SONNET.

TO FANNY.

I CRY your mercy-pity-love!-aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmask'd, and being seen-without a blot!
O! let me have thee whole,-all-all-be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,—
Yourself your soul-in pity give me all,

Withhold no atom's atom or I die,
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life's purposes,-the palate of my mind.
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

10

THE FALL OF HYPERION

A DREAM

AN ATTEMPT MADE AT THE END OF 1819 TO RECONSTRUCT THE POEM

THE FALL OF HYPERION

A DREAM

[CANTO I.]

FANATICS have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage too
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at Heaven; pity these have not
Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance.

But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,

With the fine spell of words alone can save
Imagination from the sable chain.

And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,
"Thou art no Poet-may'st not tell thy dreams?"
Since every man whose soul is not a clod

Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved,
And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.
Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse
Be poet's or fanatic's will be known

When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave.

Methought I stood where trees of every clime, Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech, With plantain, and spice-blossoms, made a screen; In neighbourhood of fountains (by the noise Soft-showering in my ears), and, (by the touch Of scent,) not far from roses. Turning round I saw an arbour with a drooping roof Of trellis vines, and bells, and larger blooms, Like floral censers, swinging light in air; Before its wreathed doorway, on a mound Of moss, was spread a feast of summer fruits, Which, nearer seen, seem'd refuse of a meal By angel tasted or our Mother Eve;

10

20

30

For empty shells were scattered on the grass,
And grape-stalks but half bare, and remnants more,
Sweet-smelling, whose pure kinds I could not know.
Still was more plenty than the fabled horn
Thrice emptied could pour forth, at banqueting
For Proserpine return'd to her own fields,
Where the white heifers low. And appetite
More yearning than on Earth I ever felt
Growing within, I ate deliciously;
And, after not long, thirsted, for thereby
Stood a cool vessel of transparent juice
Sipp'd by the wander'd bee, the which I took,
And, pledging all the mortals of the world,
And all the dead whose names are in our lips,
Drank. That full draught is parent of my theme.
No Asian poppy nor elixir fine

Of the soon-fading jealous Caliphat;

No poison gender'd in close monkish cell,
To thin the scarlet conclave of old men,
Could so have rapt unwilling life away.
Among the fragrant husks and berries crush'd,
Upon the grass I struggled hard against
The domineering potion; but in vain:

The cloudy swoon came on, and down I sank,
Like a Silenus on an antique vase.

How long I slumber'd 'tis a chance to guess.
When sense of life return'd, I started up
As if with wings; but the fair trees were gone,
The mossy mound and arbour were no more:
I look'd around upon the carved sides

Of an old sanctuary with roof august,

Builded so high, it seem'd that filmed clouds

Might spread beneath, as o'er the stars of heaven;
So old the place was, I remember'd none
The like upon the Earth: what I had seen

Of grey cathedrals, buttress'd walls, rent towers,

The superannuations of sunk realms,

Or Nature's rocks toil'd hard in waves and winds,

40

50

60

45 in our lips Houghton: this looks corrupt. A more likely reading would be on our lips.

48 soon-fading] death-doing MS. rejected, fide Woodhouse. 55 sank Houghton: sunk Woodhouse.