Lines to an Indian Air
I ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low
And the stars are shining bright—
I arise from dreams of thee, 5
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me—who knows how?
To thy chamber-window, Sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream; 10
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine, 15
O belovèd, as thou art!
O lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale. 20
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
O press it close to thine again
Where it will break at last!
"I fear thy kisses gentle maiden"
I FEAR thy kisses gentle maiden;
Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burthen thine.
I fear thy mien thy tones thy motion; 5
Thou needest not fear mine;
Innocent is the heart's devotion
With which I worship thine.
Love's Philosophy
THE fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single 5
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle—
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another; 10
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain'd its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea—
What are all these kissings worth 15
If thou kiss not me?
To the Night
SWIFTLY walk over the western wave
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave
Where all the long and lone daylight
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear 5
Which make thee terrible and dear —
Swift be thy flight!
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray
Star-inwrought;
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day 10
Kiss her until she be wearied out:
Then wander o'er city and sea and land
Touching all with thine opiate wand—
Come long-sought!
When I arose and saw the dawn 15
I sigh'd for thee;
When light rode high and the dew was gone
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree
And the weary Day turn'd to his rest
Lingering like an unloved guest 20
I sigh'd for thee.
Thy brother Death came and cried
Wouldst thou me?
Thy sweet child Sleep the filmy-eyed
Murmur'd like a noontide bee 25
Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me? —And I replied
No, not thee!
Death will come when thou art dead
Soon too soon; 30
Sleep will come when thou art fled:
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee belovèd Night—
Swift be thine approaching flight
Come soon soon! 35
The Flight of Love
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 5
Sweet tones are remember'd not;
When the lips have spoken
Lov'd accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute 10
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 15
That ring the dead seaman's knell.
When hearts have once mingl'd
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singl'd
To endure what it once possesst. 20
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 25
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 30
Leave thee naked to laughter
When leaves fall and cold winds come.
"One word is too often profaned"
ONE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it
One feeling too falsely disdain'd
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like despair 5
For prudence to smother
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not 10
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not:
The desire of the moth for the star
Of the night for the morrow
The devotion to something afar 15
From the sphere of our sorrow?
Invocation
RARELY rarely comest thou
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day 5
'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. 10
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; 15
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; 20
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 25
Spirit of Delight!
The fresh earth in new leaves drest
And the starry night;
Autumn evening and the morn
When the golden mists are born. 30
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 35
Untainted by man's misery.
I love tranquil solitude
And such society
As is quiet wise and good;
Between thee and me 40
What diff'rence? 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 45
Spirit I love thee—
Thou art love and life! O come!
Make once more my heart thy home!
Stanzas Written in Dejection near Naples
THE sun is warm the sky is clear
The waves are dancing fast and bright
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might:
The breath of the moist earth is light 5
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight—
The winds' the birds' the ocean-floods'—
The city's voice itself is soft like solitude's.
I see the deep's untrampled floor 10
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore
Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown.
I sit upon the sands alone;
The lightning of the noontide ocean 15
Is flashing round me and a tone
Arises from its measured motion—
How sweet did any heart now share in my emotion!
Alas! I have nor hope nor health
Nor peace within nor calm around; 20
Nor that content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found
And walk'd with inward glory crown'd;
Nor fame nor power nor love nor leisure.
Others I see whom these surround— 25
Smiling they live and call life pleasure:
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
Yet now despair itself is mild
Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child 30
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear —
Till death like sleep might steal on me
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold and hear the sea 35
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
To a Skylark
HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 5
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 10
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 15
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven
In the broad daylight,
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight— 20
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 25
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud—
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. 30
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?—
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody: 35
Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: 40
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: 45
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: 50
Like a rose embower'd
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingèd thieves. 55
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken'd flowers—
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 60
Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 65
Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphal chaunt,
Match'd with thine, would be all
But an empty vaunt—
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 70
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? 75
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be;
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 80
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? 85
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 90
Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 95
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! 100
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know—
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now! 105
Ozymandias of Egypt
I MET a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand
Half sunk a shatter'd visage lies whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command 5
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive stamp'd on these lifeless things
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 10
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
To a Lady with a Guitar
ARIEL to Miranda:—Take
This slave of music for the sake
Of him who is the slave of thee;
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou canst and only thou 5
Make the delighted spirit glow
Till joy denies itself again
And too intense is turn'd to pain.
