Selected Poems and Prose

  10Murmuring ‘Liberty’ in death.

  Shout aloud! let every slave

  Crouching at corruption’s throne

  Start into a man and brave

  Racks and chains without a groan!

  15Let the castle’s heartless glow

  And the hovel’s vice and woe

  Fade like gaudy flowers that blow,

  Weeds that peep and then are gone,

  Whilst from misery’s ashes risen

  20Love shall burst the Captive’s prison.

  Cotopaxi! bid the sound

  Thro’ thy sister mountains ring

  Till each valley smile around

  At the blissful welcoming,

  25And O! thou stern Ocean-deep

  Whose eternal billows sweep

  Shores where thousands wake to weep

  Whilst they curse some villain King,

  On the winds that fan thy breast

  30Bear thou news of freedom’s rest.

  Earth’s remotest bounds shall start;

  Every despot’s bloated cheek,

  Pallid as his bloodless heart,

  Frenzy, woe and dread shall speak …

  35Blood may fertilize the tree

  Of new bursting Liberty;

  Let the guiltiness then be

  On the slaves that ruin wreak,

  On the unnatural tyrant brood

  40Slow to Peace and swift to blood.

  Can the daystar dawn of love

  Where the flag of war unfurled

  Floats with crimson stain above

  Such a desolated world?…

  45Never! but to vengeance driven

  When the patriot’s spirit shriven

  Seeks in death its native Heaven,

  Then to speechless horror hurled

  Widowed Earth may balm the bier

  50Of its memory with a tear.

  On Robert Emmet’s Tomb

  May the tempests of Winter that sweep o’er thy tomb

  Disturb not a slumber so sacred as thine;

  May the breezes of summer that breathe of perfume

  Waft their balmiest dews to so hallowed a shrine.

  5May the foot of the tyrant, the coward, the slave

  Be palsied with dread where thine ashes repose,

  Where that undying shamrock still blooms on thy grave

  Which sprung when the dawnlight of Erin arose.

  There oft have I marked the grey gravestones among,

  10 Where thy relics distinguished in lowliness lay,

  The peasant boy pensively lingering long

  And silently weep as he passed away.

  And how could he not pause if the blood of his sires

  Ever wakened one generous throb in his heart:

  15How could he inherit a spark of their fires

  If tearless and frigid he dared to depart?

  Not the scrolls of a court could emblazon thy fame

  Like the silence that reigns in the palace of thee,

  Like the whispers that pass of thy dearly loved name,

  20 Like the tears of the good, like the groans of the free.

  No trump tells thy virtues—the grave where they rest

  With thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame,

  Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune caressed,

  Shall pass like a mist from the light of thy name.

  25When the storm cloud that lowers o’er the daybeam is gone,

  Unchanged, unextinguished its lifespring will shine;

  When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan

  She will smile thro’ the tears of revival on thine.

  To Liberty

  O let not Liberty

  Silently perish;

  May the groan and the sigh

  Yet the flame cherish

  5Till the voice to Nature’s bursting heart given,

  Ascending loud and high,

  A world’s indignant cry,

  And startling on his throne

  The tyrant grim and lone,

  10Shall beat the deaf vault of Heaven.

  Say, can the Tyrant’s frown

  Daunt those who fear not

  Or break the spirits down

  His badge that wear not?

  15Can chains or death or infamy subdue

  The pure and fearless soul

  That dreads not their control,

  Sees Paradise and Hell,

  Sees the Palace and the cell,

  20Yet bravely dares prefer the good and true?

  Regal pomp and pride

  The Patriot falls in scorning,

  The spot whereon he died

  Should be the despot’s warning;

  25The voice of blood shall on his crimes call down Revenge!

  And the spirits of the brave

  Shall start from every grave

  Whilst from her Atlantic throne

  Freedom sanctifies the groan

  30That fans the glorious fires of its change.

  Monarch! sure employer

  Of vice and want and woe,

  Thou Conscienceless destroyer,

  Who and what are thou?—

  35The dark prison house that in the dust shall lie,

  The pyramid which guilt

  First planned, which man has built,

  At whose footstone want and woe

  With a ceaseless murmur flow

  40And whose peak attracts the tempests of the sky.

  The pyramids shall fall …

  And Monarchs! so shall ye,

  Thrones shall rust in the hall

  Of forgotten royalty

  45Whilst Virtue, Truth and Peace shall arise

  And a Paradise on Earth

  From your fall shall date its birth,

  And human life shall seem

  Like a short and happy dream

  50Ere we wake in the daybeam of the skies.

