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.

ALASTOR; OR THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE.

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quærebam quid amarem amans amare.

—Confess. St. August.

• • Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood!
  • If our great Mother has imbued my soul
  • With aught of natural piety to feel
  • Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
  • If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
  • With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
  • And solemn midnight’s tingling silentness;
  • If autumn’s hollow sighs in the sere wood,
  • And winter robing with pure snow and crowns
  • Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs;
  • If spring’s voluptuous pantings when she breathes
  • Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me;
  • If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast
  • I consciously have injured, but still loved
  • And cherished these my kindred;—then forgive
  • This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw
  • No portion of your wonted favour now!
  • Mother of this unfathomable world!
  • Favour my solemn song, for I have loved
  • Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched
  • Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps
  • And my heart ever gazes on the depth
  • Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
  • In charnels and on coffins, where black death
  • Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,
  • Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
  • Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
  • Thy messenger, to render up the tale
  • Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
  • When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
  • Like an inspired and desperate alchymist
  • Staking his very life on some dark hope,
  • Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks
  • With my most innocent love, until strange tears
  • Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
  • Such magic as compels the charmed night
  • To render up thy charge: . . . . and, though ne’er yet
  • Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
  • Enough from incommunicable dream,
  • And twilight phantasms and deep noonday thought
  • Has shone within me, that serenely now,
  • And moveless as a long-forgotten lyre,
  • Suspended in the solitary dome
  • Of some mysterious and deserted fane,
  • I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain
  • May modulate with murmurs of the air,
  • And motions of the forests and the sea,
  • And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
  • Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.
  • There was a Poet whose untimely tomb
  • No human hands with pious reverence reared,
  • But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds
  • Built o’er his mouldering bones a pyramid
  • Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:
  • A lovely youth,—no mourning maiden decked
  • With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,
  • The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:
  • Gentle, and brave, and generous, no lorn bard
  • Breathed o’er his dark fate one melodious sigh:
  • He lived, he died, he sung, in solitude.
  • Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,
  • And virgins, as unknown he past, have sighed
  • And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.
  • The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,
  • And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,
  • Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.
• • By solemn vision and bright silver dream,
  • His infancy was nurtured. Every sight
  • And sound from the vast earth and ambient air,
  • Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.
  • The fountains of divine philosophy
  • Fled not his thirsting lips; and all of great,
  • Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past
  • In truth or fable consecrates, he felt
  • And knew. When early youth had past, he left
  • His cold fireside and alienated home
  • To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.
  • Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness
  • Has lured his fearless steps; and as he bought
  • With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,
  • His rest and food. Nature’s most secret steps
  • He like her shadow, has pursued, where’er
  • The red volcano overcanopies
  • Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice
  • With burning smoke; or where bitumen lakes,
  • On black bare pointed islets ever beat
  • With sluggish surge; or where the secret caves
  • Rugged and dark, winding among the springs
  • Of fire and poison, inaccessible
  • To avarice or pride, their starry domes
  • Of diamond and of gold expand above
  • Numberless and immeasurable halls,
  • Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines
  • Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
  • Nor had that scene of ampler majesty
  • Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
  • And the green earth lost in his heart its claims
  • To love and wonder; he would linger long
  • In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,
  • Until the doves and squirrels would partake
  • From his innocuous hand his bloodless food,
  • Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,
  • And the wild antelope, that starts whene’er
  • The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
  • Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form
  • More graceful than her own.
• • His wandering step,
  • Obedient to high thoughts, has visited
  • The awful ruins of the days of old:
  • Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste
  • Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers
  • Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,
  • Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe’er of strange
  • Sculptured on alabaster obelisk,
  • Or jaspar tomb, or mutilated sphinx,
  • Dark Ethiopia on her desart hills
  • Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,
  • Stupendous columns, and wild images
  • Of more than man, where marble demons watch
  • The Zodiac’s brazen mystery, and dead men
  • Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,
  • He lingered, poring on memorials
  • Of the world’s youth, through the long burning day
  • Gazed on those speechless shapes, nor, when the moon
  • Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades
  • Suspended he that task, but ever gazed
  • And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind
  • Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw
  • The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.
• • Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,
  • Her daily portion, from her father’s tent,
  • And spread her matting for his couch, and stole
  • From duties and repose to tend his steps:—
  • Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe
  • To speak her love:—and watched his nightly sleep,
  • Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips
  • Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath
  • Of innocent dreams arose: then, when red morn
  • Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home,
  • Wildered and wan and panting, she returned.
