EARLY POEMS. SONNETS.
TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED.
IN HARMONY WITH NATURE. TO A PREACHER.
TO GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. ON SEEING, IN THE COUNTRY, HIS PICTURE OF “THE BOTTLE.”
RELIGIOUS ISOLATION. TO THE SAME FRIEND.
A QUESTION. TO FAUSTA.
THE WORLD AND THE QUIETIST. TO CRITIAS.
RESIGNATION. TO FAUSTA.
SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. AN EPISODE.
THE PROGRESS OF POESY. A VARIATION.
EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA. A DRAMATIC POEM.
ACT II. Evening. The Summit of Etna.
THYRSIS. [18]
RUGBY CHAPEL. NOVEMBER, 1857.
“Not by the justice that my father spurned,
Not for the thousands whom my father slew,
Altars unfed and temples overturned,
Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due;
Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie,
Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny.
“I will unfold my sentence and my crime.
My crime,—that, rapt in reverential awe,
I sate obedient, in the fiery prime
Of youth, self-governed, at the feet of Law;
Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings,
By contemplation of diviner things.
“My father loved injustice, and lived long;
Crowned with gray hairs he died, and full of sway.
I loved the good he scorned, and hated wrong—
The gods declare my recompense to-day.
I looked for life more lasting, rule more high;
And when six years are measured, lo, I die!
“Yet surely, O my people, did I deem
Man’s justice from the all-just gods was given;
A light that from some upper fount did beam,
Some better archetype, whose seat was heaven;
A light that, shining from the blest abodes,
Did shadow somewhat of the life of gods.
“Mere phantoms of man’s self-tormenting heart,
Which on the sweets that woo it dares not feed!
Vain dreams, which quench our pleasures, then depart,
When the duped soul, self-mastered, claims its meed;
When, on the strenuous just man, Heaven bestows,
Crown of his struggling life, an unjust close!
“Seems it so light a thing, then, austere powers,
To spurn man’s common lure, life’s pleasant things?
Seems there no joy in dances crowned with flowers,
Love free to range, and regal banquetings?
Bend ye on these indeed an unmoved eye,
Not gods, but ghosts, in frozen apathy?
“Or is it that some force, too stern, too strong,
Even for yourselves to conquer or beguile,
Bears earth and heaven and men and gods along,
Like the broad volume of the insurgent Nile?
And the great powers we serve, themselves may be
Slaves of a tyrannous necessity?
“Or in mid-heaven, perhaps, your golden cars,
Where earthly voice climbs never, wing their flight,
And in wild hunt, through mazy tracts of stars,
Sweep in the sounding stillness of the night?
Or in deaf ease, on thrones of dazzling sheen,
Drinking deep draughts of joy, ye dwell serene?
“Oh, wherefore cheat our youth, if thus it be,
Of one short joy, one lust, one pleasant dream?
Stringing vain words of powers we cannot see,
Blind divinations of a will supreme;
Lost labor! when the circumambient gloom
But hides, if gods, gods careless of our doom?
“The rest I give to joy. Even while I speak,
My sand runs short; and as yon star-shot ray,
Hemmed by two banks of cloud, peers pale and weak,
Now, as the barrier closes, dies away,—
Even so do past and future intertwine,
Blotting this six years’ space, which yet is mine.
“Six years,—six little years,—six drops of time!
Yet suns shall rise, and many moons shall wane,
And old men die, and young men pass their prime,
And languid pleasure fade and flower again,
And the dull gods behold, ere these are flown,
Revels more deep, joy keener than their own.
“Into the silence of the groves and woods
I will go forth; though something would I say,—
Something,—yet what, I know not: for the gods
The doom they pass revoke not nor delay;
And prayers and gifts and tears are fruitless all,
And the night waxes, and the shadows fall.
“Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your king!
I go, and I return not. But the will
Of the great gods is plain; and ye must bring
Ill deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil
Their pleasure, to their feet; and reap their praise,—
The praise of gods, rich boon! and length of days.”