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand 10
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit Ariel who
From life to life must still pursue
Your happiness for thus alone 15
Can Ariel ever find his own.
From Prospero's enchanted cell
As the mighty verses tell
To the throne of Naples he
Lit you o'er the trackless sea 20
Flitting on your prow before
Like a living meteor.
When you die the silent Moon
In her interlunar swoon
Is not sadder in her cell 25
Than deserted Ariel:—
When you live again on earth
Like an unseen Star of birth
Ariel guides you o'er the sea
Of life from your nativity:— 30
Many changes have been run
Since Ferdinand and you begun
Your course of love and Ariel still
Has track'd your steps and served your will.
Now in humbler happier lot 35
This is all remember'd not;
And now alas the poor Sprite is
Imprison'd for some fault of his
In a body like a grave—
From you he only dares to crave 40
For his service and his sorrow
A smile to-day a song to-morrow.
The artist who this viol wrought
To echo all harmonious thought
Fell'd a tree while on the steep 45
The woods were in their winter sleep
Rock'd in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming some of autumn past
And some of spring approaching fast 50
And some of April buds and showers
And some of songs in July bowers
And all of love; and so this tree —
Oh that such our death may be!—
Died in sleep and felt no pain 55
To live in happier form again:
From which beneath heaven's fairest star
The artist wrought this loved guitar;
And taught it justly to reply
To all who question skilfully 60
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamour'd tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells
And summer winds in sylvan cells.
For it had learnt all harmonies 65
Of the plains and of the skies
Of the forests and the mountains
And the many-voicèd fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills
The softest notes of falling rills 70
The melodies of birds and bees
The murmuring of summer seas
And pattering rain and breathing dew
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound 75
Which driven on its diurnal round
As it floats through boundless day
Our world enkindles on its way:—
All this it knows but will not tell
To those who cannot question well 80
The spirit that inhabits it:
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before
By those who tempt it to betray 85
These secrets of an elder day.
But sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill
It keeps its highest holiest tone
For one beloved Friend alone. 90
The Invitation
BEST and brightest come away —
Fairer far than this fair day
Which like thee to those in sorrow
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough year just awake 5
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring
Through the winter wandering
Found it seems the halcyon morn
To hoar February born; 10
Bending from heaven in azure mirth
It kiss'd the forehead of the earth
And smiled upon the silent sea
And bade the frozen streams be free
And waked to music all their fountains 15
And breathed upon the frozen mountains
And like a prophetess of May
Strew'd flowers upon the barren way
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest dear. 20
Away away from men and towns
To the wild woods and the downs—
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find 25
An echo in another's mind
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
Radiant Sister of the Day
Awake! arise! and come away! 30
To the wild woods and the plains
To the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green and ivy dun 35
Round stems that never kiss the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sandhills of the sea;
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets 40
And wind-flowers and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east dim and blind 45
And the blue noon is over us
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet
Where the earth and ocean meet
And all things seem only one 50
In the universal Sun.
The Recollection
NOW the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead:
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up—to thy wonted work! come, trace 5
The epitaph of glory fled,
For now the earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the heaven's brow.
We wander'd to the Pine Forest
That skirts the ocean's foam. 10
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home;
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep 15
The smile of heaven lay:
It seem'd as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies
Which scatter'd from above the sun
A light of Paradise! 20
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,—
And soothed by every azure breath 25
That under heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own.
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep
Like green waves on the sea, 30
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean-woods may be.
How calm it was!—The silence there
By such a chain was bound,
That even the busy woodpecker 35
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew. 40
There seem'd, from the remotest seat
Of the wide mountain waste
To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,—
A spirit interfused around 45
A thrilling silent life;
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature's strife;—
And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there 50
Was one fair form that fill'd with love
The lifeless atmosphere.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough;
Each seem'd as 'twere a little sky 55
Gulf'd in a world below—
A firmament of purple light
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night
And purer than the day— 60
In which the lovely forests grew
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, 65
And through the dark-green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen 70
Were imaged in the water's love
Of that fair forest green;
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath, 75
A softer day below.
Like one beloved, the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast
Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth exprest; 80
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought
Which from the mind's too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.
—Though thou art ever fair and kind, 85
The forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind
Than calm in waters seen!
To the Moon
ART thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth —
And ever-changing like a joyless eye 5
That finds no object worth its constancy?
"A widow bird sate mourning for her Love"
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. 5
No flower upon the ground
And little motion in the air
Except the mill-wheel's sound.