  Written on a Beautiful Day in Spring

  In that strange mental wandering when to live,

  To breathe, to be, is undivided joy,

  When the most woe-worn wretch would cease to grieve,

  When satiation’s self would fail to cloy;

  5When unpercipient of all other things

  Than those that press around, the breathing Earth,

  The gleaming sky and the fresh season’s birth,

  Sensation all its wondrous rapture brings,

  And to itself not once the mind recurs—

  10 Is it foretaste of Heaven?

  So sweet as this the nerves it stirs,

  And mingling in the vital tide

  With gentle motion driven,

  Cheers the sunk spirits, lifts the languid eye,

  15And scattering thro’ the frame its influence wide

  Revives the spirits when they droop and die.

  The frozen blood with genial beaming warms,

  And to a gorgeous fly the sluggish worm transforms.

  ‘Dark Spirit of the desart rude’

  Dark Spirit of the desart rude

  That o’er this awful solitude,

  Each tangled and untrodden wood,

  Each dark and silent glen below

  5Where sunlight’s gleamings never glow,

  Whilst jetty, musical and still

  In darkness speeds the mountain rill;

  That o’er yon broken peaks sublime,

  Wild shapes that mock the scythe of time,

  10And the pure Ellan’s foamy course,

  Wavest thy wand of magic force—

  Art thou yon sooty and fearful fowl

  That flaps its wing o’er the leafless oak

  That o’er the dismal scene doth scowl

  15 And mocketh music with its croak?

  I’ve sought thee where day’s beams decay

  On the peak of the lonely hill;

  I’ve sought thee where they melt away

  By the wave of the pebbly rill;

  20I’ve strained to catch thy murky form

&nbs
p; Bestride the rapid and gloomy storm;

  Thy red and sullen eyeball’s glare

  Has shot, in a dream thro’ the midnight air,

  But never did thy shape express

  25 Such an emphatic gloominess.

  And where art thou, O thing of gloom?…

  On Nature’s unreviving tomb

  Where sapless, blasted and alone

  She mourns her blooming centuries gone!—

  30From the fresh sod the Violets peep,

  The buds have burst their frozen sleep,

  Whilst every green and peopled tree

  Is alive with Earth’s sweet melody.

  But thou alone art here,

  35Thou desolate Oak, whose scathed head

  For ages has never trembled,

  Whose giant trunk dead lichens bind,

  Moaningly sighing in the wind,

  With huge loose rocks beneath thee spread—

  40 Thou, Thou alone art here!

  Remote from every living thing,

  Tree, shrub or grass or flower,

  Thou seemest of this spot the King,

  And with a regal power

  45 Suck like that race all sap away

  And yet upon the spoil decay.

  The Retrospect

  Cwm Elan 1812

  To trace Duration’s lone career,

  To check the chariot of the year

  Whose burning wheels forever sweep

  The boundaries of oblivion’s deep …

  5To snatch from Time the monster’s jaw

  The children which she just had borne,

  And ere entombed within her maw

  To drag them to the light of morn

  And mark each feature with an eye

  10Of cold and fearless scrutiny …

  It asks a soul not formed to feel,

  An eye of glass, a hand of steel;

  Thoughts that have passed and thoughts that are

  With truth and feeling to compare;

  15A scene which wildered fancy viewed

  In the soul’s coldest solitude,

  With that same scene when peaceful love

  Flings rapture’s colour o’er the grove,

  When mountain, meadow, wood and stream

  20With unalloying glory gleam

  And to the spirit’s ear and eye

  Are unison and harmony.

  The moonlight was my dearer day:—

  Then would I wander far away

  25And lingering on the wild brook’s shore

  To hear its unremitting roar

  Would lose in the ideal flow

  All sense of overwhelming woe;

  Or at the noiseless noon of night

  30Would climb some heathy mountain’s height

  And listen to the mystic sound

  That stole in fitful gasps around.

  I joyed to see the streaks of day

  Above the purple peaks decay

  35And watch the latest line of light

  Just mingling with the shades of night;

  For day with me, was time of woe

  When even tears refused to flow;

  Then would I stretch my languid frame

  40Beneath the wild-wood’s gloomiest shade

  And try to quench the ceaseless flame

  That on my withered vitals preyed;

  Would close mine eyes and dream I were

  On some remote and friendless plain

  45And long to leave existence there

  If with it I might leave the pain

  That with a finger cold and lean

  Wrote madness on my withering mien.

  It was not unrequited love

  50That bade my wildered spirit rove;

  ’Twas not the pride disdaining life,

  That with this mortal world at strife

  Would yield to the soul’s inward sense,

  Then groan in human impotence,

  55And weep, because it is not given

  To taste on Earth the peace of Heaven.