—So spake he, half in anger, half in scorn;
And one loud cry of grief and of amaze
Broke from his sorrowing people; so he spake,
And turning, left them there: and with brief pause,
Girt with a throng of revellers, bent his way
To the cool region of the groves he loved.
There by the river-banks he wandered on,
From palm-grove on to palm-grove, happy trees,
Their smooth tops shining sunward, and beneath
Burying their unsunned stems in grass and flowers;
Where in one dream the feverish time of youth
Might fade in slumber, and the feet of joy
Might wander all day long and never tire.
Here came the king, holding high feast, at morn,
Rose-crowned; and ever, when the sun went down,
A hundred lamps beamed in the tranquil gloom,
From tree to tree all through the twinkling grove,
Revealing all the tumult of the feast,—
Flushed guests, and golden goblets foamed with wine;
While the deep-burnished foliage overhead
Splintered the silver arrows of the moon.
It may be that sometimes his wondering soul
From the loud joyful laughter of his lips
Might shrink half startled, like a guilty man
Who wrestles with his dream; as some pale shape,
Gliding half hidden through the dusky stems,
Would thrust a hand before the lifted bowl,
Whispering, A little space, and thou art mine!
It may be, on that joyless feast his eye
Dwelt with mere outward seeming; he, within,
Took measure of his soul, and knew its strength,
And by that silent knowledge, day by day,
Was calmed, ennobled, comforted, sustained.
It may be; but not less his brow was smooth,
And his clear laugh fled ringing through the gloom,
And his mirth quailed not at the mild reproof
Sighed out by winter’s sad tranquillity;
Nor, palled with its own fulness, ebbed and died
In the rich languor of long summer-days;
Nor withered when the palm-tree plumes, that roofed
With their mild dark his grassy banquet-hall,
Bent to the cold winds of the showerless spring;
No, nor grew dark when autumn brought the clouds.
So six long years he revelled, night and day.
And when the mirth waxed loudest, with dull sound
Sometimes from the grove’s centre echoes came,
To tell his wondering people of their king;
In the still night, across the steaming flats,
Mixed with the murmur of the moving Nile.
Down the Savoy valleys sounding,
Echoing round this castle old,
’Mid the distant mountain-chalets
Hark! what bell for church is tolled?
In the bright October morning
Savoy’s Duke had left his bride.
From the castle, past the drawbridge,
Flowed the hunters’ merry tide.
Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering.
Gay, her smiling lord to greet,
From her mullioned chamber-casement
Smiles the Duchess Marguerite.
From Vienna, by the Danube,
Here she came, a bride, in spring.
Now the autumn crisps the forest;
Hunters gather, bugles ring.
Hounds are pulling, prickers swearing,
Horses fret, and boar-spears glance.
Off!—They sweep the marshy forests,
Westward on the side of France.
Hark! the game’s on foot; they scatter!
Down the forest-ridings lone,
Furious, single horsemen gallop.
Hark! a shout—a crash—a groan!
Pale and breathless, came the hunters—
On the turf dead lies the boar.
God! the duke lies stretched beside him,
Senseless, weltering in his gore.
In the dull October evening,
Down the leaf-strewn forest-road,
To the castle, past the drawbridge,
Came the hunters with their load.
In the hall, with sconces blazing,
Ladies waiting round her seat,
Clothed in smiles, beneath the dais
Sate the Duchess Marguerite.
Hark! below the gates unbarring!
Tramp of men, and quick commands!
“’Tis my lord come back from hunting;”
And the duchess claps her hands.
Slow and tired, came the hunters;
Stopped in darkness in the court.
“Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters!
To the hall! What sport, what sport?”
Slow they entered with their master;
In the hall they laid him down.
On his coat were leaves and blood-stains,
On his brow an angry frown.
Dead her princely youthful husband
Lay before his youthful wife,
Bloody ’neath the flaring sconces—
And the sight froze all her life.
In Vienna, by the Danube,
Kings hold revel, gallants meet.
Gay of old amid the gayest
Was the Duchess Marguerite.
In Vienna, by the Danube,
Feast and dance her youth beguiled.
