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--- 문학:영문학:영국:셸리 [2020/10/08 19:22]
clayeryan@gmail.com [작품목록]
+++ 문학:영문학:영국:셸리 [2020/10/08 19:38] (현재)
clayeryan@gmail.com [작품목록]
@@ 줄 6048: / 줄 6048: @@
 ++++
 ++++60	Song|
-<poem></poem>
+<poem>Rarely, rarely comest thou,
+Spirit of Delight!
+Wherefore hast thou left me now
+Many a day and night?
+Many a weary night and day
+'Tis since thou art fled away.
+How shall ever one like me
+Win thee back again?
+With the joyous and the free
+Thou wilt scoff at pain.
+Spirit false! thou hast forgot
+All but those who need thee not.
+As a lizard with the shade
+Of a trembling leaf,
+Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
+Even the sighs of grief
+Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
+And reproach thou wilt not her.
+Let me set my mournful ditty
+To a merry measure;--
+Thou wilt never come for pity,
+Thou wilt come for pleasure;
+Pity then will cut away
+Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
+I love all that thou lovest,
+Spirit of Delight!
+The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,
+And the starry night;
+Autumn evening, and the morn
+When the golden mists are born.
+I love snow and all the forms
+Of the radiant frost;
+I love waves, and winds, and storms,
+Everything almost
+Which is Nature's, and may be
+Untainted by man's misery.
+I love tranquil solitude,
+And such society
+As is quiet, wise, and good;
+Between thee and me
+What difference? but thou dost possess
+The things I seek, not love them less.
+I love Love--though he has wings,
+And like light can flee,
+But above all other things,
+Spirit, I love thee--
+Thou art love and life! O come!
+Make once more my heart thy home!</poem>
 ++++
 ++++61	Queen Mab: Part VI (excerpts)|
-<poem>
+<poem>"Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light,
+Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffus'd
+A Spirit of activity and life,
+That knows no term, cessation, or decay;
+That fades not when the lamp of earthly life,
+Extinguish'd in the dampness of the grave,
+Awhile there slumbers, more than when the babe
+In the dim newness of its being feels
+The impulses of sublunary things,
+And all is wonder to unpractis'd sense:
+But, active, steadfast and eternal, still
+Guides the fierce whirlwind, in the tempest roars,
+Cheers in the day, breathes in the balmy groves,
+Strengthens in health, and poisons in disease;
+And in the storm of change, that ceaselessly
+Rolls round the eternal universe and shakes
+Its undecaying battlement, presides,
+Apportioning with irresistible law
+The place each spring of its machine shall fill;
+So that when waves on waves tumultuous heap
+Confusion to the clouds, and fiercely driven
+Heaven's lightnings scorch the uprooted ocean-fords,
+Whilst, to the eye of shipwreck'd mariner,
+Lone sitting on the bare and shuddering rock,
+All seems unlink'd contingency and chance,
+No atom of this turbulence fulfils
+A vague and unnecessitated task,
+Or acts but as it must and ought to act.
+Even the minutest molecule of light,
+That in an April sunbeam's fleeting glow
+Fulfils its destin'd, though invisible work,
+The universal Spirit guides; nor less,
+When merciless ambition, or mad zeal,
+Has led two hosts of dupes to battlefield,
+That, blind, they there may dig each other's graves,
+And call the sad work glory, does it rule
+All passions: not a thought, a will, an act,
+No working of the tyrant's moody mind,
+Nor one misgiving of the slaves who boast
+Their servitude to hide the shame they feel,
+Nor the events enchaining every will,
+That from the depths of unrecorded time
+Have drawn all-influencing virtue, pass
+Unrecogniz'd or unforeseen by thee,
+Soul of the Universe! eternal spring
+Of life and death, of happiness and woe,
+Of all that chequers the phantasmal scene
+That floats before our eyes in wavering light,
+Which gleams but on the darkness of our prison,
+Whose chains and massy walls
+We feel, but cannot see.
+"Spirit of Nature! all-sufficing Power,
+Necessity! thou mother of the world!
+Unlike the God of human error, thou
+Requir'st no prayers or praises; the caprice
+Of man's weak will belongs no more to thee
+Than do the changeful passions of his breast
+To thy unvarying harmony: the slave,
+Whose horrible lusts spread misery o'er the world,
+And the good man, who lifts with virtuous pride
+His being in the sight of happiness
+That springs from his own works; the poison-tree,
+Beneath whose shade all life is wither'd up,
+And the fair oak, whose leafy dome affords
+A temple where the vows of happy love
+Are register'd, are equal in thy sight:
+No love, no hate thou cherishest; revenge
+And favouritism, and worst desire of fame
+Thou know'st not: all that the wide world contains
+Are but thy passive instruments, and thou
+Regard'st them all with an impartial eye,
+Whose joy or pain thy nature cannot feel,
+Because thou hast not human sense,
+Because thou art not human mind.
+"Yes! when the sweeping storm of time
+Has sung its death-dirge o'er the ruin'd fanes
+And broken altars of the almighty Fiend
+Whose name usurps thy honours, and the blood
+Through centuries clotted there has floated down
+The tainted flood of ages, shalt thou live
+Unchangeable! A shrine is rais'd to thee,
+Which, nor the tempest-breath of time,
+Nor the interminable flood
+Over earth's slight pageant rolling,
+Availeth to destroy--
+The sensitive extension of the world.
+That wondrous and eternal fane,
+Where pain and pleasure, good and evil join,
+To do the will of strong necessity,
+And life, in multitudinous shapes,
+Still pressing forward where no term can be,
+Like hungry and unresting flame
+Curls round the eternal columns of its strength."
 </poem>
 ++++
 ++++62	And like a Dying Lady, Lean and Pale|
-<poem></poem>
+<poem>And like a dying lady, lean and pale,
+Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,
+Out of her chamber, led by the insane
+And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
+The moon arose up in the murky East,
+A white and shapeless mass</poem>
 ++++
 ++++63	Lines|
+<poem>WHEN the lamp is shatter'd,
+The light in the dust lies dead;
+When the cloud is scatter'd,
+The rainbow's glory is shed;
+When the lute is broken,
+Sweet tones are remember'd not
+When the lips have spoken,
+Loved accents are soon forgot.
+As music and splendour
+Survive not the lamp and the lute,
+The heart's echoes render
+No song when the spirit is mute--
+No song but sad dirges,
+Like the wind through a ruin'd cell,
+Or the mournful surges
+That ring the dead seaman's knell.
+When hearts have once mingled,
+Love first leaves the well-built nest;
+The weak one is singled
+To endure what it once possest.
+O Love, who bewailest
+The frailty of all things here,
+Why choose you the frailest
+For your cradle, your home, and your bier?
+Its passions will rock thee,
+As the storms rock the ravens on high:
+Bright reason will mock thee,
+Like the sun from a wintry sky.
+From thy nest every rafter
+Will rot, and thine eagle home
+Leave thee naked to laughter,
+When leaves fall and cold winds come.</poem>
 ++++
 ++++64	To Coleridge|
+<poem>Oh! there are spirits of the air,
+And genii of the evening breeze,
+And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
+As star-beams among twilight trees:
+Such lovely ministers to meet
+Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
+With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
+And moonlight seas, that are the voice
+Of these inexplicable things,
+Thou dost hold commune, and rejoice
+When they did answer thee, but they
+Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.
+And thou hast sought in starry eyes
+Beams that were never meant for thine,
+Another's wealth: tame sacrifice
+To a fond faith ! still dost thou pine?
+Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
+Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?
+Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
+On the false earth's inconstancy?
+Did thine own mind afford no scope
+Of love, or moving thoughts to thee?
+That natural scenes or human smiles
+Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?
+Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled
+Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;
+The glory of the moon is dead;
+Night's ghosts and dreams have now departed;
+Thine own soul still is true to thee,
+But changed to a foul fiend through misery.
+This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
+Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,
+Dream not to chase: the mad endeavour
+Would scourge thee to severer pangs.
+Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
+Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.
+</poem>
 ++++
 ++++65	Song: Rarely, rarely, comest thou|
+<poem>Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
+Spirit of Delight!
+Wherefore hast thou left me now
+Many a day and night?
+Many a weary night and day
+'Tis since thou are fled away.
+How shall ever one like me
+Win thee back again?
+With the joyous and the free
+Thou wilt scoff at pain.
+Spirit false! thou hast forgot
+All but those who need thee not.
+As a lizard with the shade
+Of a trembling leaf,
+Thou with sorrow art dismay'd;
+Even the sighs of grief
+Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
+And reproach thou wilt not hear.
+Let me set my mournful ditty
+To a merry measure;
+Thou wilt never come for pity,
+Thou wilt come for pleasure;
+Pity then will cut away
+Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
+I love all that thou lovest,
+Spirit of Delight!
+The fresh Earth in new leaves dress'd,
+And the starry night;
+Autumn evening, and the morn
+When the golden mists are born.
+I love snow, and all the forms
+Of the radiant frost;
+I love waves, and winds, and storms,
+Everything almost
+Which is Nature's, and may be
+Untainted by man's misery.
+I love tranquil solitude,
+And such society
+As is quiet, wise, and good;
+Between thee and me
+What difference? but thou dost possess
+The things I seek, not love them less.
+I love Love--though he has wings,
+And like light can flee,
+But above all other things,
+Spirit, I love thee--
+Thou art love and life! Oh come,
+Make once more my heart thy home.</poem>
 ++++
 ++++66	A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire|
+<poem>THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
+Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray,
+And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair
+In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:
+Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,
+Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
+They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
+Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
+Light, sound, and motion, own the potent sway,
+Responding to the charm with its own mystery.
+The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass
+Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.
+Thou too, aerial pile, whose pinnacles
+Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
+Obey'st I in silence their sweet solemn spells,
+Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
+Around whose lessening and invisible height
+Gather among the stars the clouds of night.
+The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:
+And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,
+Half sense half thought, among the darkness stirs,
+Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,
+And, mingling with the still night and mute sky,
+Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.
+Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild
+And terrorless as this serenest night.
+Here could I hope, like some enquiring child
+Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight
+Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep
+That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.</poem>
 ++++
 ++++67	One sung of thee who left the tale untold|
+<poem>One sung of thee who left the tale untold,
+Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting;
+Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,
+Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.
+</poem>
 ++++
 ++++68	Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici|
+<poem>She left me at the silent time
+When the moon had ceas'd to climb
+The azure path of Heaven's steep,
+And like an albatross asleep,
+Balanc'd on her wings of light,
+Hover'd in the purple night,
+Ere she sought her ocean nest
+In the chambers of the West.
+She left me, and I stay'd alone
+Thinking over every tone
+Which, though silent to the ear,
+The enchanted heart could hear,
+Like notes which die when born, but still
+Haunt the echoes of the hill;
+And feeling ever--oh, too much!--
+The soft vibration of her touch,
+As if her gentle hand, even now,
+Lightly trembled on my brow;
+And thus, although she absent were,
+Memory gave me all of her
+That even Fancy dares to claim:
+Her presence had made weak and tame
+All passions, and I lived alone
+In the time which is our own;
+The past and future were forgot,
+As they had been, and would be, not.
+But soon, the guardian angel gone,
+The daemon reassum'd his throne
+In my faint heart. I dare not speak
+My thoughts, but thus disturb'd and weak
+I sat and saw the vessels glide
+Over the ocean bright and wide,
+Like spirit-winged chariots sent
+O'er some serenest element
+For ministrations strange and far,
+As if to some Elysian star
+Sailed for drink to medicine
+Such sweet and bitter pain as mine.
+And the wind that wing'd their flight
+From the land came fresh and light,
+And the scent of winged flowers,
+And the coolness of the hours
+Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day,
+Were scatter'd o'er the twinkling bay.
+And the fisher with his lamp
+And spear about the low rocks damp
+Crept, and struck the fish which came
+To worship the delusive flame.
+Too happy they, whose pleasure sought
+Extinguishes all sense and thought
+Of the regret that pleasure leaves,
+Destroying life alone, not peace!</poem>
 ++++
 ++++69	From "Adonais," 49-52|
+<poem>49
+Go thou to Rome,--at once the Paradise,
+The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
+And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
+And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
+The bones of Desolation's nakedness
+Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
+Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
+Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
+A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread;
+And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time
+Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;
+And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,
+Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
+This refuge for his memory, doth stand
+Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath,
+A field is spread, on which a newer band
+Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death,
+Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.
+Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet
+To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned
+Its charge to each; and if the seal is set,
+Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,
+Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find
+Thine own well full, if thou returnest home,
+Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind
+Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.
+What Adonais is, why fear we to become?
+The One remains, the many change and pass;
+Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
+Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
+Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
+Until Death tramples it to fragments.--Die,
+If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
+Follow where all is fled!--Rome's azure sky,
+Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak
+The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.</poem>
 ++++
 ++++70	Archy's Song from Charles the First|
+<poem>Heigho! the lark and the owl!
+One flies the morning, and one lulls the night:
+Only the nightingale, poor fond soul,
+Sings like the fool through darkness and light.
+"A widow bird sate mourning for her love
+Upon a wintry bough;
+The frozen wind crept on above,
+The freezing stream below.
+"There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
+No flower upon the ground,
+And little motion in the air
+Except the mill-wheel's sound."</poem>
 ++++
 ++++71	Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue|
+<poem>ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child.
+SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como.
+HELEN
+Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.
+'T is long since thou and I have met;
+And yet methinks it were unkind
+Those moments to forget.
+Come, sit by me. I see thee stand
+By this lone lake, in this far land,
+Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,
+Thy sweet voice to each tone of even
+United, and thine eyes replying
+To the hues of yon fair heaven.
+Come, gentle friend! wilt sit by me?
+And be as thou wert wont to be
+Ere we were disunited?
+None doth behold us now; the power
+That led us forth at this lone hour
+Will be but ill requited
+If thou depart in scorn. Oh, come,
+And talk of our abandoned home!
+Remember, this is Italy,
+And we are exiles. Talk with me
+Of that our land, whose wilds and floods,
+Barren and dark although they be,
+Were dearer than these chestnut woods;
+Those heathy paths, that inland stream,
+And the blue mountains, shapes which seem
+Like wrecks of childhood's sunny dream;
+Which that we have abandoned now,
+Weighs on the heart like that remorse
+Which altered friendship leaves. I seek
+No more our youthful intercourse.
+That cannot be! Rosalind, speak,
+Speak to me! Leave me not! When morn did come,
+When evening fell upon our common home,
+When for one hour we parted,--do not frown;
+I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken;
+But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token
+Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,
+Turn, as 't were but the memory of me,
+And not my scornèd self who prayed to thee!
+ROSALIND
+Is it a dream, or do I see
+And hear frail Helen? I would flee
+Thy tainting touch; but former years
+Arise, and bring forbidden tears;
+And my o'erburdened memory
+Seeks yet its lost repose in thee.
+I share thy crime. I cannot choose
+But weep for thee; mine own strange grief
+But seldom stoops to such relief;
+Nor ever did I love thee less,
+Though mourning o'er thy wickedness
+Even with a sister's woe. I knew
+What to the evil world is due,
+And therefore sternly did refuse
+To link me with the infamy
+Of one so lost as Helen. Now,
+Bewildered by my dire despair,
+Wondering I blush, and weep that thou
+Shouldst love me still--thou only!--There,
+Let us sit on that gray stone
+Till our mournful talk be done.
+HELEN
+Alas! not there; I cannot bear
+The murmur of this lake to hear.
+A sound from there, Rosalind dear,
+Which never yet I heard elsewhere
+But in our native land, recurs,
+Even here where now we meet. It stirs
+Too much of suffocating sorrow!
+In the dell of yon dark chestnut wood
+Is a stone seat, a solitude
+Less like our own. The ghost of peace
+Will not desert this spot. To-morrow,
+If thy kind feelings should not cease,
+We may sit here.
+ROSALIND
+Thou lead, my sweet,
+And I will follow.
+HENRY
+'T is Fenici's seat
+Where you are going? This is not the way,
+Mamma; it leads behind those trees that grow
+Close to the little river.
+HELEN
+Yes, I know;
+I was bewildered. Kiss me and be gay,
+Dear boy; why do you sob?
+HENRY
+I do not know;
+But it might break any one's heart to see
+You and the lady cry so bitterly.
+HELEN
+It is a gentle child, my friend. Go home,
+Henry, and play with Lilla till I come.
+We only cried with joy to see each other;
+We are quite merry now. Good night.
+The boy
+Lifted a sudden look upon his mother,
+And, in the gleam of forced and hollow joy
+Which lightened o'er her face, laughed with the glee
+Of light and unsuspecting infancy,
+And whispered in her ear, 'Bring home with you
+That sweet strange lady-friend.' Then off he flew,
+But stopped, and beckoned with a meaning smile,
+Where the road turned. Pale Rosalind the while,
+Hiding her face, stood weeping silently.
+In silence then they took the way
+Beneath the forest's solitude.
+It was a vast and antique wood,
+Through which they took their way;
+And the gray shades of evening
+O'er that green wilderness did fling
+Still deeper solitude.
+Pursuing still the path that wound
+The vast and knotted trees around,
+Through which slow shades were wandering,
+To a deep lawny dell they came,
+To a stone seat beside a spring,
+O'er which the columned wood did frame
+A roofless temple, like the fane
+Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain,
+Man's early race once knelt beneath
+The overhanging deity.
+O'er this fair fountain hung the sky,
+Now spangled with rare stars. The snake,
+The pale snake, that with eager breath
+Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake,
+Is beaming with many a mingled hue,
+Shed from yon dome's eternal blue,
+When he floats on that dark and lucid flood
+In the light of his own loveliness;
+And the birds, that in the fountain dip
+Their plumes, with fearless fellowship
+Above and round him wheel and hover.
+The fitful wind is heard to stir
+One solitary leaf on high;
+The chirping of the grasshopper
+Fills every pause. There is emotion
+In all that dwells at noontide here;
+Then through the intricate wild wood
+A maze of life and light and motion
+Is woven. But there is stillness now--
+Gloom, and the trance of Nature now.
+The snake is in his cave asleep;
+The birds are on the branches dreaming;
+Only the shadows creep;
+Only the glow-worm is gleaming;
+Only the owls and the nightingales
+Wake in this dell when daylight fails,
+And gray shades gather in the woods;
+And the owls have all fled far away
+In a merrier glen to hoot and play,
+For the moon is veiled and sleeping now.
+The accustomed nightingale still broods
+On her accustomed bough,
+But she is mute; for her false mate
+Has fled and left her desolate.
+This silent spot tradition old
+Had peopled with the spectral dead.
+For the roots of the speaker's hair felt cold
+And stiff, as with tremulous lips he told
+That a hellish shape at midnight led
+The ghost of a youth with hoary hair,
+And sate on the seat beside him there,
+Till a naked child came wandering by,
+When the fiend would change to a lady fair!
+A fearful tale! the truth was worse;
+For here a sister and a brother
+Had solemnized a monstrous curse,
+Meeting in this fair solitude;
+For beneath yon very sky,
+Had they resigned to one another
+Body and soul. The multitude,
+Tracking them to the secret wood,
+Tore limb from limb their innocent child,
+And stabbed and trampled on its mother;
+But the youth, for God's most holy grace,
+A priest saved to burn in the market-place.
+Duly at evening Helen came
+To this lone silent spot,
+From the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrow
+So much of sympathy to borrow
+As soothed her own dark lot.
+Duly each evening from her home,
+With her fair child would Helen come
+To sit upon that antique seat,
+While the hues of day were pale;
+And the bright boy beside her feet
+Now lay, lifting at intervals
+His broad blue eyes on her;
+Now, where some sudden impulse calls,
+Following. He was a gentle boy
+And in all gentle sorts took joy.
+Oft in a dry leaf for a boat,
+With a small feather for a sail,
+His fancy on that spring would float,
+If some invisible breeze might stir
+Its marble calm; and Helen smiled
+Through tears of awe on the gay child,
+To think that a boy as fair as he,
+In years which never more may be,
+By that same fount, in that same wood,
+The like sweet fancies had pursued;
+And that a mother, lost like her,
+Had mournfully sate watching him.
+Then all the scene was wont to swim
+Through the mist of a burning tear.
+For many months had Helen known
+This scene; and now she thither turned
+Her footsteps, not alone.
+The friend whose falsehood she had mourned
+Sate with her on that seat of stone.
+Silent they sate; for evening,
+And the power its glimpses bring,
+Had with one awful shadow quelled
+The passion of their grief. They sate
+With linkèd hands, for unrepelled
+Had Helen taken Rosalind's.
+Like the autumn wind, when it unbinds
+The tangled locks of the nightshade's hair
+Which is twined in the sultry summer air
+Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre,
+Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet,
+And the sound of her heart that ever beat
+As with sighs and words she breathed on her,
+Unbind the knots of her friend's despair,
+Till her thoughts were free to float and flow;
+And from her laboring bosom now,
+Like the bursting of a prisoned flame,
+The voice of a long-pent sorrow came.
+ROSALIND
+I saw the dark earth fall upon
+The coffin; and I saw the stone
+Laid over him whom this cold breast
+Had pillowed to his nightly rest!
+Thou knowest not, thou canst not know
+My agony. Oh! I could not weep.
+The sources whence such blessings flow
+Were not to be approached by me!
+But I could smile, and I could sleep,
+Though with a self-accusing heart.
+In morning's light, in evening's gloom,
+I watched--and would not thence depart--
+My husband's unlamented tomb.
+My children knew their sire was gone;
+But when I told them, 'He is dead,'
+They laughed aloud in frantic glee,
+They clapped their hands and leaped about,
+Answering each other's ecstasy
+With many a prank and merry shout.
+But I sate silent and alone,
+Wrapped in the mock of mourning weed.
+They laughed, for he was dead; but I
+Sate with a hard and tearless eye,
+And with a heart which would deny
+The secret joy it could not quell,
+Low muttering o'er his loathèd name;
+Till from that self-contention came
+Remorse where sin was none; a hell
+Which in pure spirits should not dwell.
+I 'll tell thee truth. He was a man
+Hard, selfish, loving only gold,
+Yet full of guile; his pale eyes ran
+With tears which each some falsehood told,
+And oft his smooth and bridled tongue
+Would give the lie to his flushing cheek;
+He was a coward to the strong;
+He was a tyrant to the weak,
+On whom his vengeance he would wreak;
+For scorn, whose arrows search the heart,
+From many a stranger's eye would dart,
+And on his memory cling, and follow
+His soul to its home so cold and hollow.
+He was a tyrant to the weak,
+And we were such, alas the day!
+Oft, when my little ones at play
+Were in youth's natural lightness gay,
+Or if they listened to some tale
+Of travellers, or of fairyland,
+When the light from the wood-fire's dying brand
+Flashed on their faces,--if they heard
+Or thought they heard upon the stair
+His footstep, the suspended word
+Died on my lips; we all grew pale;
+The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear
+If it thought it heard its father near;
+And my two wild boys would near my knee
+Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully.
+I 'll tell thee truth: I loved another.
+His name in my ear was ever ringing,
+His form to my brain was ever clinging;
+Yet, if some stranger breathed that name,
+My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast.
+My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame,
+My days were dim in the shadow cast
+By the memory of the same!
+Day and night, day and night,
+He was my breath and life and light,
+For three short years, which soon were passed.
+On the fourth, my gentle mother
+Led me to the shrine, to be
+His sworn bride eternally.
+And now we stood on the altar stair,
+When my father came from a distant land,
+And with a loud and fearful cry
+Rushed between us suddenly.
+I saw the stream of his thin gray hair,
+I saw his lean and lifted hand,
+And heard his words--and live! O God!
+Wherefore do I live?--'Hold, hold!'
+He cried, 'I tell thee 't is her brother!
+Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod
+Of yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold;
+I am now weak, and pale, and old;
+We were once dear to one another,
+I and that corpse! Thou art our child!'
+Then with a laugh both long and wild
+The youth upon the pavement fell.
+They found him dead! All looked on me,
+The spasms of my despair to see;
+But I was calm. I went away;
+I was clammy-cold like clay.
+I did not weep; I did not speak;
+But day by day, week after week,
+I walked about like a corpse alive.
+Alas! sweet friend, you must believe
+This heart is stone--it did not break.
+My father lived a little while,
+But all might see that he was dying,
+He smiled with such a woful smile.
+When he was in the churchyard lying
+Among the worms, we grew quite poor,
+So that no one would give us bread;
+My mother looked at me, and said
+Faint words of cheer, which only meant
+That she could die and be content;
+So I went forth from the same church door
+To another husband's bed.
+And this was he who died at last,
+When weeks and months and years had passed,
+Through which I firmly did fulfil
+My duties, a devoted wife,
+With the stern step of vanquished will
+Walking beneath the night of life,
+Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain
+Falling forever, pain by pain,
+The very hope of death's dear rest;
+Which, since the heart within my breast
+Of natural life was dispossessed,
+Its strange sustainer there had been.
+When flowers were dead, and grass was green
+Upon my mother's grave--that mother
+Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make
+My wan eyes glitter for her sake,
+Was my vowed task, the single care
+Which once gave life to my despair--
+When she was a thing that did not stir,
+And the crawling worms were cradling her
+To a sleep more deep and so more sweet
+Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee,
+I lived; a living pulse then beat
+Beneath my heart that awakened me.
+What was this pulse so warm and free?
+Alas! I knew it could not be
+My own dull blood. 'T was like a thought
+Of liquid love, that spread and wrought
+Under my bosom and in my brain,
+And crept with the blood through every vein,
+And hour by hour, day after day,
+The wonder could not charm away
+But laid in sleep my wakeful pain,
+Until I knew it was a child,
+And then I wept. For long, long years
+These frozen eyes had shed no tears;
+But now--'t was the season fair and mild
+When April has wept itself to May;
+I sate through the sweet sunny day
+By my window bowered round with leaves,
+And down my cheeks the quick tears ran
+Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves,
+When warm spring showers are passing o'er.
+O Helen, none can ever tell
+The joy it was to weep once more!
+I wept to think how hard it were
+To kill my babe, and take from it
+The sense of light, and the warm air,
+And my own fond and tender care,
+And love and smiles; ere I knew yet
+That these for it might, as for me,
+Be the masks of a grinning mockery.
+And haply, I would dream, 't were sweet
+To feed it from my faded breast,
+Or mark my own heart's restless beat
+And watch the growing soul beneath
+Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,
+Half interrupted by calm sighs,
+And search the depth of its fair eyes
+For long departed memories!
+And so I lived till that sweet load
+Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed
+The stream of years, and on it bore
+Two shapes of gladness to my sight;
+Two other babes, delightful more,
+In my lost soul's abandoned night,
+Than their own country ships may be
+Sailing towards wrecked mariners
+Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea.
+For each, as it came, brought soothing tears;
+And a loosening warmth, as each one lay
+Sucking the sullen milk away,
+About my frozen heart did play,
+And weaned it, oh, how painfully--
+As they themselves were weaned each one
+From that sweet food--even from the thirst
+Of death, and nothingness, and rest,
+Strange inmate of a living breast,
+Which all that I had undergone
+Of grief and shame, since she who first
+The gates of that dark refuge closed
+Came to my sight, and almost burst
+The seal of that Lethean spring--
+But these fair shadows interposed.
+For all delights are shadows now!
+And from my brain to my dull brow
+The heavy tears gather and flow.
+I cannot speak--oh, let me weep!
+The tears which fell from her wan eyes
+Glimmered among the moonlight dew.
+Her deep hard sobs and heavy sighs
+Their echoes in the darkness threw.
+When she grew calm, she thus did keep
+The tenor of her tale:--
+He died;
+I know not how; he was not old,
+If age be numbered by its years;
+But he was bowed and bent with fears,
+Pale with the quenchless thirst of gold,
+Which, like fierce fever, left him weak;
+And his strait lip and bloated cheek
+Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers;
+And selfish cares with barren plough,
+Not age, had lined his narrow brow,
+And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed
+Upon the withering life within,
+Like vipers on some poisonous weed.
+Whether his ill were death or sin
+None knew, until he died indeed,
+And then men owned they were the same.
+Seven days within my chamber lay
+That corse, and my babes made holiday.
+At last, I told them what is death.
+The eldest, with a kind of shame,
+Came to my knees with silent breath,
+And sate awe-stricken at my feet;
+And soon the others left their play,
+And sate there too. It is unmeet
+To shed on the brief flower of youth
+The withering knowledge of the grave.
+From me remorse then wrung that truth.
+I could not bear the joy which gave
+Too just a response to mine own.
+In vain. I dared not feign a groan;
+And in their artless looks I saw,
+Between the mists of fear and awe,
+That my own thought was theirs; and they
+Expressed it not in words, but said,
+Each in its heart, how every day
+Will pass in happy work and play,
+Now he is dead and gone away!
+After the funeral all our kin
+Assembled, and the will was read.
+My friend, I tell thee, even the dead
+Have strength, their putrid shrouds within,
+To blast and torture. Those who live
+Still fear the living, but a corse
+Is merciless, and Power doth give
+To such pale tyrants half the spoil
+He rends from those who groan and toil,
+Because they blush not with remorse
+Among their crawling worms. Behold,
+I have no child! my tale grows old
+With grief, and staggers; let it reach
+The limits of my feeble speech,
+And languidly at length recline
+On the brink of its own grave and mine.
+Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty
+Among the fallen on evil days.
+'T is Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,
+And houseless Want in frozen ways
+Wandering ungarmented, and Pain,
+And, worse than all, that inward stain,
+Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers
+Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears
+First like hot gall, then dry forever!
+And well thou knowest a mother never
+Could doom her children to this ill,
+And well he knew the same. The will
+Imported that, if e'er again
+I sought my children to behold,
+Or in my birthplace did remain
+Beyond three days, whose hours were told,
+They should inherit nought; and he,
+To whom next came their patrimony,
+A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold,
+Aye watched me, as the will was read,
+With eyes askance, which sought to see
+The secrets of my agony;
+And with close lips and anxious brow
+Stood canvassing still to and fro
+The chance of my resolve, and all
+The dead man's caution just did call;
+For in that killing lie 't was said--
+'She is adulterous, and doth hold
+In secret that the Christian creed
+Is false, and therefore is much need
+That I should have a care to save
+My children from eternal fire.'
+Friend, he was sheltered by the grave,
+And therefore dared to be a liar!
+In truth, the Indian on the pyre
+Of her dead husband, half consumed,
+As well might there be false as I
+To those abhorred embraces doomed,
+Far worse than fire's brief agony.
+As to the Christian creed, if true
+Or false, I never questioned it;
+I took it as the vulgar do;
+Nor my vexed soul had leisure yet
+To doubt the things men say, or deem
+That they are other than they seem.
+All present who those crimes did hear,
+In feigned or actual scorn and fear,
+Men, women, children, slunk away,
+Whispering with self-contented pride
+Which half suspects its own base lie.
+I spoke to none, nor did abide,
+But silently I went my way,
+Nor noticed I where joyously
+Sate my two younger babes at play
+In the courtyard through which I passed;
+But went with footsteps firm and fast
+Till I came to the brink of the ocean green,
+And there, a woman with gray hairs,
+Who had my mother's servant been,
+Kneeling, with many tears and prayers,
+Made me accept a purse of gold,
+Half of the earnings she had kept
+To refuge her when weak and old.
+With woe, which never sleeps or slept,
+I wander now. 'T is a vain thought--
+But on yon Alp, whose snowy head
+'Mid the azure air is islanded,
+(We see it--o'er the flood of cloud,
+Which sunrise from its eastern caves
+Drives, wrinkling into golden waves,
+Hung with its precipices proud--
+From that gray stone where first we met)
+There--now who knows the dead feel nought?--
+Should be my grave; for he who yet
+Is my soul's soul once said: ''T were sweet
+'Mid stars and lightnings to abide,
+And winds, and lulling snows that beat
+With their soft flakes the mountain wide,
+Where weary meteor lamps repose,
+And languid storms their pinions close,
+And all things strong and bright and pure,
+And ever during, aye endure.
+Who knows, if one were buried there,
+But these things might our spirits make,
+Amid the all-surrounding air,
+Their own eternity partake?'
+Then 't was a wild and playful saying
+At which I laughed or seemed to laugh.
+They were his words--now heed my praying,
+And let them be my epitaph.
+Thy memory for a term may be
+My monument. Wilt remember me?
+I know thou wilt; and canst forgive,
+Whilst in this erring world to live
+My soul disdained not, that I thought
+Its lying forms were worthy aught,
+And much less thee.
+HELEN
+Oh, speak not so!
+But come to me and pour thy woe
+Into this heart, full though it be,
+Aye overflowing with its own.
+I thought that grief had severed me
+From all beside who weep and groan,
+Its likeness upon earth to be--
+Its express image; but thou art
+More wretched. Sweet, we will not part
+Henceforth, if death be not division;
+If so, the dead feel no contrition.
+But wilt thou hear, since last we parted,
+All that has left me broken-hearted?
+ROSALIND
+Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn
+Of their thin beams by that delusive morn
+Which sinks again in darkness, like the light
+Of early love, soon lost in total night.
+HELEN
+Alas! Italian winds are mild,
+But my bosom is cold--wintry cold;
+When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves,
+Soft music, my poor brain is wild,
+And I am weak like a nursling child,
+Though my soul with grief is gray and old.
+ROSALIND
+Weep not at thine own words, though they must make
+Me weep. What is thy tale?
+HELEN
+I fear 't will shake
+Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well
+Rememberest when we met no more;
+And, though I dwelt with Lionel,
+That friendless caution pierced me sore
+With grief; a wound my spirit bore
+Indignantly--but when he died,
+With him lay dead both hope and pride.
+Alas! all hope is buried now.
+But then men dreamed the aged earth
+Was laboring in that mighty birth
+Which many a poet and a sage
+Has aye foreseen--the happy age
+When truth and love shall dwell below
+Among the works and ways of men;
+Which on this world not power but will
+Even now is wanting to fulfil.
+Among mankind what thence befell
+Of strife, how vain, is known too well;
+When Liberty's dear pæan fell
+'Mid murderous howls. To Lionel,
+Though of great wealth and lineage high,
+Yet through those dungeon walls there came
+Thy thrilling light, O Liberty!
+And as the meteor's midnight flame
+Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth
+Flashed on his visionary youth,
+And filled him, not with love, but faith,
+And hope, and courage mute in death;
+For love and life in him were twins,
+Born at one birth. In every other
+First life, then love, its course begins,
+Though they be children of one mother;
+And so through this dark world they fleet
+Divided, till in death they meet;
+But he loved all things ever. Then
+He passed amid the strife of men,
+And stood at the throne of armèd power
+Pleading for a world of woe.
+Secure as one on a rock-built tower
+O'er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro,
+'Mid the passions wild of humankind
+He stood, like a spirit calming them;
+For, it was said, his words could bind
+Like music the lulled crowd, and stem
+That torrent of unquiet dream
+Which mortals truth and reason deem,
+But is revenge and fear and pride.
+Joyous he was; and hope and peace
+On all who heard him did abide,
+Raining like dew from his sweet talk,
+As where the evening star may walk
+Along the brink of the gloomy seas,
+Liquid mists of splendor quiver.
+His very gestures touched to tears
+The unpersuaded tyrant, never
+So moved before; his presence stung
+The torturers with their victim's pain,
+And none knew how; and through their ears
+The subtle witchcraft of his tongue
+Unlocked the hearts of those who keep
+Gold, the world's bond of slavery.
+Men wondered, and some sneered to see
+One sow what he could never reap;
+For he is rich, they said, and young,
+And might drink from the depths of luxury.
+If he seeks fame, fame never crowned
+The champion of a trampled creed;
+If he seeks power, power is enthroned
+'Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feed
+Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil
+Those who would sit near power must toil;
+And such, there sitting, all may see.
+What seeks he? All that others seek
+He casts away, like a vile weed
+Which the sea casts unreturningly.
+That poor and hungry men should break
+The laws which wreak them toil and scorn
+We understand; but Lionel,
+We know, is rich and nobly born.
+So wondered they; yet all men loved
+Young Lionel, though few approved;
+All but the priests, whose hatred fell
+Like the unseen blight of a smiling day,
+The withering honey-dew which clings
+Under the bright green buds of May
+Whilst they unfold their emerald wings;
+For he made verses wild and queer
+On the strange creeds priests hold so dear
+Because they bring them land and gold.
+Of devils and saints and all such gear
+He made tales which whoso heard or read
+Would laugh till he were almost dead.
+So this grew a proverb: 'Don't get old
+Till Lionel's Banquet in Hell you hear,
+And then you will laugh yourself young again.'
+So the priests hated him, and he
+Repaid their hate with cheerful glee.
+Ah, smiles and joyance quickly died,
+For public hope grew pale and dim
+In an altered time and tide,
+And in its wasting withered him,
+As a summer flower that blows too soon
+Droops in the smile of the waning moon,
+When it scatters through an April night
+The frozen dews of wrinkling blight.
+None now hoped more. Gray Power was seated
+Safely on her ancestral throne;
+And Faith, the Python, undefeated
+Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on
+Her foul and wounded train; and men
+Were trampled and deceived again,
+And words and shows again could bind
+The wailing tribes of humankind
+In scorn and famine. Fire and blood
+Raged round the raging multitude,
+To fields remote by tyrants sent
+To be the scornèd instrument
+With which they drag from mines of gore
+The chains their slaves yet ever wore;
+And in the streets men met each other,
+And by old altars and in halls,
+And smiled again at festivals.
+But each man found in his heart's brother
+Cold cheer; for all, though half deceived,
+The outworn creeds again believed,
+And the same round anew began
+Which the weary world yet ever ran.
+Many then wept, not tears, but gall,
+Within their hearts, like drops which fall
+Wasting the fountain-stone away.
+And in that dark and evil day
+Did all desires and thoughts that claim
+Men's care--ambition, friendship, fame,
+Love, hope, though hope was now despair--
+Indue the colors of this change,
+As from the all-surrounding air
+The earth takes hues obscure and strange,
+When storm and earthquake linger there.
+And so, my friend, it then befell
+To many,--most to Lionel,
+Whose hope was like the life of youth
+Within him, and when dead became
+A spirit of unresting flame,
+Which goaded him in his distress
+Over the world's vast wilderness.
+Three years he left his native land,
+And on the fourth, when he returned,
+None knew him; he was stricken deep
+With some disease of mind, and turned
+Into aught unlike Lionel.
+On him--on whom, did he pause in sleep,
+Serenest smiles were wont to keep,
+And, did he wake, a wingèd band
+Of bright Persuasions, which had fed
+On his sweet lips and liquid eyes,
+Kept their swift pinions half outspread
+To do on men his least command--
+On him, whom once 't was paradise
+Even to behold, now misery lay.
+In his own heart 't was merciless--
+To all things else none may express
+Its innocence and tenderness.
+'T was said that he had refuge sought
+In love from his unquiet thought
+In distant lands, and been deceived
+By some strange show; for there were found,
+Blotted with tears--as those relieved
+By their own words are wont to do--
+These mournful verses on the ground,
+By all who read them blotted too.
+'How am I changed! my hopes were once like fire;
+I loved, and I believed that life was love.
+How am I lost! on wings of swift desire
+Among Heaven's winds my spirit once did move.
+I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire
+My liquid sleep; I woke, and did approve
+All Nature to my heart, and thought to make
+A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.
+'I love, but I believe in love no more.
+I feel desire, but hope not. Oh, from sleep
+Most vainly must my weary brain implore
+Its long lost flattery now! I wake to weep,
+And sit through the long day gnawing the core
+Of my bitter heart, and, like a miser, keep--
+Since none in what I feel take pain or pleasure--
+To my own soul its self-consuming treasure.'
+He dwelt beside me near the sea;
+And oft in evening did we meet,
+When the waves, beneath the starlight, flee
+O'er the yellow sands with silver feet,
+And talked. Our talk was sad and sweet,
+Till slowly from his mien there passed
+The desolation which it spoke;
+And smiles--as when the lightning's blast
+Has parched some heaven-delighting oak,
+The next spring shows leaves pale and rare,
+But like flowers delicate and fair,
+On its rent boughs--again arrayed
+His countenance in tender light;
+His words grew subtle fire, which made
+The air his hearers breathed delight;
+His motions, like the winds, were free,
+Which bend the bright grass gracefully,
+Then fade away in circlets faint;
+And wingèd Hope--on which upborne
+His soul seemed hovering in his eyes,
+Like some bright spirit newly born
+Floating amid the sunny skies--
+Sprang forth from his rent heart anew.
+Yet o'er his talk, and looks, and mien,
+Tempering their loveliness too keen,
+Past woe its shadow backward threw;
+Till, like an exhalation spread
+From flowers half drunk with evening dew,
+They did become infectious--sweet
+And subtle mists of sense and thought,
+Which wrapped us soon, when we might meet,
+Almost from our own looks and aught
+The wild world holds. And so his mind
+Was healed, while mine grew sick with fear;
+For ever now his health declined,
+Like some frail bark which cannot bear
+The impulse of an altered wind,
+Though prosperous; and my heart grew full,
+'Mid its new joy, of a new care;
+For his cheek became, not pale, but fair,
+As rose-o'ershadowed lilies are;
+And soon his deep and sunny hair,
+In this alone less beautiful,
+Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare.
+The blood in his translucent veins
+Beat, not like animal life, but love
+Seemed now its sullen springs to move,
+When life had failed, and all its pains;
+And sudden sleep would seize him oft
+Like death, so calm,--but that a tear,
+His pointed eye-lashes between,
+Would gather in the light serene
+Of smiles whose lustre bright and soft
+Beneath lay undulating there.
+His breath was like inconstant flame
+As eagerly it went and came;
+And I hung o'er him in his sleep,
+Till, like an image in the lake
+Which rains disturb, my tears would break
+The shadow of that slumber deep.
+Then he would bid me not to weep,
+And say, with flattery false yet sweet,
+That death and he could never meet,
+If I would never part with him.
+And so we loved, and did unite
+All that in us was yet divided;
+For when he said, that many a rite,
+By men to bind but once provided,
+Could not be shared by him and me,
+Or they would kill him in their glee,
+I shuddered, and then laughing said--
+'We will have rites our faith to bind,
+But our church shall be the starry night,
+Our altar the grassy earth outspread,
+And our priest the muttering wind.'
+'T was sunset as I spoke. One star
+Had scarce burst forth, when from afar
+The ministers of misrule sent
+Seized upon Lionel, and bore
+His chained limbs to a dreary tower,
+In the midst of a city vast and wide.
+For he, they said, from his mind had bent
+Against their gods keen blasphemy,
+For which, though his soul must roasted be
+In hell's red lakes immortally,
+Yet even on earth must he abide
+The vengeance of their slaves: a trial,
+I think, men call it. What avail
+Are prayers and tears, which chase denial
+From the fierce savage nursed in hate?
+What the knit soul that pleading and pale
+Makes wan the quivering cheek which late
+It painted with its own delight?
+We were divided. As I could,
+I stilled the tingling of my blood,
+And followed him in their despite,
+As a widow follows, pale and wild,
+The murderers and corse of her only child;
+And when we came to the prison door,
+And I prayed to share his dungeon floor
+With prayers which rarely have been spurned,
+And when men drove me forth, and I
+Stared with blank frenzy on the sky,--
+A farewell look of love he turned,
+Half calming me; then gazed awhile,
+As if through that black and massy pile,
+And through the crowd around him there,
+And through the dense and murky air,
+And the thronged streets, he did espy
+What poets know and prophesy;
+And said, with voice that made them shiver
+And clung like music in my brain,
+And which the mute walls spoke again
+Prolonging it with deepened strain--
+'Fear not the tyrants shall rule forever,
+Or the priests of the bloody faith;
+They stand on the brink of that mighty river,
+Whose waves they have tainted with death;
+It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
+Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,
+And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
+Like wrecks, in the surge of eternity.'
+I dwelt beside the prison gate;
+And the strange crowd that out and in
+Passed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate,
+Might have fretted me with its ceaseless din,
+But the fever of care was louder within.
+Soon but too late, in penitence
+Or fear, his foes released him thence.
+I saw his thin and languid form,
+As leaning on the jailor's arm,
+Whose hardened eyes grew moist the while
+To meet his mute and faded smile
+And hear his words of kind farewell,
+He tottered forth from his damp cell.
+Many had never wept before,
+From whom fast tears then gushed and fell;
+Many will relent no more,
+Who sobbed like infants then; ay, all
+Who thronged the prison's stony hall,
+The rulers or the slaves of law,
+Felt with a new surprise and awe
+That they were human, till strong shame
+Made them again become the same.
+The prison bloodhounds, huge and grim,
+From human looks the infection caught,
+And fondly crouched and fawned on him;
+And men have heard the prisoners say,
+Who in their rotting dungeons lay,
+That from that hour, throughout one day,
+The fierce despair and hate which kept
+Their trampled bosoms almost slept,
+Where, like twin vultures, they hung feeding
+On each heart's wound, wide torn and bleeding,--
+Because their jailors' rule, they thought,
+Grew merciful, like a parent's sway.