  ’Twas not, that in the narrow sphere

  Where Nature fixed my wayward fate

  There was no friend or kindred dear

  60Formed to become that spirit’s mate

  Which searching on tired pinion found

  Barren and cold repulse around …

  Ah no! yet each one sorrow gave

  New graces to the narrow grave:

  65For broken vows had early quelled

  The stainless spirit’s vestal flame.

  Yes! whilst the faithful bosom swelled

  Then the envenomed arrow came

  And apathy’s unaltering eye

  70Beamed coldness on the misery;

  And early I had learned to scorn

  The chains of clay that bound a soul

  Panting to seize the wings of morn,

  And where its vital fires were born

  75To soar, and spurn the cold control

  Which the vile slaves of earthly night

  Would twine around its struggling flight.

  O many were the friends whom fame

  Had linked with the unmeaning name

  80Whose magic marked among mankind

  The casket of my unknown mind,

  Which hidden from the vulgar glare

  Imbibed no fleeting radiance there.

  My darksome spirit sought. It found

  85A friendless solitude around.—

  For who, that might undaunted stand

  The saviour of a sinking land,

  Would crawl its ruthless tyrant’s slave

  And fatten upon freedom’s grave,

  90Tho’ doomed with her to perish, where

  The captive clasps abhorred despair?

  They could not share the bosom’s feeling

  Which passion’s every throb revealing

  Dared force on the world’s notice cold

  95Thoughts of unprofitable mould,

  Who bask in Custom’s fickle ray,

  Fit sunshine of such wintry day!

  They could not in a twilight walk

  Weave an impassioned web of talk

  100Till mysteries the spirit press

  In wild yet tender awfulness,

  Then feel within our narrow sphere

  How little yet how great we are!

  But they might shine in courtly glare,

  105Attract the rabble’s cheapest stare,

  And might command where’er they move

  A thing that bears the name of love;

  They might be learned, witty, gay,

  Foremost in fashion’s gilt array,

  110On Fame’s emblazoned pages shine,

  Be princes’ friends, but never mine!

  Ye jagged peaks that frown sublime,

  Mocking the blunted scythe of Time,

  Whence I would watch its lustre pale

  115Steal from the moon o’er yonder vale!

  Thou rock, whose bosom black and vast

  Bared to the stream’s unceasing flow,

  Ever its giant shade doth cast

  On the tumultuous surge below!

  120Woods to whose depth retires to die

  The wounded echo’s melody,

  And whither this lone spirit bent

  The footstep of a wild intent—

  Meadows! whose green and spangled breast

  125These fevered limbs have often pressed

  Until the watchful fiend Despair

  Slept in the soothing coolness there!

  Have not your varied beauties seen

  The sunken eye, the withering mien,

  130Sad traces of the unuttered pain

  That froze my heart and burned my brain?

  How changed since nature’s summer form

  Had last the power my grief to charm,

  Since last ye soothed my spirit’s sadness,

  135Strange chaos of a mingled madness!

  Changed!—not the loathsome worm that fed

  In the dark mansi
ons of the dead,

  Now soaring thro’ the fields of air

  And gathering purest nectar there,

  140A butterfly whose million hues

  The dazzled eye of wonder views

  Long lingering on a work so strange,

  Has undergone so bright a change!

  How do I feel my happiness?

  145I cannot tell, but they may guess

  Whose every gloomy feeling gone

  Friendship and passion feel alone,

  Who see mortality’s dull clouds

  Before affection’s murmur fly,

  150Whilst the mild glances of her eye

  Pierce the thin veil of flesh that shrouds

  The spirit’s radiant sanctuary.

  O thou! whose virtues latest known

  First in this heart yet claim’st a throne,

  155Whose downy sceptre still shall share

  The gentle sway with virtue there,

  Thou fair in form and pure in mind,

  Whose ardent friendship rivets fast

  The flowery band our fates that bind

  160Which incorruptible shall last

  When duty’s hard and cold control

  Had thawed around the burning soul.

  The gloomiest retrospects that bind

  With crowns of thorn the bleeding mind,

  165The prospects of most doubtful hue

  That rise on Fancy’s shuddering view,

  Are gilt by the reviving ray

  Which thou hast flung upon my day.

  QUEEN MAB;

  A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM: WITH NOTES

     ECRASEZ L’INFAME!

    Correspondance de Voltaire.

  Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante

  Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis;

  Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.

    * * * * * * *

  Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae.

  Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis

  Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.

     Lucret. lib. iv.

  Δὸς που στῶ, καὶ κόσμον κινήσω.

           Archimedes.

  To Harriet *****

  Whose is the love that, gleaming through the world,

  Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?

  Whose is the warm and partial praise,