Till that hour she never sorrowed;
But from then she never smiled.
’Mid the Savoy mountain-valleys,
Far from town or haunt of man,
Stands a lonely church, unfinished,
Which the Duchess Maud began.
Old, that duchess stern began it,
In gray age, with palsied hands;
But she died while it was building,
And the church unfinished stands,—
Stands as erst the builders left it,
When she sank into her grave;
Mountain greensward paves the chancel,
Harebells flower in the nave.
“In my castle all is sorrow,”
Said the Duchess Marguerite then:
“Guide me, some one, to the mountain;
We will build the church again.”
Sandalled palmers, faring homeward,
Austrian knights from Syria came.
“Austrian wanderers bring, O warders!
Homage to your Austrian dame.”
From the gate the warders answered,—
“Gone, O knights, is she you knew!
Dead our duke, and gone his duchess;
Seek her at the church of Brou.”
Austrian knights and march-worn palmers
Climb the winding mountain-way;
Reach the valley, where the fabric
Rises higher day by day.
Stones are sawing, hammers ringing;
On the work the bright sun shines;
In the Savoy mountain-meadows,
By the stream, below the pines.
On her palfrey white the duchess
Sate, and watched her working train,—
Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders,
German masons, smiths from Spain.
Clad in black, on her white palfrey,
Her old architect beside,—
There they found her in the mountains,
Morn and noon and eventide.
There she sate, and watched the builders,
Till the church was roofed and done;
Last of all, the builders reared her
In the nave a tomb of stone.
On the tomb two forms they sculptured,
Lifelike in the marble pale,—
One, the duke in helm and armor;
One, the duchess in her veil.
Round the tomb the carved stone fret-work
Was at Easter-tide put on.
Then the duchess closed her labors;
And she died at the St. John.
In the cedar-shadow sleeping,
Where cool grass and fragrant glooms
Late at eve had lured me, creeping
From your darkened palace rooms,—
I, who in your train at morning
Strolled and sang with joyful mind,
Heard, in slumber, sounds of warning;
Saw the hoarse boughs labor in the wind.
Who are they, O pensive Graces,
(For I dreamed they wore your forms)
Who on shores and sea-washed places
Scoop the shelves and fret the storms?
Who, when ships are that way tending,
Troop across the flushing sands,
To all reefs and narrows wending,
With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands?
Yet I see, the howling levels
Of the deep are not your lair;
And your tragic-vaunted revels
Are less lonely than they were.
Like those kings with treasure steering
From the jewelled lands of dawn,
Troops, with gold and gifts, appearing,
Stream all day through your enchanted lawn.
And we too, from upland valleys,
Where some Muse with half-curved frown
Leans her ear to your mad sallies
Which the charmed winds never drown;
By faint music guided, ranging
The scared glens, we wandered on,
Left our awful laurels hanging,
And came heaped with myrtles to your throne.
From the dragon-wardered fountains
Where the springs of knowledge are,
From the watchers on the mountains,
And the bright and morning star;
We are exiles, we are falling,
We have lost them at your call—
O ye false ones, at your calling
Seeking ceiled chambers and a palace-hall!
Are the accents of your luring
More melodious than of yore?
Are those frail forms more enduring
Than the charms Ulysses bore?
That we sought you with rejoicings,
Till at evening we descry
At a pause of Siren voicings
These vexed branches and this howling sky?...
. . . . . . . . . .
Oh, your pardon! The uncouthness
Of that primal age is gone,
And the skin of dazzling smoothness
Screens not now a heart of stone.
Love has flushed those cruel faces;
And those slackened arms forego
The delight of death-embraces,
And yon whitening bone-mounds do not grow.
“Ah!” you say; “the large appearance
Of man’s labor is but vain,
And we plead as stanch adherence
Due to pleasure as to pain.”
Pointing to earth’s careworn creatures,
“Come,” you murmur with a sigh:
“Ah! we own diviner features,
Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.
“Come,” you say, “the hours were dreary;
Life without love does not fade;
Vain it wastes, and we grew weary
In the slumbrous cedarn shade.