• • The Poet wandering on, through Arabie
  • And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
  • And o’er the aërial mountains which pour down
  • Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
  • In joy and exultation held his way;
  • Till in the vale of Cachmire, far within
  • Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine
  • Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,
  • Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched
  • His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep
  • There came, a dream of hopes that never yet
  • Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid
  • Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
  • Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
  • Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,
  • Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
  • His inmost sense suspended in its web
  • Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues.
  • Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
  • And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
  • Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,
  • Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
  • Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
  • A permeating fire: wild numbers then
  • She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
  • Subdued by its own pathos: her fair hands
  • Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
  • Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
  • The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
  • The beating of her heart was heard to fill
  • The pauses of her music, and her breath
  • Tumultuously accorded with those fits
  • Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,
  • As if her heart impatiently endured
  • Its bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,
  • And saw by the warm light of their own life
  • Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil
  • Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,
  • Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,
  • Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips
  • Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.
  • His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess
  • Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled
  • His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet
  • Her panting bosom:—she drew back awhile,
  • Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
  • With frantic gesture and short breathless cry
  • Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
  • Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night
  • Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,
  • Like a dark flood suspended in its course,
  • Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.
• • Roused by the shock, he started from his trance—
  • The cold white light of morning, the blue moon
  • Low in the west, the clear and garish hills,
  • The distinct valley and the vacant woods,
  • Spread round where he stood.—Whither have fled
  • The hues of heaven that canopied his bower
  • Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,
  • The mystery and the majesty of earth,
  • The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes
  • Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly
  • As ocean’s moon looks on the moon in heaven.
  • The spirit of sweet human love has sent
  • A vision to the sleep of him who spurned
  • Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues
  • Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;
  • He overleaps the bound. Alas! Alas!
  • Were limbs and breath and being intertwined
  • Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lost,
  • In the wide pathless desart of dim sleep,
  • That beautiful shape! does the dark gate of death
  • Conduct to thy mysterious paradise,
  • O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds,
  • And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake,
  • Lead only to a black and watery depth,
  • While death’s blue vault with loathliest vapours hung,
  • Where every shade which the foul grave exhales
  • Hides its dead eye from the detested day,
  • Conduct, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?
  • This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart,
  • The insatiate hope which it awakened, stung
  • His brain even like despair.
• • While day-light held
  • The sky, the Poet kept mute conference
  • With his still soul. At night the passion came,
  • Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream,
  • And shook him from his rest, and led him forth
  • Into the darkness.—As an eagle grasped
  • In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast
  • Burn with the poison, and precipitates
  • Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,
  • Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight
  • O’er the wide aëry wilderness: thus driven
  • By the bright shadow of that lovely dream,
  • Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,
  • Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells,
  • Startling with careless step the moon-light snake,
  • He fled.—Red morning dawned upon his flight,
  • Shedding the mockery of its vital hues
  • Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on
  • Till vast Aornos seen from Petra’s steep
  • Hung o’er the low horizon like a cloud;
  • Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs
  • Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind
  • Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,
  • Day after day, a weary waste of hours,
  • Bearing within his life the brooding care
  • That ever fed on its decaying flame.
  • And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,
  • Sered by the autumn of strange suffering,
  • Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand
  • Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;
  • Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone
  • As in a furnace burning secretly
  • From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,
  • Who ministered with human charity
  • His human wants, beheld with wondering awe
  • Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,
  • Encountering on some dizzy precipice
  • That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind
  • With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet
  • Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused
  • In his career. The infant would conceal
  • His troubled visage in his mother’s robe
  • In terror at the glare of those wild eyes,
  • To remember their strange light in many a dream
  • Of after-times: but youthful maidens taught
  • By nature, would interpret half the woe
  • That wasted him, would call him with false names
  • Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand
  • At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path
  • Of his departure from their father’s door.
• • At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore
  • He paused, a wide and melancholy waste
  • Of putrid marshes—a strong impulse urged
  • His steps to the sea shore. A swan was there
  • Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.
  • It rose as he approached, and with strong wings
  • Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course
  • High over the immeasurable main.
  • His eyes pursued its flight.—“Thou hast a home,
  • Beautiful bird, thou voyagest to thine home,
  • Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck
  • With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes
  • Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy.