A Dream of the Unknown
I DREAM'D that as I wander'd by the way
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 5
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kiss'd it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth, 10
The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets—
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth—
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, 15
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.
And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colour'd may,
And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day; 20
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine
With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
And flowers azure, black, and streak'd with gold,
Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.
And nearer to the river's trembling edge 25
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with white,
And starry river-buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light; 30
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
Methought that of these visionary flowers
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers 35
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprison'd children of the Hours
Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay,
I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come
That I might there present it—oh! to Whom? 40
Hymn to the Spirit of Nature
LIFE of Life! thy lips enkindle
With their love the breath between them;
And thy smiles before they dwindle
Make the cold air fire: then screen them
In those locks where whoso gazes 5
Faints entangled in their mazes.
Child of Light! thy limbs are burning
Through the veil which seems to hide them
As the radiant lines of morning
Through thin clouds ere they divide them; 10
And this atmosphere divinest
Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.
Fair are others: none beholds thee;
But thy voice sounds low and tender
Like the fairest for it folds thee 15
From the sight that liquid splendour;
And all feel yet see thee never
As I feel now lost for ever!
Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness 20
And the souls of whom thou lovest
Walk upon the winds with lightness
Till they fail as I am failing
Dizzy lost yet unbewailing!
Written among the Euganean Hills North Italy
MANY a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on
Day and night, and night and day, 5
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track;
Whilst above, the sunless sky
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 10
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail, and cord, and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o'er-brimming deep, 15
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity;
And the dim low line before
Of a dark and distant shore 20
Still recedes, as ever still
Longing with divided will,
But no power to seek or shun,
He is ever drifted on
O'er the unreposing wave, 25
To the haven of the grave.
Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony:
To such a one this morn was led
My bark, by soft winds piloted. 30
—'Mid the mountains Euganean
I stood listening to the p?an
With which the legion'd rooks did hail
The Sun's uprise majestical:
Gathering round with wings all hoar, 35
Through the dewy mist they soar
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven
Bursts; and then—as clouds of even
Fleck'd with fire and azure, lie
In the unfathomable sky— 40
So their plumes of purple grain
Starr'd with drops of golden rain
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning's fitful gale 45
Through the broken mist they sail;
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright, and clear, and still
Round the solitary hill. 50
Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath day's azure eyes, 55
Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,—
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves. 60
Lo! the sun upsprings behind,
Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light, 65
As within a furnace bright,
Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean 70
To the sapphire-tinted skies;
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old. 75
Sun-girt City! thou hast been
Ocean's child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey,
If the power that raised thee here 80
Hallow so thy watery bier.
A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne among the waves 85
Wilt thou be—when the sea-mew
Flies, as once before it flew,
O'er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace-gate 90
With green sea-flowers overgrown,
Like a rock of ocean's own,
Topples o'er the abandon'd sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way, 95
Wandering at the close of day,
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep,
Bursting o'er the starlight deep, 100
Lead a rapid masque of death
O'er the waters of his path.
Noon descends around me now:
'Tis the noon of autumn's glow,
When a soft and purple mist 105
Like a vaporous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolvèd star
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon's bound
To the point of heaven's profound, 110
Fills the overflowing sky,
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath; the leaves unsodden
Where the infant Frost has trodden
With his morning-wingèd feet 115
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines
Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less, 120
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandall'd Apennine
In the south dimly islanded; 125
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one;
And my spirit, which so long
Darken'd this swift stream of song,— 130
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky;
Be it love, light, harmony,
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from heaven like dew doth fall, 135
Or the mind which feeds this verse,
Peopling the lone universe.
Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn's evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine moon 140
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister
Half the crimson light she brings
From the sunset's radiant springs:
And the soft dreams of the morn 145
(Which like wingèd winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
'Mid remember'd agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being),
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, 150
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be
In the sea of Life and Agony:
Other spirits float and flee 155
O'er that gulf: ev'n now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folding wings they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it
To some calm and blooming cove, 160
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell 'mid lawny hills
Which the wild sea-murmur fills, 165
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine
Of all flowers that breathe and shine.
—We may live so happy there, 170
That the Spirits of the Air
Envying us, may ev'n entice
To our healing paradise
The polluting multitude:
But their rage would be subdued 175
By that clime divine and calm,
And the winds whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval 180
In their whisperings musical
The inspirèd soul supplies
With its own deep melodies;
And the Love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life, 185
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood:—
They, not it, would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain, 190
And the Earth grow young again!
