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.

PRINCE ATHANASE.

PART II.

FRAGMENT I.

• • Prince Athanase had one beloved friend,
  • An old, old man, with hair of silver white,
  • And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend
• • With his wise words; and eyes whose arrowy light
  • Shone like the reflex of a thousand minds.
  • He was the last whom superstition’s blight
• • Had spared in Greece—the blight that cramps and blinds,—
  • And in his olive bower at Œnoe
  • Had sate from earliest youth. Like one who finds
• • A fertile island in the barren sea,
  • One mariner who has survived his mates
  • Many a drear month in a great ship—so he
• • With soul-sustaining songs, and sweet debates
  • Of ancient lore, there fed his lonely being:—
  • “The mind becomes that which it contemplates,”—
• • And thus Zonoras, by forever seeing
  • Their bright creations, grew like wisest men;
  • And when he heard the crash of nations fleeing
• • A bloodier power than ruled thy ruins then,
  • O sacred Hellas! many weary years
  • He wandered, till the path of Laian’s glen
• • Was grass-grown—and the unremembered tears
  • Were dry in Laian for their honoured chief,
  • Who fell in Byzant, pierced by Moslem spears:—
• • And as the lady looked with faithful grief
  • From her high lattice o’er the rugged path,
  • Where she once saw that horseman toil, with brief
• • And blighting hope, who with the news of death
  • Struck body and soul as with a mortal blight,
  • She saw beneath the chesnuts, far beneath,
• • An old man toiling up, a weary wight;
  • And soon within her hospitable hall
  • She saw his white hairs glittering in the light
• • Of the wood fire, and round his shoulders fall;
  • And his wan visage and his withered mien
  • Yet calm and [[         ]] and majestical.
• • And Athanase, her child, who must have been
  • Then three years old, sate opposite and gazed.

FRAGMENT II.

• Such was Zonoras; and as daylight finds
• An amaranth glittering on the path of frost,
• When autumn nights have nipt all weaker kinds,

• Thus had his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tost,
• Shone truth upon Zonoras; and he filled
• From fountains pure, nigh overgrown and lost,

• The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child,
• With soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore
• And philosophic wisdom, clear and mild.

• And sweet and subtle talk they evermore,
• The pupil and master shared; until,
• Sharing the undiminishable store,

• The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill
• Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran
• His teacher, and did teach with native skill

• Strange truths and new to that experienced man;
• Still they were friends, as few have ever been
• Who mark the extremes of life’s discordant span.

• And in the caverns of the forest green,
• Or by the rocks of echoing ocean hoar,
• Zonoras and Prince Athanase were seen

• By summer woodmen; and when winter’s roar
• Sounded o’er earth and sea its blast of war,
• The Balearic fisher, driven from shore,

• Hanging upon the peaked wave afar,
• Then saw their lamp from Laian’s turret gleam,
• Piercing the stormy darkness like a star,

• Which pours beyond the sea one stedfast beam,
• Whilst all the constellations of the sky
• Seemed wrecked. [         ] They did but seem—

• For, lo! the wintry clouds are all gone by,
• And bright Arcturus through you pines is glowing,
• And far o’er southern waves, immoveably

• Belted Orion hangs—warm light is flowing
• From the young moon into the sunset’s chasm.—
• “O, summer night! with power divine, bestowing

• “On thine own bird the sweet enthusiasm
• Which overflows in notes of liquid gladness,
• Filling the sky like light! How many a spasm

• “Of fevered brains, oppressed with grief and madness,
• Were lulled by thee, delightful nightingale!
• And these soft waves, murmuring a gentle sadness,

• “And the far sighings of you piny dale
• Made vocal by some wind, we feel not here,—
• I bear alone what nothing may avail

• “To lighten—a strange load!”—No human ear
• Heard this lament; but o’er the visage wan
• Of Athanase, a ruffling atmosphere

• Of dark emotion, a swift shadow ran,
• Like wind upon some forest-bosomed lake,
• Glassy and dark.—And that divine old man

• Beheld his mystic friend’s whole being shake,
• Even where its inmost depths were gloomiest—
• And with a calm and measured voice he spake,

• And with a soft and equal pressure, prest
• That cold lean hand:—“Dost thou remember yet
• When the curved moon then lingering in the west

• “Paused in you waves her mighty horns to wet,
• How in those beams we walked, half resting on the sea?
• ’Tis just one year—sure thou dost not forget—

• “Then Plato’s words of light in thee and me
• Lingered like moonlight in the moonless east,
• For we had just then read—thy memory

• “Is faithful now—the story of the feast;
• And Agathon and Diotima seemed
• From death and [] released.

FRAGMENT III.

• • ’Twas at the season when the Earth upsprings
  • From slumber, as a sphered angel’s child,
  • Shadowing its eyes with green and golden wings,
• • Stands up before its mother bright and mild,
  • Of whose soft voice the air expectant seems—
  • So stood before the sun, which shone and smiled
• • To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams,
  • The fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary grove
  • Waxed green—and flowers burst forth like starry beams;—
• • The grass in the warm sun did start and move,
  • And sea-buds burst under the waves serene:—
  • How many a one, though none be near to love,
• • Loves then the shade of his own soul, half seen
  • In any mirror—or the spring’s young minions,
  • The winged leaves amid the copses green;—
• • How many a spirit then puts on the pinions
  • Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,
  • And his own steps—and over wide dominions
• • Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast,
  • More fleet than storms—the wide world shrinks below,
  • When winter and despondency are past.
• • ’Twas at this season that Prince Athanase
  • Past the white Alps—those eagle-baffling mountains
  • Slept in their shrouds of snow;—beside the ways
• • The waterfalls were voiceless—for their fountains
  • Were changed to mines of sunless crystal now,
  • Or by the curdling winds—like brazen wings
• • Which clanged alone the mountain’s marble brow,
  • Warped into adamantine fretwork, hung
  • And filled with frozen light the chasm below.

FRAGMENT IV.

• • Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all
  • We can desire, O Love! and happy souls,
  • Ere from thy vine the leaves of autumn fall,
• • Catch thee, and feed from their o’erflowing bowls
  • Thousands who thirst for thy ambrosial dew;—
  • Thou art the radiance which where ocean rolls
• • Invests it; and when heavens are blue
  • Thou fillest them; and when the earth is fair
  • The shadow of thy moving wings imbue
• • Its desarts and its mountains, till they wear
  • Beauty like some bright robe;—thou ever soarest
  • Among the towers of men, and as soft air
• • In spring, which moves the unawakened forest,
  • Clothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak,
  • Thou floatest among men; and aye implorest
• • That which from thee they should implore:—the weak
  • Alone kneel to thee, offering up the hearts
  • The strong have broken—yet where shall any seek
• • A garment whom thou clothest not?

Marlow, 1817.