Selected Poems and Prose

  Be thine.—

  ‘Like a cloud big with a May shower

  My soul weeps healing rain

  30 On thee, thou withered flower.—

  It breathes mute music on thy sleep—

  Its odour calms thy brain—

  Its light within thy gloomy breast

  Spreads, like a second youth again—

  35By mine thy being is to its deep

  Possest.—

  ‘The spell is done—how feel you now?’

  ‘Better, quite well,’ replied

  The sleeper—‘What would do

  40You good when suffering and awake,

  What cure your head and side?’

  ‘What would cure that would kill me, Jane,

  And as I must on earth abide

  Awhile yet, tempt me not to break

  45 My chain.’

  With a Guitar. To Jane

  Ariel to Miranda;—Take

  This slave of music for the sake

  Of him who is the slave of thee;

  And teach it all the harmony,

  5In which thou can’st, and only thou,

  Make the delighted spirit glow,

  ’Till joy denies itself again

  And too intense is turned to pain;

  For by permission and command

  10Of thine own prince Ferdinand

  Poor Ariel sends this silent token

  Of more than ever can be spoken;

  Your guardian spirit Ariel, who

  From life to life must still pursue

  15Your happiness, for thus alone

  Can Ariel ever find his own;

  From Prospero’s enchanted cell,

  As the mighty verses tell,

  To the throne of Naples he

  20Lit you o’er the trackless sea,

  Flitting on, your prow before,

  Like a living meteor.

  When you die, the silent Moon

  In her interlunar swoon

  25Is not sadder in her cell

  Than deserted Ariel;

  When you live again on Earth

  Like an unseen Star of birth

  Ariel guides you o’er the sea

  30Of life from your nativity;

  Many changes have been run

  Since Ferdinand and you begun

  Your course of love, and Ariel still

  Has tracked your steps and served your will.

  35Now, in humbler, happier lot

  This is all remembered not;

  And now, alas! the poor sprite is

  Imprisoned for some fault of his

  In a body like a grave.—

  40From you, he only dares to crave

  For his service and his sorrow

  A smile today, a song tomorrow.

  The artist who this idol wrought

  To echo all harmonious thought

  45Felled a tree, while on the steep

  The woods were in their winter sleep

  Rocked in that repose divine

  On the wind-swept Apennine;

  And dreaming, some of autumn past

  50And some of spring approaching fast,

  And some of April buds and showers

  And some of songs in July bowers

  And all of love,—and so this tree—

  O that such our death may be—

  55Died in sleep and felt no pain

  To live in happier form again,

  From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,

  The artist wrought this loved guitar,

  And taught it justly to reply

  60To all who question skilfully

  In language gentle as thine own;

  Whispering in enamoured tone

  Sweet oracles of woods and dells

  And summer winds in sylvan cells;

  65For it had learnt all harmonies

  Of the plains and of the skies,

  Of the forests and the mountains,

  And the many-voiced fountains,

  The clearest echoes of the hills,

  70The softest notes of falling rills,

  The melodies of birds and bees,

  The murmuring of summer seas,

  And pattering rain and breathing dew

  And airs of evening;—and it knew

  75That seldom heard mysterious sound,

  Which, driven on its diurnal round

  As it floats through boundless day

  Our world enkindles on its way—

  All this it knows, but will not tell

  80To those who cannot question well

  The spirit that inhabits it:

  It talks according to the wit

  Of its companions, and no more

  Is heard than has been felt before

  85By those who tempt it to betray

  These secrets of an elder day.—

  But, sweetly as its answers will

  Flatter hands of perfect skill,

  It keeps its highest holiest tone

  90For our beloved Jane alone.—

  ‘Far, far away, O ye / Halcyons of Memory’

  Far, far away, O ye

  Halcyons of Memory,

  Seek some far calmer nest

  Than this abandoned breast—

  5No news of your false spring

  To my heart’s winter bring;

  Once having gone, in vain

  Ye come again.—

  Vultures who build your bowers

  10High in the Future’s towers,

  Wake, for the spirit’s blast

  Over my peace has past;

  Wrecked hopes on hopes are spread,

  Dying joys choked by dead

  15Will serve your beaks for prey

  Many a day.

