Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

SONNET

As from the darkening gloom a silver dove
Upsoars, and darts into the Eastern light,
On pinions that naught moves but pure delight,
So fled thy soul into the realms above,
Regions of peace and everlasting love;

Where happy spirits, crown'd with circlets bright
Of starry beam, and gloriously bedight,
Taste the high joy none but the blest can prove.
There thou or joinest the immortal quire
In melodies that even Heaven fair
Fill with superior bliss, or, at desire

Of the omnipotent Father, cleavest the air
On holy message sent-What pleasures higher ?
Wherefore does any grief our joy impair?

STANZAS TO MISS WYLIE

10

O COME Georgiana! the rose is full blown,
The riches of Flora are lavishly strown,
The air is all softness, and crystal the streams,
The West is resplendently clothed in beams.
O come! let us haste to the freshening shades,
The quaintly carv'd seats, and the opening glades ;
Where the faeries are chanting their evening hymns,
And in the last sun-beam the sylph lightly swims.
And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed,
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head:
And there Georgiana I'll sit at thy feet,
While my story of love I enraptur'd repeat.
So fondly I'll breathe, and so softly I'll sigh,
Thou wilt think that some amorous Zephyr is nigh:
Yet no-as I breathe I will press thy fair knee,
And then thou wilt know that the sigh comes from me.
Ah! why dearest girl should we lose all these blisses?
That mortal's a fool who such happiness misses:
So smile acquiescence, and give me thy hand,
With love-looking eyes, and with voice sweetly bland. 20
Title] Stanzas to Miss Wylie G. Keats's transcript: To Emma,
Woodhouse's.

I 1 Georgiana !] my dear Emma! Woodhouse.
III 3 There, beauteous Emma, Woodhouse.

SONNET

OH! how I love, on a fair summer's eve,
When streams of light pour down the golden west,
And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest
The silver clouds, far-far away to leave
All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve
From little cares; to find, with easy quest,
A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest,
And there into delight my soul deceive.
There warm my breast with patriotic lore,
Musing on Milton's fate-on Sydney's bier-
Till their stern forms before my mind arise:
Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar,

Full often dropping a delicious tear,

10

When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes.

SONNET

BEFORE he went to feed with owls and bats
Nebuchadnezzar had an ugly dream,

Worse than an Hus'if's when she thinks her cream Made a Naumachia for mice and rats.

So scared, he sent for that "Good King of Cats"
Young Daniel, who soon did pluck away the beam
From out his eye, and said he did not deem
The sceptre worth a straw-his Cushions old door-mats.
A horrid nightmare similar somewhat

Of late has haunted a most motley crew,

Most loggerheads and Chapmen-we are told

That any Daniel tho' he be a sot

Can make the lying lips turn pale of hue
By belching out "ye are that head of Gold."

SONNET

WRITTEN IN DISGUST OF VULGAR SUPERSTITION

THE church bells toll a melancholy round,
Calling the people to some other prayers,
Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,
More hearkening to the sermon's horrid sound.
Surely the mind of man is closely bound

In some black spell; seeing that each one tears
Himself from fireside joys, and Lydian airs,
And converse high of those with glory crown'd.

10

Still, still they toll, and I should feel a damp,—
A chill as from a tomb, did I not know
That they are dying like an outburnt lamp;
That 'tis their sighing, wailing ere they go.
Into oblivion ;-that fresh flowers will grow,
And many glories of immortal stamp.

SONNET

AFTER dark vapors have oppress'd our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved of its pains,

10

Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May; The eyelids with the passing coolness play Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains. The calmest thoughts come round us; as of leaves Budding-fruit ripening in stillness-Autumn suns Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheavesSweet Sappho's cheek-a smiling infant's breathThe gradual sand that through an hour-glass runsA woodland rivulet-a Poet's death.

SONNET

[Written at the end of" The Floure and the Lefe"]
THIS pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honied lines do freshly interlace
To keep the reader in so, sweet a place,
So that he here and there full-hearted stops;
And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops

Come cool and suddenly against his face,
And by the wandering melody may trace
Which way the tender-legged linnet hops.
Oh! what a power hath white Simplicity!
What mighty power has this gentle story!
I that for ever feel athirst for glory
Could at this moment be content to lie

Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings
Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

11

10

TWO SONNETS

I

TO HAYDON, WITH A SONNET WRITTEN ON SEEING
THE ELGIN MARBLES

HAYDON! forgive me that I cannot speak
Definitively on these mighty things;

Forgive me that I have not Eagle's wings-
That what I want I know not where to seek:
And think that I would not be over meek
In rolling out upfollow'd thunderings,
Even to the steep of Heliconian springs,
Were I of ample strength for such a freak-

[ocr errors]

11

Think too, that all those numbers should be thine
Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem?
For when men star'd at what was most divine
With browless idiotism-o'erwise phlegm-
Thou hadst beheld the Hesperean shine

Of their star in the East, and gone to worship them.

II

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES

My spirit is too weak-mortality

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep

Of godlike hardship, tells me I must die
Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep

That I have not the cloudy winds to keep,
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain

Bring round the heart an undescribable feud; So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,

That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old Time-with a billowy main— A sun- a shadow of a magnitude.

11

SONNET

ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER

COME hither all sweet maidens soberly,
Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light,
Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white,
And meekly let your fair hands joined be,
As if so gentle that ye could not see,
Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright,
Sinking away to his young spirit's night,-
Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea:
'Tis young Leander toiling to his death;
Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips
For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile.
O horrid dream! see how his body dips

10

Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile: He's gone up bubbles all his amorous breath!

ΤΟ

THINK not of it, sweet one, so;—

Give it not a tear;

Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go

Any, any where.

Do not look so sad, sweet one,-
Sad and fadingly;

Shed one drop, then it is gone,
O'twas born to die.

Still so pale? then dearest weep;
Weep, I'll count the tears,
And each one shall be a bliss
For thee in after years.

Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;

And thy whispering melodies
Are tenderer still.

Yet as all things mourn awhile
At fleeting blisses,

Let us too! but be our dirge
A dirge of kisses.

[blocks in formation]
« ZurückWeiter »