cold earth, As cameleons might be, Yet dare not stain with wealth or power HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. THE awful shadow of some unseen Power It visits with inconstant glance Like clouds in starlight widely spread, 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, Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies Thou, that to human thought art nourishment, Depart not, lest the grave should be, While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped I call'd on poisonous names with which our youth is fed: Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing I shriek'd, and clasp'd my hands in ecstacy! I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow? Each from his voiceless grave: they have in vision'd bowers The day becomes more solemn and serene Thus let thy power, which like the truth Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind MARIANNE'S DREAM. A PALE dream came to a Lady fair, I know the secrets of the air, And things are lost in the glare of day, Which I can make the sleeping see, If they will put their trust in me. And thou shalt know of things unknown, Over thine eyes so dark and sheen: At first all deadly shapes were driven If the gold sun shone forth on high. And as towards the east she turn'd, The sky was blue as the summer sea, The depths were cloudless over-head, The air was calm as it could be, There was no sight or sound of dread, But that black Anchor floating still Over the piny eastern hill. The Lady grew sick with a weight of fear, The sound as of a dim low clanging, There was a mist in the sunless air, Which shook as it were with an earthquake's shock, But the very weeds that blossom'd there The Anchor was seen no more on high. But piled around, with summits hid On two dread mountains, from whose crest, And columns framed of marble white, With workmanship, which could not come From touch of mortal instrument, Shot o'er the vales, or lustre lent But still the Lady heard that clang So that the Lady's heart beat fast, Sudden, from out that city sprung A light that made the earth grow red; And hark! a rush as if the deep Had burst its bonds; she look'd behind, A raging flood descend, and wind And now those raging billows came Where that fair Lady sate, and she Was borne towards the showering flame By the wild waves heap'd tumultuously, And on a little plank, the flow Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro. The waves were fiercely vomited From every tower and every dome, And dreary light did widely shed O'er that vast flood's suspended foam, Beneath the smoke which hung its night On the stain'd cope of heaven's light. The plank whereon that Lady sate Of his own mind did there endure She look'd, the flames were dim, the flood Those marble shapes then seem'd to quiver, And their lips moved; one seem'd to speak, The dizzy flight of that phantom pale Of her dark eyes the dream did creep, MONT BLANC. LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. I. THE everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Was driven through the chasms, about and about, Now lending splendour, where from secret springs Between the peaks so desolate Of the drowning mountain, in and out, At last her plank an eddy crost, And bore her to the city's wall, The eddy whirl'd her round and round For it was fill'd with sculptures rarest, Of winged shapes, whose legions range And as she look'd, still lovelier grew The source of human thought its tribute brings In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, II. Thus thou, Ravine of Arve-dark, deep Ravine- Robes some unsculptured image; the strange sleep |