The shiftings of the mighty winds that blow Hither and thither all the changing thoughts Of man: though no great ministering reason sorts Out the dark mysteries of human souls To clear conceiving: yet there ever rolls A vast idea before me, and I glean Therefrom my liberty; thence too I've seen The end and aim of Poesy. 'Tis clear As anything most true; as that the year Is made of the four seasons-manifest As a large cross, some old cathedral's crest, Lifted to the white clouds.
Be but the essence of deformity,
A coward, did my very eyelids wink
At speaking out what I have dared to think. Ah! rather let me like a madman run Over some precipice; let the hot sun
Melt my Dedalian wings, and drive me down Convulsed and headlong? Stay! an inward frown Of conscience bids me be more calm awhile. An ocean dim, sprinkled with many an isle, Spreads awfully before me. How much toil! How many days! what desperate turmoil! Ere I can have explored its widenesses. Ah, what a task! upon my bended knees, I could unsay those-no, impossible! Impossible!
For sweet relief I 'll dwell
On humbler thoughts, and let this strange assay Begun in gentleness die so away.
E'en now all tumult from my bosom fades: I turn full-hearted to the friendly aids That smooth the path of honour; brotherhood, And friendliness, the nurse of mutual good. The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet Into the brain ere one can think upon it; The silence when some rhymes are coming out; And when they 're come, the very pleasant rout:
The message certain to be done to-morrow. 'Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow Some precious book from out its snug retreat, To cluster round it when we next shall meet. Scarce can I scribble on; for lovely airs Are fluttering round the room like doves in pairs; Many delights of that glad day recalling,
When first my senses caught their tender falling. And with these airs come forms of elegance Stooping their shoulders o'er a horse's prance, Careless, and grand-fingers soft and round Parting luxuriant curls; and the swift bound Of Bacchus from his chariot, when his eye Made Ariadne's cheek look blushingly. Thus I remember all the pleasant flow Of words at opening a portfolio.
Things such as these are ever harbingers To trains of peaceful images: the stirs Of a swan's neck unseen among the rushes: A linnet starting all about the bushes: A butterfly, with golden wings broad-parted, Nestling a rose, convulsed as though it smarted With over-pleasure-many, many more, Might I indulge at large in all my store Of luxuries: yet I must not forget Sleep, quiet with his poppy coronet :
For what there may be worthy in these rhymes I partly owe to him: and thus, the chimes Of friendly voices had just given place To as sweet a silence, when I 'gan retrace The pleasant day, upon a couch at ease. It was a poet's house who keeps the keys Of pleasure's temple-round about were hung The glorious features of the bards who sung In other ages-cold and sacred busts Smiled at each other. Happy he who trusts To clear Futurity his darling fame!
Then there were fauns and satyrs taking aim
At swelling apples with a frisky leap And reaching fingers, 'mid a luscious heap Of vine-leaves. Then there rose to view a fane Of liney marble, and thereto a train
Of nymphs approaching fairly o'er the sward: One, loveliest, holding her white hand toward The dazzling sun-rise: two sisters sweet Bending their graceful figures till they meet Over the trippings of a little child: And some are hearing, eagerly, the wild Thrilling liquidity of dewy piping.
See, in another picture, nymphs are wiping Cherishingly Diana's timorous limbs ;
A fold of lawny mantle dabbling swims At the bath's edge, and keeps a gentle motion With the subsiding crystal: as when ocean Heaves calmly its broad swelling smoothness o'er Its rocky marge, and balances once more The patient weeds; that now unshent by foam Feel all about their undulating home.
Sappho's meek head was there half smiling down At nothing; just as though the earnest frown Of over-thinking had that moment gone From off her brow, and left her all alone. Great Alfred's too, with anxious, pitying eyes, As if he always listen'd to the sighs
Of the goaded world; and Kosciusko's, worn By horrid suffrance-mightily forlorn. Petrarch, outstepping from the shady green, Starts at the sight of Laura; nor can wean His eyes from her sweet face. Most happy they! For over them was seen a free display
Of outspread wings, and from between them shone The face of Poesy: from off her throne She overlook'd things that I scarce could tell, The very sense of where I was might well Keep sleep aloof: but more than that there came Thought after thought to nourish up the flame Within my breast; so that the morning light
Surprised me even from a sleepless night; And up I rose refresh'd, and glad, and gay, Resolving to begin that very day
These lines; and howsoever they be done, I leave them as a father does his son.
In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches, ne'er remember Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them, With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne'er remember Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
Ah! would 't were so with many A gentle girl and boy! But were there ever any Writhed not at passed joy? To know the change and feel it, When there is none to heal it, Nor numbed sense to steal it, Was never said in rhyme.
TO MY BROTHER GEORGE.
MANY the wonders I this day have seen:
The sun, when first he kist away the tears That fill'd the eyes of Morn;-the laurel'd peers Who from the feathery gold of evening lean ;— The Ocean with its vastness, its blue green,
Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears,— Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears Must think on what will be, and what has been. E'en now, dear George, while this for you I write, Cynthia is from her silken curtains peeping So scantly, that it seems her bridal night,
And she her half-discover'd revels keeping. But what, without the social thought of thee, Would be the wonders of the sky and sea?
HAD I a man's fair form, then might my sighs Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well Would passion arm me for the enterprise : But ah! I am no knight whose foeman dies; No cuirass glistens on my bosom's swell; I am no happy shepherd of the dell
Whose lips have trembled with a maiden's eyes.
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