+I know not how, but we were free;
+And Lionel sate alone with me,
+As the carriage drove through the streets apace;
+And we looked upon each other's face;
+And the blood in our fingers intertwined
+Ran like the thoughts of a single mind,
+As the swift emotions went and came
+Through the veins of each united frame.
+So through the long, long streets we passed
+Of the million-peopled City vast;
+Which is that desert, where each one
+Seeks his mate yet is alone,
+Beloved and sought and mourned of none;
+Until the clear blue sky was seen,
+And the grassy meadows bright and green.
+And then I sunk in his embrace
+Enclosing there a mighty space
+Of love; and so we travelled on
+By woods, and fields of yellow flowers,
+And towns, and villages, and towers,
+Day after day of happy hours.
+It was the azure time of June,
+When the skies are deep in the stainless noon,
+And the warm and fitful breezes shake
+The fresh green leaves of the hedge-row briar;
+And there were odors then to make
+The very breath we did respire
+A liquid element, whereon
+Our spirits, like delighted things
+That walk the air on subtle wings,
+Floated and mingled far away
+'Mid the warm winds of the sunny day.
+And when the evening star came forth
+Above the curve of the new bent moon,
+And light and sound ebbed from the earth,
+Like the tide of the full and the weary sea
+To the depths of its own tranquillity,
+Our natures to its own repose
+Did the earth's breathless sleep attune;
+Like flowers, which on each other close
+Their languid leaves when daylight's gone,
+We lay, till new emotions came,
+Which seemed to make each mortal frame
+One soul of interwoven flame,
+A life in life, a second birth
+In worlds diviner far than earth;--
+Which, like two strains of harmony
+That mingle in the silent sky,
+Then slowly disunite, passed by
+And left the tenderness of tears,
+A soft oblivion of all fears,
+A sweet sleep:--so we travelled on
+Till we came to the home of Lionel,
+Among the mountains wild and lone,
+Beside the hoary western sea,
+Which near the verge of the echoing shore
+The massy forest shadowed o'er.
+The ancient steward with hair all hoar,
+As we alighted, wept to see
+His master changed so fearfully;
+And the old man's sobs did waken me
+From my dream of unremaining gladness;
+The truth flashed o'er me like quick madness
+When I looked, and saw that there was death
+On Lionel. Yet day by day
+He lived, till fear grew hope and faith,
+And in my soul I dared to say,
+Nothing so bright can pass away;
+Death is dark, and foul, and dull,
+But he is--oh, how beautiful!
+Yet day by day he grew more weak,
+And his sweet voice, when he might speak,
+Which ne'er was loud, became more low;
+And the light which flashed through his waxen cheek
+Grew faint, as the rose-like hues which flow
+From sunset o'er the Alpine snow;
+And death seemed not like death in him,
+For the spirit of life o'er every limb
+Lingered, a mist of sense and thought.
+When the summer wind faint odors brought
+From mountain flowers, even as it passed,
+His cheek would change, as the noonday sea
+Which the dying breeze sweeps fitfully.
+If but a cloud the sky o'ercast,
+You might see his color come and go,
+And the softest strain of music made
+Sweet smiles, yet sad, arise and fade
+Amid the dew of his tender eyes;
+And the breath, with intermitting flow,
+Made his pale lips quiver and part.
+You might hear the beatings of his heart,
+Quick but not strong; and with my tresses
+When oft he playfully would bind
+In the bowers of mossy lonelinesses
+His neck, and win me so to mingle
+In the sweet depth of woven caresses,
+And our faint limbs were intertwined,--
+Alas! the unquiet life did tingle
+From mine own heart through every vein,
+Like a captive in dreams of liberty,
+Who beats the walls of his stony cell.
+But his, it seemed already free,
+Like the shadow of fire surrounding me!
+On my faint eyes and limbs did dwell
+That spirit as it passed, till soon--
+As a frail cloud wandering o'er the moon,
+Beneath its light invisible,
+Is seen when it folds its gray wings again
+To alight on midnight's dusky plain--
+I lived and saw, and the gathering soul
+Passed from beneath that strong control,
+And I fell on a life which was sick with fear
+Of all the woe that now I bear.
+Amid a bloomless myrtle wood,
+On a green and sea-girt promontory
+Not far from where we dwelt, there stood,
+In record of a sweet sad story,
+An altar and a temple bright
+Circled by steps, and o'er the gate
+Was sculptured, 'To Fidelity;'
+And in the shrine an image sate
+All veiled; but there was seen the light
+Of smiles which faintly could express
+A mingled pain and tenderness
+Through that ethereal drapery.
+The left hand held the head, the right--
+Beyond the veil, beneath the skin,
+You might see the nerves quivering within--
+Was forcing the point of a barbèd dart
+Into its side-convulsing heart.
+An unskilled hand, yet one informed
+With genius, had the marble warmed
+With that pathetic life. This tale
+It told: A dog had from the sea,
+When the tide was raging fearfully,
+Dragged Lionel's mother, weak and pale,
+Then died beside her on the sand,
+And she that temple thence had planned;
+But it was Lionel's own hand
+Had wrought the image. Each new moon
+That lady did, in this lone fane,
+The rites of a religion sweet
+Whose god was in her heart and brain.
+The seasons' loveliest flowers were strewn
+On the marble floor beneath her feet,
+And she brought crowns of sea-buds white
+Whose odor is so sweet and faint,
+And weeds, like branching chrysolite,
+Woven in devices fine and quaint;
+And tears from her brown eyes did stain
+The altar; need but look upon
+That dying statue, fair and wan,
+If tears should cease, to weep again;
+And rare Arabian odors came,
+Through the myrtle copses, steaming thence
+From the hissing frankincense,
+Whose smoke, wool-white as ocean foam,
+Hung in dense flocks beneath the dome--
+That ivory dome, whose azure night
+With golden stars, like heaven, was bright
+O'er the split cedar's pointed flame;
+And the lady's harp would kindle there
+The melody of an old air,
+Softer than sleep; the villagers
+Mixed their religion up with hers,
+And, as they listened round, shed tears.
+One eve he led me to this fane.
+Daylight on its last purple cloud
+Was lingering gray, and soon her strain
+The nightingale began; now loud,
+Climbing in circles the windless sky,
+Now dying music; suddenly
+'T is scattered in a thousand notes;
+And now to the hushed ear it floats
+Like field-smells known in infancy,
+Then, failing, soothes the air again.
+We sate within that temple lone,
+Pavilioned round with Parian stone;
+His mother's harp stood near, and oft
+I had awakened music soft
+Amid its wires; the nightingale
+Was pausing in her heaven-taught tale.
+'Now drain the cup,' said Lionel,
+'Which the poet-bird has crowned so well
+With the wine of her bright and liquid song!
+Heard'st thou not sweet words among
+That heaven-resounding minstrelsy?
+Heard'st thou not that those who die
+Awake in a world of ecstasy?
+That love, when limbs are interwoven,
+And sleep, when the night of life is cloven,
+And thought, to the world's dim boundaries clinging,
+And music, when one beloved is singing,
+Is death? Let us drain right joyously
+The cup which the sweet bird fills for me.'
+He paused, and to my lips he bent
+His own; like spirit his words went
+Through all my limbs with the speed of fire;
+And his keen eyes, glittering through mine,
+Filled me with the flame divine
+Which in their orbs was burning far,
+Like the light of an unmeasured star
+In the sky of midnight dark and deep;
+Yes, 't was his soul that did inspire
+Sounds which my skill could ne'er awaken;
+And first, I felt my fingers sweep
+The harp, and a long quivering cry
+Burst from my lips in symphony;
+The dusk and solid air was shaken,
+As swift and swifter the notes came
+From my touch, that wandered like quick flame,
+And from my bosom, laboring
+With some unutterable thing.
