Selected Poems and Prose

  The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind;

  And in the soul a wild odour is felt,

  110Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt

  Into the bosom of a frozen bud.—

  See where she stands! a mortal shape indued

  With love and life and light and deity,

  And motion which may change but cannot die;

  115An image of some bright Eternity;

  A shadow of some golden dream; a Splendour

  Leaving the third sphere pilotless; a tender

  Reflection of the eternal Moon of Love

  Under whose motions life’s dull billows move;

  120A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning;

  A Vision like incarnate April, warning,

  With smiles and tears, Frost the Anatomy

  Into his summer grave.

  Ah, woe is me!

  What have I dared? where am I lifted? how

  125Shall I descend, and perish not? I know

  That Love makes all things equal: I have heard

  By mine own heart this joyous truth averred:

  The spirit of the worm beneath the sod

  In love and worship, blends itself with God.

  130 Spouse! Sister! Angel! Pilot of the Fate

  Whose course has been so starless! O too late

  Beloved! O too soon adored, by me!

  For in the fields of immortality

  My spirit should at first have worshipped thine,

  135A divine presence in a place divine;

  Or should have moved beside it on this earth,

  A shadow of that substance, from its birth;

  But not as now:—I love thee; yes, I feel

  That on the fountain of my heart a seal

  140Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright

  For thee, since in those tears thou hast delight.

  We—are we not formed, as notes of music are,

  For one another, though dissimilar;

  Such difference without discord, as can make

  145Those sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake

  As trembling leaves in a continuous air?

  Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare

  Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wreckt.

  I never was attached to that great sect,

  150Whose doctrine is, that each one should select

  Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend,

  And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend

  To cold oblivion, though it is in the code

  Of modern morals, and the beaten road

  155Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread,

  Who travel to their home among the dead

  By the broad highway of the world, and so

  With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe,

  The dreariest and the longest journey go.

  160 True Love in this differs from gold and clay,

  That to divide is not to take away.

  Love is like understanding, that grows bright,

  Gazing on many truths; ’tis like thy light,

  Imagination! which from earth and sky,

  165And from the depths of human phantasy,

  As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills

  The Universe with glorious beams, and kills

  Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow

  Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow

  170The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates,

  The life that wears, the spirit that creates

  One object, and one form, and builds thereby

  A sepulchre for its eternity.

  Mind from its object differs most in this:

  175Evil from good; misery from happiness;

  The baser from the nobler; the impure

  And frail, from what is clear and must endure.

  If you divide suffering and dross, you may

  Diminish till it is consumed away;

  180If you divide pleasure and love and thought,

  Each part exceeds the whole; and we know not

  How much, while any yet remains unshared,

  Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared:

  This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw

  185The unenvied light of hope; the eternal law

  By which those live, to whom this world of life

  Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife

  Tills for the promise of a later birth

  The wilderness of this Elysian earth.

  190 There was a Being whom my spirit oft

  Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft,

  In the clear golden prime of my youth’s dawn,

  Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn,

  Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves

  195Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves

  Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor

  Paved her light steps;—on an imagined shore,

  Under the grey beak of some promontory

  She met me, robed in such exceeding glory,

  200That I beheld her not. In solitudes

  Her voice came to me through the whispering woods,

  And from the fountains, and the odours deep

  Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep

  Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there,

  205Breathed but of her to the enamoured air;

  And from the breezes whether low or loud,

  And from the rain of every passing cloud,

  And from the singing of the summer-birds,

  And from all sounds, all silence. In the words

  210Of antique verse and high romance,—in form,

  Sound, colour—in whatever checks that Storm

  Which with the shattered present chokes the past;

  And in that best philosophy, whose taste

  Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom

  215As glorious as a fiery martyrdom;

  Her Spirit was the harmony of truth.—

  Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth

  I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire,

  And towards the loadstar of my one desire,

  220I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight

  Is as a dead leaf’s in the owlet light,

  When it would seek in Hesper’s setting sphere

  A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre,

  As if it were a lamp of earthly flame.—

  225But She, whom prayers or tears then could not tame,

  Past, like a God throned on a winged planet,

  Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it,

  Into the dreary cone of our life’s shade;

  And as a man with mighty loss dismayed,

  230I would have followed, though the grave between

  Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen:

  When a voice said:—‘O Thou of hearts the weakest,

  The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest.’

  Then I—‘where?’—the world’s echo answered ‘where!’

  235And in that silence, and in my despair,

  I questioned every tongueless wind that flew

  Over my tower of mourning, if it knew

  Whither ’twas fled, this soul out of my soul;

  And murmured names and spells which have controul

  240Over the sightless tyrants of our fate;

  But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate

  The night which closed on her; nor uncreate

  That world within this Chaos, mine and me,

  Of which she was the veiled Divinity,

  245The world I say of thoughts that worshipped her:

  And therefore I went forth, with hope and fear

  And every gentle passion sick to death,

  Feeding my course with expectation’s breath,

  Into the wintry forest of our life;

  250And struggli
ng through its error with vain strife,

  And stumbling in my weakness and my haste,

  And half bewildered by new forms, I past,

  Seeking among those untaught foresters

  If I could find one form resembling hers,

  255In which she might have masked herself from me.

  There,—One, whose voice was venomed melody

  Sate by a well, under blue night-shade bowers;

  The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers,

  Her touch was as electric poison,—flame

  260Out of her looks into my vitals came,

  And from her living cheeks and bosom flew

  A killing air, which pierced like honey-dew

  Into the core of my green heart, and lay

  Upon its leaves; until, as hair grown grey

  265O’er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime

  With ruins of unseasonable time.

  In many mortal forms I rashly sought

  The shadow of that idol of my thought.

  And some were fair—but beauty dies away:

  270Others were wise—but honeyed words betray:

  And One was true—oh! why not true to me?

  Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee,

  I turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay,

  Wounded and weak and panting; the cold day

  275Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain.

  When, like a noon-day dawn, there shone again

  Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed

  As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed,

  As is the Moon, whose changes ever run

  280Into themselves, to the eternal Sun;

  The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven’s bright isles,

  Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles,

  That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame

  Which ever is transformed, yet still the same,

  285And warms not but illumines. Young and fair

  As the descended Spirit of that sphere,

  She hid me, as the Moon may hide the night

  From its own darkness, until all was bright

  Between the Heaven and Earth of my calm mind,

  290And, as a cloud charioted by the wind,

  She led me to a cave in that wild place,

  And sate beside me, with her downward face

  Illumining my slumbers, like the Moon

  Waxing and waning o’er Endymion.

  295And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb,

  And all my being became bright or dim

  As the Moon’s image in a summer sea,

  According as she smiled or frowned on me;

  And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed:

  300Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead:—

  For at her silver voice came Death and Life,

  Unmindful each of their accustomed strife,

  Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother,

  The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother,

  305And through the cavern without wings they flew,

  And cried, ‘Away, he is not of our crew.’

  I wept, and though it be a dream, I weep.

  What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep,

  Blotting that Moon, whose pale and waning lips

  310Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse;—

  And how my soul was as a lampless sea,

  And who was then its Tempest; and when She,

  The Planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost

  Crept o’er those waters, ’till from coast to coast

  315The moving billows of my being fell

  Into a death of ice, immoveable;—

  And then—what earthquakes made it gape and split,

  The white Moon smiling all the while on it,

  These words conceal:— If not, each word would be

  320The key of staunchless tears. Weep not for me!

  At length, into the obscure Forest came

  The Vision I had sought through grief and shame.

  Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns

  Flashed from her motion splendour like the Morn’s,

  325And from her presence life was radiated

  Through the grey earth and branches bare and dead;

  So that her way was paved, and roofed above

  With flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love;

  And music from her respiration spread

  330Like light,—all other sounds were penetrated

  By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound,

  So that the savage winds hung mute around;

  And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair

  Dissolving the dull cold in the frore air:

  335Soft as an Incarnation of the Sun,

  When light is changed to love, this glorious One

  Floated into the cavern where I lay,

  And called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay

  Was lifted by the thing that dreamed below

  340As smoke by fire, and in her beauty’s glow

  I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night

  Was penetrating me with living light:

  I knew it was the Vision veiled from me

  So many years—that it was Emily.

  345 Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth,

  This world of love, this me; and into birth

  Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart

  Magnetic might into its central heart;

  And lift its billows and its mists, and guide

  350By everlasting laws, each wind and tide

  To its fit cloud, and its appointed cave;

  And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave

  Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers

  The armies of the rainbow-winged showers;

  355And, as those married lights, which from the towers

  Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe

  In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe;

  And all their many-mingled influence blend,

  If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end;—

  360So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway

  Govern my sphere of being, night and day!

  Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might;

  Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light;

  And, through the shadow of the seasons three,

  365From Spring to Autumn’s sere maturity,

  Light it into the Winter of the tomb,

  Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom.

  Thou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce,

  Who drew the heart of this frail Universe

  370Towards thine own; till, wreckt in that convulsion,

  Alternating attraction and repulsion,

  Thine went astray and that was rent in twain;

  Oh, float into our azure heaven again!

  Be there love’s folding-star at thy return;

  375The living Sun will feed thee from its urn

  Of golden fire; the Moon will veil her horn

  In thy last smiles; adoring Even and Morn

  Will worship thee with incense of calm breath

  And lights and shadows; as the star of Death

  380And Birth is worshipped by those sisters wild

  Called Hope and Fear—upon the heart are piled

  Their offerings,—of this sacrifice divine

  A World shall be the altar.

  Lady mine,

  Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth

  385Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth

  Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes,

  Will be as of the trees of Paradise.

  The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me.

  To whatsoe’er of dull mortality

  390Is mine, remain a vestal sister still;

  To the intense, the deep, the imperishable,

  Not mine but me, h
enceforth be thou united

  Even as a bride, delighting and delighted.

  The hour is come:—the destined Star has risen

  395Which shall descend upon a vacant prison.

  The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set

  The sentinels—but true love never yet

  Was thus constrained: it overleaps all fence:

  Like lightning, with invisible violence

  400Piercing its continents; like Heaven’s free breath,

  Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death,

  Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way

  Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array

  Of arms: more strength has Love than he or they;

  405For it can burst his charnel, and make free

  The limbs in chains, the heart in agony,

  The soul in dust and chaos.

  Emily,

  A ship is floating in the harbour now,

  A wind is hovering o’er the mountain’s brow;

  410There is a path on the sea’s azure floor,

  No keel has ever ploughed that path before;

  The halcyons brood around the foamless isles;

  The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;

  The merry mariners are bold and free:

  415Say, my heart’s sister, wilt thou sail with me?

  Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest

  Is a far Eden of the purple East;

  And we between her wings will sit, while Night

  And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight,

  420Our ministers, along the boundless Sea,

  Treading each other’s heels, unheededly.

  It is an isle under Ionian skies,

  Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise,

  And, for the harbours are not safe and good,

  425This land would have remained a solitude

  But for some pastoral people native there,

  Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air

  Draw the last spirit of the age of gold,

  Simple and spirited; innocent and bold.

  430The blue Aegean girds this chosen home,

  With ever-changing sound and light and foam,

  Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar;

  And all the winds wandering along the shore

  Undulate with the undulating tide:

  435There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide;

  And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond,

  As clear as elemental diamond,

  Or serene morning air; and far beyond,

  The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer

  440(Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year),

  Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls

  Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls