The sentinels-but true love never yet Was thus constrained; it overleaps all fence: Like lightning, with invisible violence Piercing its continents;1 like Heaven's free breath, Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death, Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array Of arms: more strength has Love than he or they; For it can burst his charnel, and make free The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, The soul in dust and chaos. Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, Treading each other's heels, unheededly. It is an isle under Ionian skies, Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise, And, for the harbors are not safe and good, 425 This land would have remained a solitude But for some pastoral people native there, Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air To the intense, the deep, the imperishable, 395 Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. Draw the last spirit of the age of gold,3 The blue Ægean girds this chosen home Simple and spirited, innocent and bold. With ever-changing sound and light and foam, Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore 1 things holding or containing it 2 Halcyons, or kingfishers, were said to make their nests at sea, and to calm the waves. The first period of the history of the world, the era of perfect happiness. Undulate with the undulating tide; 435 There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide; And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, Or serene morning air; and far beyond, 440 (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls Illumining, with sound that never fails Accompany the noonday nightingales; 445 And all the place is peopled with sweet airs; The light clear element which the isle wears Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of the Eternal, whose own smile 480 Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen, O'er the gray rocks, blue waves, and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices. But the chief marvel of the wilderness Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how 485 None of the rustic island-people know; 'Tis not a tower of strength, though with 490 And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep; 495 450 And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, And dart their arrowy odor through the brain Till you might faint with that delicious pain. And every motion, odor, beam, and tone, 455 Which is a soul within the soul-they seem Like echoes of an antenatal dream. It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity; Bright as that wandering Eden, Lucifer, 460 Washed by the soft blue oceans of young air. It is a favored place. Famine or Blight, Pestilence, War, and Earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way; 465 The winged storms, chanting their thunder psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. 470 And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, its height It overtops the woods; but, for delight, Reared it, a wonder of that simple time, Out of the mountains, from the living Lifting itself in caverns light and high; For all the antique and learnèd imagery Has been erased, and in the place of it 500 The ivy and the wild vine interknit The volumes of their many-twining stems; Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery 505 With moonlight patches, or star-atoms keen, 510 515 Veil after veil, each hiding some delight, Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draws aside, 520 Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride 475 Glowing at once with love and loveliness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess; Or fragments of the day's intense serene, Working mosaic on their Parian floors. And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem To sleep in one another's arms, and dream Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we Read in their smiles, and call reality. This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed Thee to be lady of the solitude. Those instruments with which high spirits call The future from its cradle, and the past Out of its grave, and make the present last In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, Folded within their own eternity. 525 Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste The scene it would adorn, and therefore still, Nature with all her children haunts the hill. The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet 530 Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moon Under the roof of blue Ionian weather, 545 With lightest winds, to touch their para mour; Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore, Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy, Possessing and possessed by all that is 550 Within that calm circumference of bliss, And by each other, till to love and live Be one; or, at the noontide hour, arrive Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep The moonlight of the expired night asleep, 555 Through which the awakened day can never peep; A veil for our seclusion, close as Night's, Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights;1 Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. 560 And we will talk, until thought's melody Become too sweet før utterance, and it die In words, to live again in looks, which dart With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart, eyes imbued Into the height of love's rare Universe, 590 Are chains of lead around its flight of fire. Swiftly walk o'er the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave, Wrap thy forms in a mantle gray, 10 Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day; 15 When I arose and saw the dawn, I sighed for thee; When light rode high, and the dew was 5 10 Б 10 Are brackish with the salt of human tears! And dream the rest-and burn and be The secret food of fires unseen, Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb 10 Couldst thou but be as thou hast been. After the slumber of the year The woodland violets reappear; All things revive in field or grove, And sky and sea, but two, which move 15 And form all others, life and love. 5 10 15 20 5 The flower that smiles today All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies. What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright. Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss But we, though soon they fall, Which ours we call. Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou-and from thy sleep Then wake to weep. 10 hoar, my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more-oh, never more! |