+The awful sound of my own voice made
+My faint lips tremble; in some mood
+Of wordless thought Lionel stood
+So pale, that even beside his cheek
+The snowy column from its shade
+Caught whiteness; yet his countenance,
+Raised upward, burned with radiance
+Of spirit-piercing joy whose light,
+Like the moon struggling through the night
+Of whirlwind-rifted clouds, did break
+With beams that might not be confined.
+I paused, but soon his gestures kindled
+New power, as by the moving wind
+The waves are lifted; and my song
+To low soft notes now changed and dwindled,
+And, from the twinkling wires among,
+My languid fingers drew and flung
+Circles of life-dissolving sound,
+Yet faint; in aëry rings they bound
+My Lionel, who, as every strain
+Grew fainter but more sweet, his mien
+Sunk with the sound relaxedly;
+And slowly now he turned to me,
+As slowly faded from his face
+That awful joy; with look serene
+He was soon drawn to my embrace,
+And my wild song then died away
+In murmurs; words I dare not say
+We mixed, and on his lips mine fed
+Till they methought felt still and cold.
+'What is it with thee, love?' I said;
+No word, no look, no motion! yes,
+There was a change, but spare to guess,
+Nor let that moment's hope be told.
+I looked,--and knew that he was dead;
+And fell, as the eagle on the plain
+Falls when life deserts her brain,
+And the mortal lightning is veiled again.
+Oh, that I were now dead! but such--
+Did they not, love, demand too much,
+Those dying murmurs?--he forbade.
+Oh, that I once again were mad!
+And yet, dear Rosalind, not so,
+For I would live to share thy woe.
+Sweet boy! did I forget thee too?
+Alas, we know not what we do
+When we speak words.
+No memory more
+Is in my mind of that sea-shore.
+Madness came on me, and a troop
+Of misty shapes did seem to sit
+Beside me, on a vessel's poop,
+And the clear north wind was driving it.
+Then I heard strange tongues, and saw strange flowers,
+And the stars methought grew unlike ours,
+And the azure sky and the stormless sea
+Made me believe that I had died
+And waked in a world which was to me
+Drear hell, though heaven to all beside.
+Then a dead sleep fell on my mind,
+Whilst animal life many long years
+Had rescued from a chasm of tears;
+And, when I woke, I wept to find
+That the same lady, bright and wise,
+With silver locks and quick brown eyes,
+The mother of my Lionel,
+Had tended me in my distress,
+And died some months before. Nor less
+Wonder, but far more peace and joy,
+Brought in that hour my lovely boy.
+For through that trance my soul had well
+The impress of thy being kept;
+And if I waked or if I slept,
+No doubt, though memory faithless be,
+Thy image ever dwelt on me;
+And thus, O Lionel, like thee
+Is our sweet child. 'T is sure most strange
+I knew not of so great a change
+As that which gave him birth, who now
+Is all the solace of my woe.
+That Lionel great wealth had left
+By will to me, and that of all
+The ready lies of law bereft
+My child and me,--might well befall.
+But let me think not of the scorn
+Which from the meanest I have borne,
+When, for my child's belovèd sake,
+I mixed with slaves, to vindicate
+The very laws themselves do make;
+Let me not say scorn is my fate,
+Lest I be proud, suffering the same
+With those who live in deathless fame.
+She ceased.--'Lo, where red morning through the woods
+Is burning o'er the dew!' said Rosalind.
+And with these words they rose, and towards the flood
+Of the blue lake, beneath the leaves, now wind
+With equal steps and fingers intertwined.
+Thence to a lonely dwelling, where the shore
+Is shadowed with steep rocks, and cypresses
+Cleave with their dark green cones the silent skies
+And with their shadows the clear depths below,
+And where a little terrace from its bowers
+Of blooming myrtle and faint lemon flowers
+Scatters its sense-dissolving fragrance o'er
+The liquid marble of the windless lake;
+And where the aged forest's limbs look hoar
+Under the leaves which their green garments make,
+They come. 'T is Helen's home, and clean and white,
+Like one which tyrants spare on our own land
+In some such solitude; its casements bright
+Shone through their vine-leaves in the morning sun,
+And even within 't was scarce like Italy.
+And when she saw how all things there were planned
+As in an English home, dim memory
+Disturbed poor Rosalind; she stood as one
+Whose mind is where his body cannot be,
+Till Helen led her where her child yet slept,
+And said, 'Observe, that brow was Lionel's,
+Those lips were his, and so he ever kept
+One arm in sleep, pillowing his head with it.
+You cannot see his eyes--they are two wells
+Of liquid love. Let us not wake him yet.'
+But Rosalind could bear no more, and wept
+A shower of burning tears which fell upon
+His face, and so his opening lashes shone
+With tears unlike his own, as he did leap
+In sudden wonder from his innocent sleep.
+So Rosalind and Helen lived together
+Thenceforth--changed in all else, yet friends again,
+Such as they were, when o'er the mountain heather
+They wandered in their youth through sun and rain.
+And after many years, for human things
+Change even like the ocean and the wind,
+Her daughter was restored to Rosalind,
+And in their circle thence some visitings
+Of joy 'mid their new calm would intervene.
+A lovely child she was, of looks serene,
+And motions which o'er things indifferent shed
+The grace and gentleness from whence they came.
+And Helen's boy grew with her, and they fed
+From the same flowers of thought, until each mind
+Like springs which mingle in one flood became;
+And in their union soon their parents saw
+The shadow of the peace denied to them.
+And Rosalind--for when the living stem
+Is cankered in its heart, the tree must fall--
+Died ere her time; and with deep grief and awe
+The pale survivors followed her remains
+Beyond the region of dissolving rains,
+Up the cold mountain she was wont to call
+Her tomb; and on Chiavenna's precipice
+They raised a pyramid of lasting ice,
+Whose polished sides, ere day had yet begun,
+Caught the first glow of the unrisen sun,
+The last, when it had sunk; and through the night
+The charioteers of Arctos wheelèd round
+Its glittering point, as seen from Helen's home,
+Whose sad inhabitants each year would come,
+With willing steps climbing that rugged height,
+And hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound
+With amaranth flowers, which, in the clime's despite,
+Filled the frore air with unaccustomed light;
+Such flowers as in the wintry memory bloom
+Of one friend left adorned that frozen tomb.
+Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould,
+Whose sufferings too were less, death slowlier led
+Into the peace of his dominion cold.
+She died among her kindred, being old.
+And know, that if love die not in the dead
+As in the living, none of mortal kind
+Are blessed as now Helen and Rosalind.
+</poem>
 ++++
 ++++72	Chorus from Hellas|
+<poem>The world`s great age begins anew,
+The golden years return,
+The earth doth like a snake renew
+Her winter weeds outworn:
+Heaven smiles, and faith and empires gleam,
+Like a wrecks of a dissolving dream.
+A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
+From waves serener far;
+A new Peneus rolls his fountains
+Against the morning star.
+Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
+Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
+A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
+Fraught with a later prize;
+Another Orpheus sings again,
+And loves, and weeps, and dies.
+A new Ulyssses leaves once more
+Calypso for his native shore...
+</poem>
 ++++
 ++++73	Poetical Essay|
+<poem>
+Millions to fight compell'd, to fight or die
+In mangled heaps on War's red altar lie . . .
+When the legal murders swell the lists of pride;
+When glory's views the titled idiot guide
+Lost Shelley poem found after 200 years
+</poem>
 ++++

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