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.

THE BOAT

ON THE SERCHIO.

• • Our boat is asleep in Serchio’s stream,
  • Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,
  • The helm sways idly, hither and thither;
  • Dominic, the boat-man, has brought the mast,
  • And the oars and the sails; but ’tis sleeping fast,
  • Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.
• • The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,
  • And the thin white moon lay withering there,
  • To tower, and cavern, and rift and tree,
  • The owl and the bat fled drowsily.
  • Day had kindled the dewy woods,
  • And the rocks above and the stream below,
  • And the vapours in their multitudes,
  • And the Apennine’s shroud of summer snow,
  • And clothed with light of aery gold
  • The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.
• • Day had awakened all things that be,
  • The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,
  • And the milkmaid’s song and the mower’s scythe,
  • And the matin-bell and the mountain bee:
  • Fire-flies were quenched on the dewy corn,
  • Glow-worms went out on the river’s brim,
  • Like lamps which a student forgets to trim:
• • The beetle forgot to wind his horn,
  • The crickets were still in the meadow and hill:
  • Like a flock of rooks at a farmer’s gun
  • Night’s dreams and terrors, every one,
  • Fled from the brains which are their prey,
  • From the lamp’s death to the morning ray:
• • All rose to do the task He set to each,
  • Who shaped us to his ends and not our own;
  • The million rose to learn, and one to teach
  • What none yet ever knew or can be known;
• • And many rose
  • Whose woe was such that fear became desire;—
  • Melchior and Lionel were not among those;
  • They from the throng of men had stepped aside,
  • And made their home under the green hill side.
  • It was that hill, whose intervening brow
  • Screens Lucca from the Pisan’s envious eye,
  • Which the circumfluous plain waving below,
  • Like a wide lake of green fertility,
  • With streams and fields and marshes bare,
  • Divides from the far Apennines—which lie
  • Islanded in the immeasurable air.
• • “What think you, as she lies in her green cove,
  • Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?
  • If morning dreams are true, why I should guess
  • That she was dreaming of our idleness,
  • And of the miles of watery way
  • We should have led her by this time of day?”—
• • —“Never mind,” said Lionel,
  • “Give care to the winds, they can bear it well
  • About yon poplar tops; and see
  • The white clouds are driving merrily,
  • And the stars we miss this morn will light
  • More willingly our return to-night.—
  • List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair;
  • How it scatters Dominic’s long black hair,
  • Singing of us, and our lazy motions,
  • If I can guess a boat’s emotions.—”
• • The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,
  • The living breath is fresh behind,
  • As with dews and sunrise fed,
  • Comes the laughing morning wind;—
  • The sails are full, the boat makes head
  • Against the Serchio’s torrent fierce,
  • Then flags with intermitting course,
  • And hangs upon the wave, [[         ]]
  • Which fervid from its mountain source
  • Shallow, smooth and strong doth come,—
  • Swift as fire, tempestuously
  • It sweeps into the affrighted sea;
  • In morning’s smile its eddies coil,
  • Its billows sparkle, toss and boil,
  • Torturing all its quiet light
  • Into columns fierce and bright.
• • The Serchio, twisting forth
  • Between the marble barriers which it clove
  • At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm
  • The wave that died the death which lovers love,
  • Living in what it sought; as if this spasm
  • Had not yet past, the toppling mountains cling,
  • But the clear stream in full enthusiasm
  • Pours itself on the plain, until wandering,
  • Down one clear path of effluence chrystalline
  • Sends its clear waves, that they may fling
  • At Arno’s feet tribute of corn and wine,
  • Then, through the pestilential desarts wild
  • Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted fir,
  • It rushes to the Ocean.

July, 1821.