  • And what am I that I should linger here
  • With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,
  • Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned
  • To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers
  • In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven
  • That echoes not my thoughts?” A gloomy smile
  • Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.
  • For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly
  • Its precious charge, and silent death exposed,
  • Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,
  • With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.
• • Startled by his own thoughts he looked around.
  • There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight
  • Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind.
  • A little shallop floating near the shore
  • Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze.
  • It had been long abandoned, for its sides
  • Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints
  • Swayed with the undulations of the tide.
  • A restless impulse urged him to embark,
  • And meet lone Death on the drear ocean’s waste;
  • For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves
  • The slimy caverns of the populous deep.
• • The day was fair and sunny, sea and sky
  • Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind
  • Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.
  • Following his eager soul, the wanderer
  • Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft
  • On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,
  • And felt the boat speed o’er the tranquil sea
  • Like a torn cloud before the hurricane.
• • As one that in a silver vision floats
  • Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds
  • Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly
  • Along the dark and ruffled waters fled
  • The straining boat.—A whirlwind swept it on,
  • With fierce gusts and precipitating force,
  • Through the white ridges of the chafed sea.
  • The waves arose. Higher and higher still
  • Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest’s scourge
  • Like serpents struggling in a vulture’s grasp.
  • Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war
  • Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast
  • Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven
  • With dark obliterating course, he sate:
  • As if their genii were the ministers
  • Appointed to conduct him to the light
  • Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate
  • Holding the steady helm. Evening came on,
  • The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues
  • High ’mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray
  • That canopied his path o’er the waste deep;
  • Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
  • Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks
  • O’er the fair front and radiant eyes of day;
  • Night followed, clad with stars. On every side
  • More horribly the multitudinous streams
  • Of ocean’s mountainous waste to mutual war
  • Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock
  • The calm and spangled sky. The little boat
  • Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam
  • Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;
  • Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;
  • Now leaving far behind the bursting mass
  • That fell, convulsing ocean. Safely fled—
  • As if that frail and wasted human form,
  • Had been an elemental god.
• • At midnight
  • The moon arose: and lo! the ethereal cliffs
  • Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone
  • Among the stars like sunlight, and around
  • Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves
  • Bursting and eddying irresistibly
  • Rage and resound for ever.—Who shall save?
  • The boat fled on,—the boiling torrent drove,—
  • The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,
  • The shattered mountain overhung the sea,
  • And faster still, beyond all human speed,
  • Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,
  • The little boat was driven. A cavern there
  • Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths
  • Ingulphed the rushing sea. The boat fled on
  • With unrelaxing speed. “Vision and Love!”
  • The Poet cried aloud, “I have beheld
  • The path of thy departure. Sleep and death
  • Shall not divide us long.”
• • The boat pursued
  • The windings of the cavern.—Day-light shone
  • At length upon that gloomy river’s flow;
  • Now, where the fiercest war among the waves
  • Is calm, on the unfathomable stream
  • The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain riven
  • Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,
  • Ere yet the flood’s enormous volume fell
  • Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound
  • That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass
  • Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm;
  • Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,
  • Circling immeasurably fast, and laved
  • With alternating dash the gnarled roots
  • Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms
  • In darkness over it. I’ the midst was left,
  • Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud,
  • A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.
  • Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,
  • With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round,
  • Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,
  • Till on the verge of the extremest curve,
  • Where through an opening of the rocky bank,
  • The waters overflow, and a smooth spot
  • Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides
  • Is left, the boat paused shuddering. Shall it sink
  • Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress
  • Of that resistless gulph embosom it?
  • Now shall it fall? A wandering stream of wind,
  • Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,
  • And, lo! with gentle motion between banks
  • Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream,
  • Beneath a woven grove, it sails, and, hark!
  • The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar
  • With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.
  • Where the embowering trees recede, and leave
  • A little space of green expanse, the cove
  • Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers
  • Forever gaze on their own drooping eyes,
  • Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave
  • Of the boat’s motion marred their pensive task,
  • Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,
  • Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay
  • Had e’er disturbed before. The Poet longed
  • To deck with their bright hues his withered hair,
  • But on his heart its solitude returned,
  • And he forebore. Not the strong impulse hid
  • In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame,
  • Had yet performed its ministry: it hung
  • Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud
  • Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods
  • Of night close over it.
• • The noonday sun
  • Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
  • Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
  • A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,
  • Scooped in the dark base of those aëry rocks
  • Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever.