Ode to the West Wind
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being—
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes!—O thou 5
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill—
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere—
Destroyer and Preserver—hear, O hear!
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 15
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! they are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20
Of some fierce M?nad, ev'n from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height—
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:—O hear!
Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Bai?'s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers 35
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear
And tremble and despoil themselves:—O hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable!—if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 50
Scarce seem'd a vision,—I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd 55
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.
Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 60
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse, 65
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 70
The Poet's Dream
ON a Poet's lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses
But feeds on the aerial kisses 5
Of shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses.
He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The blue bees in the ivy-bloom
Nor heed nor see what things they be— 10
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man
Nurslings of Immortality!
A Lament
O WORLD! O Life! O Time!
On whose last steps I climb
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more—oh never more! 5
Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight:
Fresh spring and summer and winter hoar
Move my faint heart with grief but with delight
No more—oh never more! 10
"Music when soft voices die"
MUSIC when soft voices die
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours when sweet violets sicken
Live within the sense they quicken;
Rose leaves when the rose is dead 5
Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed:
And so thy thoughts when thou art gone
Love itself shall slumber on.
Hymn of Pan
FROM the forests and highlands
We come we come;
From the river-girt islands
Where loud waves are dumb
Listening to my sweet pipings. 5
The wind in the reeds and the rushes
The bees on the bells of thyme
The birds on the myrtle bushes
The cicale above in the lime
And the lizards below in the grass 10
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was
Listening to my sweet pipings.
Liquid Peneus was flowing
And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow outgrowing 15
The light of the dying day
Speeded by my sweet pipings.
The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns
And the Nymphs of the woods and waves
To the edge of the moist river-lawns 20
And the brink of the dewy caves
And all that did then attend and follow
Were silent with love as you now Apollo
With envy of my sweet pipings.
I sang of the dancing stars 25
I sang of the d?dal earth
And of heaven and the giant wars
And love and death and birth.
And then I changed my pipings—
Singing how down the vale of M?nalus 30
I pursued a maiden and clasp'd a reed:
Gods and men we are all deluded thus!
It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed.
All wept—as I think both ye now would
If envy or age had not frozen your blood— 35
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.
Hellas
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 faiths and empires gleam 5
Like 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; 10
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 15
And loves and weeps and dies;
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.
O write no more the tale of Troy
If earth Death's scroll must be— 20
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise 25
And to remoter time
Bequeath like sunset to the skies
The splendour of its prime;
And leave if naught so bright may live
All earth can take or Heaven can give. 30
Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst more bright and good
Than all who fell than One who rose
Than many unsubdued:
Not gold not blood their altar dowers 35
But votive tears and symbol flowers.
O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy! 40
The world is weary of the past—
O might it die or rest at last!
The Moon
I
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 mood arose up in the murky east, 5
A white and shapeless mass.
II
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth, 10
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
The Indian Serenade
I ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee, 5
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me—who knows how?
To thy chamber window, Sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream— 10
And the champak's odours [pine]
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must on thine, 15
O belovèd as thou art!
O lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale. 20
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast:
O press it to thine own again,
Where it will break at last!
From the Arabic
AN IMITATION
MY faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks my love;
It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks my love.
Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight 5
Bore thee far from me;
My heart for my weak feet were weary soon
Did companion thee.
Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed
Or the death they bear 10
The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove
With the wings of care;
In the battle in the darkness in the need
Shall mine cling to thee
Nor claim one smile for all the comfort love 15
It may bring to thee.
Lines
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 5
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 10
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 15
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. 20
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 25
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 30
Leave thee naked to laughter
When leaves fall and cold winds come.
Remorse
AWAY! the moor is dark beneath the moon
Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.
Pause not! the time is past! Every voice cries 'Away!' 5
Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood:
Thy lover's eye so glazed and cold dares not entreat thy stay:
Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.
Away away! to thy sad and silent home;
Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth; 10
Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come
And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.
The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head
The blooms of dewy Spring shall gleam beneath thy feet:
But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead 15
Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile ere thou and peace may meet.
The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose
For the weary winds are silent or the moon is in the deep;
Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows;
Whatever moves or toils or grieves hath its appointed sleep. 20
Thou in the grave shalt rest:—yet till the phantoms flee
Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile
Thy remembrance and repentance and deep musings are not free
From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile.