Selected Poems and Prose
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wields the world with never wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
XLIII
He is a portion of the loveliness
380Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear
His part, while the one Spirit’s plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there,
All new successions to the forms they wear;
Torturing th’ unwilling dross that checks its flight
385To its own likeness, as each mass may bear;
And bursting in its beauty and its might
From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven’s light.
XLIV
The splendours of the firmament of time
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;
390Like stars to their appointed height they climb
And death is a low mist which cannot blot
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
And love and life contend in it, for what
395Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.
XLV
The inheritors of unfulfilled renown
Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought,
Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton
400Rose pale, his solemn agony had not
Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought
And as he fell and as he lived and loved
Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot,
Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved:
405Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved.
XLVI
And many more, whose names on Earth are dark
But whose transmitted effluence cannot die
So long as fire outlives the parent spark,
Rose, robed in dazzling immortality.
410‘Thou art become as one of us,’ they cry,
‘It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long
Swung blind in unascended majesty,
Silent alone amid an Heaven of song.
Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!’
XLVII
415Who mourns for Adonais? oh come forth
Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright.
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth;
As from a centre, dart thy spirit’s light
Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might
420Satiate the void circumference: then shrink
Even to a point within our day and night;
And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink
When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink.
XLVIII
Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre
425O, not of him, but of our joy: ’tis nought
That ages, empires, and religions there
Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought;
For such as he can lend,—they borrow not
Glory from those who made the world their prey;
430And he is gathered to the kings of thought
Who waged contention with their time’s decay,
And of the past are all that cannot pass away.
XLIX
Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise,
The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
435And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
The bones of Desolation’s nakedness
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
440Where, like an infant’s smile, over the dead,
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.
L
And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,
445Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand
Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath,
A field is spread, on which a newer band
Have pitched in Heaven’s smile their camp of death
450Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.
LI
Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned
Its charge to each; and if the seal is set,
Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,
455Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find
Thine own well full, if thou returnest home,
Of tears and gall. From the world’s bitter wind
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.
What Adonais is, why fear we to become?
LII
460The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.—Die,
465If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled!—Rome’s azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
LIII
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?
470Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!
A light is past from the revolving year,
And man, and woman; and what still is dear
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
475The soft sky smiles,—the low wind whispers near:
’Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,
No more let Life divide what Death can join together.
LIV
That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move,
480That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
485The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
LV
The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven,
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
490Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
495Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
‘When passion’s trance is overpast’
When passion’s trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
5I should not weep, I should not weep!
It were enough to feel, to see
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest—and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
10Could thou but be what thou hast been.
After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets reappear;
All things revive in field or grove
And sky and sea, but two, which move
15And form all others—life and love.
Written on hearing the news of the d
eath of Napoleon
1
What! alive and so bold, oh Earth?
Art thou not overbold?
What! leapest thou forth as of old
In the light of thy morning mirth,
5The last of the flock of the starry fold?
Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?
Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,
And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?
2
How! is not thy quick heart cold?
10 What spark is alive on thy hearth?
How! is not his death-knell knolled?
And livest thou still, Mother Earth?
Thou wert warming thy fingers old
O’er the embers covered and cold
15Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled—
What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?
3
‘Who has known me of old,’ replied Earth,
‘Or who has my story told?
It is thou who art overbold.’
20And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, ‘To my bosom I fold
All my sons when their knell is knolled,
And so with living motion all are fed,
And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.
4
25‘Still alive and still bold,’ shouted Earth,
‘I grow bolder and still more bold.
The dead fill me ten thousand fold
Fuller of speed and splendour and mirth.
I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,
30Like a frozen chaos uprolled
Till by the spirit of the mighty dead
My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed.
5
‘Aye, alive and still bold,’ muttered Earth,
‘Napoleon’s fierce spirit rolled
35 In terror, and blood, and gold,
A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.
Leave the millions who follow, to mould
The metal before it be cold,
And weave into his shame, which like the dead
40Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled.’
Epithalamium
Boys
Night! With all thine eyes look down!
Darkness weep thy holiest dew!
Never smiled the inconstant Moon
On a pair so true—
5Haste coy Hour and quench all light,
Lest eyes see their own delight—
Haste swift Hour, and thy loved flight
Oft renew.
Girls
Fairies, sprites and angels keep her!
10 Holy Stars! permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper
Dawn! ere it be long.
Oh joy! oh fear! there is not one
Of us can guess what may be done
15In the absence of the Sun—
Come along.
Boys
O linger long thou envious eastern lamp
In the damp
Caves of the deep.
Girls
20Nay, return Vesper! urge thy lazy car!
Swift unbar
The gates of sleep.
Both
The golden gate of sleep unbar
Where strength and beauty, met together,
25Kindle their image—like a Star
In a sea of glassy weather—
May the purple mist of love
Round them rise and with them move;
Nourishing each tender gem
30Which like flowers will burst from them—
As the fruit is to the tree
May their children ever be.
The Aziola
‘Do you not hear the Aziola cry?