  • The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
  • Wove twilight o’er the Poet’s path, as led
  • By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,
  • He sought in Nature’s dearest haunt, some bank,
  • Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark
  • And dark the shades accumulate—the oak,
  • Expanding its immeasurable arms,
  • Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
  • Of the tall cedar overarching, frame
  • Most solemn domes within, and far below,
  • Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
  • The ash and the acacia floating hang
  • Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed
  • In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,
  • Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around
  • The gray trunks, and as gamesome infants’ eyes,
  • With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,
  • Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
  • These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,
  • Uniting their close union; the woven leaves
  • Make net-work of the dark blue light of day,
  • And the night’s noontide clearness, mutable
  • As shapes in the wierd clouds. Soft mossy lawns
  • Beneath these canopies extend their swells,
  • Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms
  • Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen
  • Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,
  • A soul-dissolving odour, to invite
  • To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,
  • Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep
  • Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades
  • Like vaporous shapes half seen; beyond, a well,
  • Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
  • Images all the woven boughs above,
  • And each depending leaf, and every speck
  • Of azure sky, darting between their chasms;
  • Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves
  • Its portraiture, but some inconstant star
  • Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
  • Or, painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,
  • Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
  • Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
  • Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.
• • Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
  • Their own wan light through the reflected lines
  • Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
  • Of that still fountain; as the human heart,
  • Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,
  • Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard
  • The motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung
  • Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel
  • An unaccustomed presence, and the sound
  • Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs
  • Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed
  • To stand beside him—clothed in no bright robes
  • Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,
  • Borrowed from aught the visible world affords
  • Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;—
  • But, undulating woods, and silent well,
  • And reaping rivulet, and evening gloom
  • Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming
  • Held commune with him, as if he and it
  • Were all that was,—only . . . when his regard
  • Was raised by intense pensiveness . . . two eyes,
  • Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,
  • And seemed with their serene and azure smiles
  • To beckon him.
• • Obedient to the light
  • That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing
  • The windings of the dell.—The rivulet
  • Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine
  • Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell
  • Among the moss with hollow harmony
  • Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones
  • It danced; like childhood laughing as it went:
  • Then through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,
  • Reflecting every herb and drooping bud
  • That overhung its quietness.—“O stream!
  • Whose source is inaccessibly profound,
  • Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?
  • Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,
  • Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulphs,
  • Thy searchless fountain and invisible course
  • Have each their type in me: And the wide sky,
  • And measureless ocean may declare as soon
  • What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud
  • Contains thy waters, as the universe
  • Tell where these livingthoughts reside, when stretched
  • Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste
  • I’ the passing wind!”
• • Beside the grassy shore
  • Of the small stream he went; he did impress
  • On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught
  • Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one
  • Roused by some joyous madness from the couch
  • Of fever, he did move; yet, not like him,
  • Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame
  • Of his frail exultation shall be spent,
  • He must descend. With rapid steps he went
  • Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow
  • Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now
  • The forest’s solemn canopies were changed
  • For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.
  • Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed
  • The struggling brook: tall spires of windlestrae
  • Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,
  • And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pines,
  • Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots
  • The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,
  • Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,
  • The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin
  • And white; and where irradiate dewy eyes
  • Had shone, gleam stony orbs: so from his steps
  • Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade
  • Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds
  • And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued
  • The stream, that with a larger volume now
  • Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there
  • Fretted a path through its descending curves
  • With its wintry speed. On every side now rose
  • Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
  • Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
  • In the light of evening, and its precipice
  • Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,
  • ’Mid toppling stones, black gulphs, and yawning caves,
  • Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues
  • To the loud stream. Lo! Where the pass expands
  • Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
  • And seems, with its accumulated crags,
  • To overhang the world: for wide expand
  • Beneath the wan stars and descending moon
  • Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,
  • Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom
  • Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills
  • Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge
  • Of the remote horizon. The near scene,
  • In naked and severe simplicity,
  • Made contrast with the universe. A pine,
  • Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy
  • Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast
  • Yielding one only response at each pause,
  • In most familiar cadence, with the howl
  • The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams
  • Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river,
  • Foaming and hurrying o’er its rugged path,
  • Fell into that immeasurable void
  • Scattering its waters to the passing winds.
  • Yet the gray precipice, and solemn pine
  • And torrent, were not all;—one silent nook
  • Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,
  • Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,
  • It overlooked in its serenity
  • The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.