  ‘Tell me star, whose wings of light’

  Tell me star, whose wings of light

  Speed thee on thy fiery flight,

  In what cavern of the night

  Will thy pinions close now?

  5Tell me Moon, thou pale and grey

  Pilgrim of Heaven’s homeless way,

  In what depth of night or day

  Seekest thou repose now?

  Weary wind who wanderest

  10Like the world’s rejected guest,

  Hast thou still some secret nest

  On some hill or billow?

  THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE

  Swift as a spirit hastening to his task

  Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth

  Rejoicing in his splendour, and the mask

  Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.

  5The smokeless altars of the mountain snows

  Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth

  Of light, the Ocean’s orison arose

  To which the birds tempered their matin lay.

  All flowers in field or forest which unclose

  10 Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,

  Swinging their censers in the element,

  With orient incense lit by the new ray

  Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent

  Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air,

  15And in succession due, did Continent,

  Isle, Ocean, and all things that in them wear

  The form and character of mortal mould

  Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear

  Their portion of the toil which he of old

  20 Took as his own and then imposed on them;

  But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold

  Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem

  The cone of night, now they were laid asleep,

  Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem

  25Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep

  Of a green Apennine: before me fled

  The night; behind me rose the day; the Deep

  Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head

  When a strange trance over my fancy grew

  30 Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread
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  Was so transparent that the scene came through

  As clear as when a veil of light is drawn

  O’er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew

  That I had felt the freshness of that dawn,

  35Bathed in the same cold dew my brow and hair

  And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn

  Under the self-same bough, and heard as there

  The birds, the fountains and the Ocean hold

  Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air.

  40 And then a Vision on my brain was rolled …

  As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay

  This was the tenour of my waking dream:

  Methought I sate beside a public way

  Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream

  45Of people there was hurrying to and fro

  Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,

  All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know

  Whither he went, or whence he came, or why

  He made one of the multitude, yet so

  50 Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky

  One of the million leaves of summer’s bier.—

  Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,

  Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,

  Some flying from the thing they feared and some

  55Seeking the object of another’s fear,

  And others as with steps towards the tomb

  Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,

  And others mournfully within the gloom

  Of their own shadow walked, and called it death …

  60 And some fled from it as it were a ghost,

  Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath.

  But more with motions which each other crost

  Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw

  Or birds within the noonday ether lost,

  65Upon that path where flowers never grew;

  And weary with vain toil and faint for thirst

  Heard not the fountains whose melodious dew

  Out of their mossy cells forever burst,

  Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told

  70 Of grassy paths, and wood lawns interspersed

  With overarching elms and caverns cold

  And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they

  Pursued their serious folly as of old …

  And as I gazed methought that in the way

  75The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June

  When the South wind shakes the extinguished day,

  And a cold glare, intenser than the noon

  But icy cold, obscured with [  ] light

  The Sun as he the stars. Like the young moon

  80 When on the sunlit limits of the night

  Her white shell trembles amid crimson air

  And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might

  Doth, as a herald of its coming, bear

  The ghost of her dead mother, whose dim form

  85Bends in dark ether from her infant’s chair,

  So came a chariot on the silent storm

  Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape

  So sate within as one whom years deform

  Beneath a dusky hood and double cape

  90 Crouching within the shadow of a tomb,

  And o’er what seemed the head a cloud like crape

  Was bent, a dun and faint aetherial gloom

  Tempering the light; upon the chariot’s beam

  A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume

  95The guidance of that wonder-winged team.

  The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings

  Were lost: I heard alone on the air’s soft stream

  The music of their ever moving wings.

  All the four faces of that charioteer

  100 Had their eyes banded … little profit brings

  Speed in the van and blindness in the rear,

  Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun

  Or that their banded eyes could pierce the sphere

  Of all that is, has been, or will be done—

  105So ill was the car guided, but it past

  With solemn speed majestically on …

  The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast,

  Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,

  And saw like clouds upon the thunder-blast

  110 The million with fierce song and maniac dance

  Raging around; such seemed the jubilee

  As when to greet some conqueror’s advance

  Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea

  From senate-house and prison and theatre

  115When Freedom left those who upon the free

  Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.

  Nor wanted here the true similitude

  Of a triumphal pageant, for where’er

  The chariot rolled a captive multitude

  120 Was driven; all those who had grown old in power

  Or misery,—all who have their age subdued,

  By action or by suffering, and whose hour

  Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,

  So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;

  125All those whose fame or infamy must grow

  Till the great winter lay the form and name

  Of their green earth with them forever low;

  All but the sacred few who could not tame

  Their spirits to the Conqueror, but as soon

  130 As they had touched the world with living flame

  Fled back like eagles to their native noon,

  Or those who put aside the diadem

  Of earthly thrones or gems, till the last one

  Were there; for they of Athens and Jerusalem

  135Were neither mid the mighty captives seen

  Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them

  Or fled before … Swift, fierce and obscene

  The wild dance maddens in the van, and those

  Who lead it, fleet as shadows on the green,

  140 Outspeed the chariot and without repose

  Mix with each other in tempestuous measure

  To savage music … Wilder as it grows,

  They, tortured by the agonizing pleasure,

  Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun

  145Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure

  Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,

  Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair,

  And in their dance round her who dims the Sun

  Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air

  150 As their feet twinkle; now recede, and now

  Bending within each other’s atmosphere

  Kindle invisibly; and as they glow

  Like moths by light attracted and repelled,

  Oft to new bright destruction come and go,

  155Till like two clouds into one vale impelled

  That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle

  And die in rain—the fiery band which held

  Their natures, snaps … the shock still may tingle—

  One falls and then another in the path

  160 Senseless, nor is the desolation single,

  Yet ere I can say where the chariot hath

  Past over them; nor other trace I find

  But as of foam after the Ocean’s wrath

  Is spent upon the desert shore.—Behind,

  165Old men and women foully disarrayed

  Shake their grey hair in the insulting wind,

  Grasp in the dance and strain with limbs decayed

  To reach the car of light which leaves them still

  Farther behind and deeper in the shade.

  170 But not the less with impotence of will

  They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose

  Round them and round each other, and fulfil

  Their work and to the dust w
hence they arose

  Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie

  175And frost in these performs what fire in those.

  Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,

  Half to myself I said, ‘And what is this?

  Whose shape is that within the car? and why’—

  I would have added—‘is all here amiss?’

  180 But a voice answered … ‘Life’ … I turned and knew

  (O Heaven have mercy on such wretchedness!)

  That what I thought was an old root which grew

  To strange distortion out of the hill side

  Was indeed one of that deluded crew,

  185And that the grass which methought hung so wide

  And white, was but his thin discoloured hair,

  And that the holes it vainly sought to hide

  Were or had been eyes.—‘If thou canst forbear

  To join the dance, which I had well forborne,’

  190 Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware,

  ‘I will now tell that which to this deep scorn

  Led me and my companions, and relate

  The progress of the pageant since the morn.

  ‘If thirst of knowledge doth not thus abate,

  195Follow it thou even to the night, but I

  Am weary’ … Then like one who with the weight

  Of his own words is staggered, wearily

  He paused, and ere he could resume, I cried,

  ‘First who art thou?’ … ‘Before thy memory

  200 ‘I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did, and died,

  And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit

  Earth had with purer nutriment supplied

  ‘Corruption would not now thus much inherit

  Of what was once Rousseau—nor this disguise