The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Julian and Maddalo; a Conversation.
• The Witch of Atlas.
• Letter to —
• The Triumph of Life.
• Fragments From an Unfinished Drama.
• Prince Athanase: a Fragment.
• Ode to Naples. *
• Marianne’s Dream.
• Mont Blanc. Lines Written In the Vale of Chamouni.
• Miscellaneous Poems.
• On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci, In the Florentine Gallery.
• Song.
• To Constantia, Singing.
• The Fugitives.
• A Lament.
• The Pine Forest of the Cascine, Near Pisa.
• To Night.
• Evening. Ponte a Mare, Pisa.
• Arethusa.
• The Question.
• Lines to an Indian Air.
• Stanzas Written In Dejection, Near Naples.
• Autumn: a Dirge.
• Hymn of Apollo.
• Hymn of Pan.
• The Boat On the Serchio.
• The Zucca. *
• The Two Spirits. an Allegory.
• A Fragment.
• A Bridal Song.
• The Sunset.
• Song, On a Faded Violet.
• Lines to a Critic.
• Good Night.
• To-morrow.
• Death.
• A Lament.
• Love’s Philosophy.
• To E*** V***
• To —
• Lines.
• To William Shelley.
• An Allegory.
• Mutability.
• From the Arabic. an Imitation.
• To —
• Music.
• Lines.
• Death.
• To —
• Passage of the Apennines.
• To Mary —
• The Past.
• Song of a Spirit.
• Liberty.
• To —
• The Isle.
• To —
• Time.
• Lines.
• A Song.
• The World’s Wanderers.
• A Dirge.
• Lines.
• Dirge For the Year.
• Sonnet I.
• Sonnet II. Political Greatness.
• Sonnet III.
• Sonnet IV.
• Fragments.
• Ginevra. *
• Charles the First. Fragments.
• Prince Athanase. Part II.
• Mazenghi. *
• The Woodman and the Nightingale.
• To the Moon.
• Song For Tasso.
• The Waning Moon.
• Epitaph.
• Alastor; Or the Spirit of Solitude.
• Translations.
• Hymn to Mercury. Translated From the Greek of Homer
• The Cyclops; a Satyric Drama.
• Translation From Moschus.
• Scenes From the “magico Prodigioso” of Calderon.
• Scenes From the Faust of GoËthe.

MARIANNE’S DREAM.

• • A pale dream came to a Lady fair,
  • And said, a boon, a boon, I pray!
  • 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,
  • If thou wilt let me rest between
  • The veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown
  • Over thine eyes so dark and sheen:
  • And half in hope, and half in fright,
  • The Lady closed her eyes so bright.
• • At first all deadly shapes were driven
  • Tumultuously across her sleep,
  • And o’er the vast cope of bending heaven
  • All ghastly visaged clouds did sweep;
  • And the Lady ever looked to spy
  • If the gold sun shone forth on high.
• • And as towards the east she turned,
  • She saw aloft in the morning air,
  • Which now with hues of sunrise burned
  • A great black Anchor rising there;
  • And wherever the Lady turned her eyes,
  • It hung before her in the skies.
• • 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,
  • To see that Anchor ever hanging,
  • And veiled her eyes; she then did hear
  • The sound as of a dim low clanging,
  • And looked abroad if she might know
  • Was it aught else, or but the flow
  • Of the blood in her own veins, to and fro.
• • There was a mist in the sunless air,
  • Which shook as it were with an earthquake’s shock,
  • But the very weeds that blossomed there
  • Were moveless, and each mighty rock
  • Stood on its basis stedfastly;
  • The Anchor was seen no more on high.
• • But piled around, with summits hid
  • In lines of cloud at intervals,
  • Stood many a mountain pyramid
  • Among whose everlasting walls
  • Two mighty cities shone, and ever
  • Through the red mist their domes did quiver
• • On two dread mountains, from whose crest,
  • Might seem, the eagle, for her brood,
  • Would ne’er have hung her dizzy nest,
  • Those tower-encircled cities stood.
  • A vision strange such towers to see,
  • Sculptured and wrought so gorgeously,
  • Where human art could never be.
• • And columns framed of marble white,
  • And giant fanes, dome over dome
  • Piled, and triumphant gates, all bright
  • With workmanship, which could not come
  • From touch of mortal instrument,
  • Shot o’er the vales, or lustre lent
  • From its own shapes magnificent.
• • But still the Lady heard that clang
  • Filling the wide air far away;
  • And still the mist whose light did hang
  • Among the mountains shook alway,
  • So that the Lady’s heart beat fast,
  • As half in joy, and half aghast,
  • On those high domes her look she cast.
• • Sudden, from out that city sprung
  • A light that made the earth grow red;
  • Two flames that each with quivering tongu
  • Licked its high domes, and over head
  • Among those mighty towers and fanes
  • Dropped fire, as a volcano rains
  • Its sulphurous ruin on the plains.
• • And hark! a rush as if the deep
  • Had burst its bonds; she looked behind
  • And saw over the western steep
  • A raging flood descend, and wind
  • Through that wide vale; she felt no fear,
  • But said within herself, ’tis clear
  • These towers are Nature’s own, and she
  • To save them has sent forth the sea.
• • And now those raging billows came
  • Where that fair Lady sate, and she
  • Was borne towards the showering flame
  • By the wild waves heaped 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 stained cope of heaven’s light.
• • The plank whereon that Lady sate
  • Was driven through the chasms, about and about,
  • Between the peaks so desolate
  • Of the drowning mountain, in and out,
  • As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails—
  • While the flood was filling those hollow vales.
• • At last her plank an eddy crost,
  • And bore her to the city’s wall,
  • Which now the flood had reached almost;
  • It might the stoutest heart appal
  • To hear the fire roar and hiss
  • Through the domes of those mighty palaces.
• • The eddy whirled her round and round
  • Before a gorgeous gate, which stood
  • Piercing the clouds of smoke which bound
  • Its aery arch with light like blood;
  • She looked on that gate of marble clear,
  • With wonder that extinguished fear.
• • For it was filled with sculptures rarest,
  • Of forms most beautiful and strange,
  • Like nothing human, but the fairest
  • Of winged shapes, whose legions range
  • Throughout the sleep of those that are,
  • Like this same Lady, good and fair.
• • And as she looked, still lovelier grew
  • Those marble forms;—the sculptor sure
  • Was a strong spirit, and the hue
  • Of his own mind did there endure
  • After the touch, whose power had braided
  • Such grace, was in some sad change faded.
• • She looked, the flames were dim, the flood
  • Grew tranquil as a woodland river
  • Winding through hills in solitude;
  • Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver,
  • And their fair limbs to float in motion,
  • Like weeds unfolding in the ocean.
• • And their lips moved; one seemed to speak,
  • When suddenly the mountain crackt,
  • And through the chasm the flood did break
  • With an earth-uplifting cataract:
  • The statues gave a joyous scream,
  • And on its wings the pale thin dream
  • Lifted the Lady from the stream.
• • The dizzy flight of that phantom pale
  • Waked the fair Lady from her sleep,
  • And she arose, while from the veil
  • Of her dark eyes the dream did creep,
  • And she walked about as one who knew
  • That sleep has sights as clear and true
  • As any waking eyes can view.

Marlow, 1817.