  • It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile
  • Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped
  • The fissured stones with its entwining arms,
  • And did embower with leaves for ever green,
  • And berries dark, the smooth and even space
  • Of its inviolated floor; and here
  • The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,
  • In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,
  • Red, yellow, or etherially pale,
  • Rival the pride of summer. ’Tis the haunt
  • Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach
  • The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,
  • One human step alone, has ever broken
  • The stillness of its solitude:—one voice
  • Alone inspired its echoes;—even that voice
  • Which hither came, floating among the winds,
  • And led the loveliest among human forms
  • To make their wild haunts the depository
  • Of all the grace and beauty that endued
  • Its motions, render up its majesty,
  • Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,
  • And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,
  • Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,
  • Commit the colours of that varying cheek,
  • That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.
  • The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured
  • A sea of lustre on the horizon’s verge
  • That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist
  • Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank
  • Wan moonlight even to fullness: not a star
  • Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,
  • Danger’s grim playmates, on that precipice
  • Slept, clasped in his embrace.—O, storm of death!
  • Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night:
  • And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still
  • Guiding its irresistible career
  • In thy devastating omnipotence,
  • Art king of this frail world, from the red field
  • Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,
  • The patriot’s sacred couch, the snowy bed
  • Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,
  • A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls
  • His brother Death. A rare and regal prey
  • He hath prepared, prowling around the world;
  • Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men
  • Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,
  • Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine
  • The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.
• • When on the threshold of the green recess
  • The wanderer’s footsteps fell, he knew that death
  • Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,
  • Did he resign his high and holy soul
  • To images of the majestic past,
  • That paused within his passive being now,
  • Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe
  • Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place
  • His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
  • Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone
  • Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest,
  • Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink
  • Of that obscurest chasm;—and thus he lay,
  • Surrendering to their final impulses
  • The hovering powers of life. Hope and Despair,
  • The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear
  • Marred his repose, the influxes of sense,
  • And his own being unalloyed by pain,
  • Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed
  • The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there
  • At peace, and faintly smiling:—his last sight
  • Was the great moon, which o’er the western line
  • Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,
  • With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed
  • To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
  • It rests, and still as the divided frame
  • Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet’s blood,
  • That ever beat in mystic sympathy
  • With nature’s ebb and flow, grew feebler still:
  • And when two lessening points of light alone
  • Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp
  • Of his faint respiration scarce did stir
  • The stagnate night:—till the minutest ray
  • Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.
  • It paused—it fluttered. But when heaven remained
  • Utterly black, the murky shades involved
  • An image, silent, cold, and motionless,
  • As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.
  • Even as a vapour fed with golden beams
  • That ministered on sunlight, ere the west
  • Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame—
  • No sense, no motion, no divinity—
  • A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
  • The breath of heaven did wander—a bright stream
  • Once fed with many-voiced waves—a dream
  • Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever,
  • Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.
• • O, for Medea’s wondrous alchymy,
  • Which wheresoe’er it fell made the earth gleam
  • With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale
  • From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God,
  • Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice
  • Which but one living man has drained, who now,
  • Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels
  • No proud exemption in the blighting curse
  • He bears, over the world wanders for ever,
  • Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dream
  • Of dark magician in his visioned cave,
  • Raking the cinders of a crucible
  • For life and power, even when his feeble hand
  • Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
  • Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled
  • Like some frail exhalation, which the dawn
  • Robes in its golden beams,—ah! thou hast fled!
  • The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,
  • The child of grace and genius. Heartless things
  • Are done and said i’the world, and many worms
  • And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
  • From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,
  • In vesper low or joyous orison,
  • Lifts still its solemn voice:—but thou art fled—
  • Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
  • Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
  • Been purest ministers, who are, alas!
  • Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips
  • So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes
  • That image sleep in death, upon that form
  • Yet safe from the worm’s outrage, let no tear
  • Be shed—not even in thought. Nor, when those hues
  • Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,
  • Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone
  • In the frail pauses of this simple strain,
  • Let not high verse, mourning the memory
  • Of that which is no more, or painting’s woe
  • Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
  • Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence,
  • And all the shows o’the world are frail and vain
  • To weep a loss that turns their light to shade.
  • It is a woe too ‘deep for tears,’ when all
  • Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
  • Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
  • Those who remain behind, nor sobs nor groans,
  • The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;
  • But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
  • Nature’s vast frame, the web of human things,
  • Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.