Methinks she must be nigh’—
Said Mary as we sate
In dusk, ere stars were lit or candles brought—
5 And I who thought
This Aziola was some tedious woman
Asked, ‘Who is Aziola?’ How elate
I felt to know that it was nothing human,
No mockery of myself to fear or hate!—
10 And Mary saw my soul,
And laughed and said:—‘Disquiet yourself not,
’Tis nothing but a little downy owl.’
Sad Aziola, many an eventide
Thy music I had heard
15By wood and stream, meadow and mountain side,
And fields and marshes wide,—
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird
The soul ever stirred—
Unlike, and far sweeter than them all.—
20Sad Aziola, from that moment I
Loved thee and thy sad cry.
HELLAS
A Lyrical Drama
ΜΑΝΤΙΣ ΕΙΜ’ ΕΣΘΛΩΝ ἈΓΩΝΩΝ
Oedip. Colon.
TO
HIS EXCELLENCY
PRINCE ALEXANDER MAVROCORDATO
LATE SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
TO THE HOSPODAR OF WALLACHIA,
THE DRAMA OF HELLAS
IS INSCRIBED
AS AN IMPERFECT TOKEN
OF THE ADMIRATION, SYMPATHY, AND FRIENDSHIP
OF
THE AUTHOR.
Pisa,
November 1st, 1821.
PREFACE
The Poem of Hellas, written at the suggestion of the events of the moment, is a mere improvise, and derives its interest (should it be found to possess any) solely from the intense sympathy which the Author feels with the cause he would celebrate.
The subject in its present state, is insusceptible of being treated otherwise than lyrically, and if I have called this poem a drama from the circumstance of its being composed in dialogue, the licence is not greater than that which has been assumed by other poets who have called their productions epics, only because they have been divided into twelve or twenty-four books.
The Persae of Aeschylus afforded me the first model of my conception, although the decision of the glorious contest now waging in Greece being yet suspended forbids a catastrophe parallel to the return of Xerxes and the desolation of the Persians. I have, therefore, contented myself with exhibiting a series of lyric pictures, and with having wrought upon the curtain of futurity which falls upon the unfinished scene such figures of indistinct and visionary delineation as suggest the final triumph of the Greek cause as a portion of the cause of civilization and social improvement.
The drama (if drama it must be called) is, however, so inartificial that I doubt whether, if recited on the Thespian waggon to an Athenian village at the Dionysiaca, it would have obtained the prize of the goat. I shall bear with equanimity any punishment greater than the loss of such a reward which the Aristarchi of the hour may think fit to inflict.
The only goat-song which I have yet attempted has, I confess, in spite of the unfavourable nature of the subject, received a greater and a more valuable portion of applause than I expected or than it deserved.
Common fame is the only authority which I can alledge for the details which form the basis of the poem, and I must trespass upon the forgiveness of my readers for the display of newspaper erudition to which I have been reduced. Undoubtedly, until the conclusion of the war, it will be impossible to obtain an account of it sufficiently authentic for historical materials; but poets have their privilege, and it is unquestionable that actions of the most exalted courage have been performed by the Greeks, that they have gained more than one naval victory, and that their defeat in Wallachia was signalized by circumstances of heroism, more glorious even than victory.
The apathy of the rulers of the civilized world to the astonishing circumstance of the descendants of that nation to which they owe their civilization rising as it were from the ashes of their ruin is something perfectly inexplicable to a mere spectator of the shews of this mortal scene. We are all Greeks—our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their root in Gre
ece. But for Greece, Rome, the instructor, the conqueror, or the metropolis of our ancestors would have spread no illumination with her arms, and we might still have been savages, and idolaters; or, what is worse, might have arrived at such a stagnant and miserable state of social institution as China and Japan possess.
The human form and the human mind attained to a perfection in Greece which has impressed its image on those faultless productions whose very fragments are the despair of modern art, and has propagated impulses which cannot cease, through a thousand channels of manifest or imperceptible operation to ennoble and delight mankind until the extinction of the race.
The modern Greek is the descendant of those glorious beings whom the imagination almost refuses to figure to itself as belonging to our kind, and he inherits much of their sensibility, their rapidity of conception, their enthusiasm and their courage. If in many instances he is degraded, by moral and political slavery to the practise of the basest vices it engenders, and that below the level of ordinary degradation; let us reflect that the corruption of the best produces the worst; and that habits which subsist only in relation to a peculiar state of social institution may be expected to cease so soon as that relation is dissolved. In fact, the Greeks, since the admirable novel of Anastasius could have been a faithful picture of their manners, have undergone most important changes; the flower of their Youth returning to their Country from the Universities of Italy, Germany and France have communicated to their fellow citizens the latest results of that social perfection of which their ancestors were the original source. The university of Chios contained before the breaking out of the Revolution eight hundred students, and among them several Germans and Americans. The munificence and energy of many of the Greek princes and merchants, directed to the renovation of their country with a spirit and a wisdom which has few examples, is above all praise.