Round our hearts with long caresses,
With low sighings, Silence stole,
And her load of steaming tresses
Weighed, like Ossa, on the aery soul.
“Come,” you say, “the soul is fainting
Till she search and learn her own,
And the wisdom of man’s painting
Leaves her riddle half unknown.
Come,” you say, “the brain is seeking,
While the princely heart is dead;
Yet this gleaned, when gods were speaking,
Rarer secrets than the toiling head.
“Come,” you say, “opinion trembles,
Judgment shifts, convictions go;
Life dries up, the heart dissembles:
Only, what we feel, we know.
Hath your wisdom known emotions?
Will it weep our burning tears?
Hath it drunk of our love-potions
Crowning moments with the weight of years?”
I am dumb. Alas! too soon all
Man’s grave reasons disappear!
Yet, I think, at God’s tribunal
Some large answer you shall hear.
But for me, my thoughts are straying
Where at sunrise, through your vines,
On these lawns I saw you playing,
Hanging garlands on your odorous pines;
When your showering locks inwound you,
And your heavenly eyes shone through;
When the pine-boughs yielded round you,
And your brows were starred with dew;
And immortal forms, to meet you,
Down the statued alleys came,
And through golden horns, to greet you,
Blew such music as a god may frame.
Yes, I muse! And if the dawning
Into daylight never grew,
If the glistering wings of morning
On the dry noon shook their dew,
If the fits of joy were longer,
Or the day were sooner done,
Or, perhaps, if hope were stronger,
No weak nursling of an earthly sun ...
Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens,
Dusk the hall with yew!
. . . . . . . . . .
For a bound was set to meetings,
And the sombre day dragged on;
And the burst of joyful greetings,
And the joyful dawn, were gone.
For the eye grows filled with gazing,
And on raptures follow calms;
And those warm locks men were praising
Drooped, unbraided, on your listless arms.
Storms unsmoothed your folded valleys,
And made all your cedars frown;
Leaves were whirling in the alleys
Which your lovers wandered down.
—Sitting cheerless in your bowers,
The hands propping the sunk head,
Do they gall you, the long hours,
And the hungry thought that must be fed?
Is the pleasure that is tasted
Patient of a long review?
Will the fire joy hath wasted,
Mused on, warm the heart anew?
—Or, are those old thoughts returning,
Guests the dull sense never knew,
Stars, set deep, yet inly burning,
Germs, your untrimmed passion overgrew?
Once, like us, you took your station,
Watchers for a purer fire;
But you drooped in expectation,
And you wearied in desire.
When the first rose flush was steeping
All the frore peak’s awful crown,
Shepherds say, they found you sleeping
In some windless valley, farther down.
Then you wept, and slowly raising
Your dozed eyelids, sought again,
Half in doubt, they say, and gazing
Sadly back, the seats of men;
Snatched a turbid inspiration
From some transient earthly sun,
And proclaimed your vain ovation
For those mimic raptures you had won....
. . . . . . . . . .
With a sad, majestic motion,
With a stately, slow surprise,
From their earthward-bound devotion
Lifting up your languid eyes—
Would you freeze my louder boldness,
Dumbly smiling as you go,
One faint frown of distant coldness
Flitting fast across each marble brow?
Do I brighten at your sorrow,
O sweet pleaders? doth my lot
Find assurance in to-morrow
Of one joy which you have not?
Oh, speak once, and shame my sadness!
Let this sobbing, Phrygian strain,
Mocked and baffled by your gladness,
Mar the music of your feasts in vain!
. . . . . . . . . .
Scent, and song, and light, and flowers!
Gust on gust, the harsh winds blow—
Come, bind up those ringlet showers!
Roses for that dreaming brow!
Come, once more that ancient lightness,
Glancing feet, and eager eyes!
Let your broad lamps flash the brightness
Which the sorrow-stricken day denies.
Through black depths of serried shadows,
Up cold aisles of buried glade;
In the mist of river-meadows
Where the looming deer are laid;
From your dazzled windows streaming,
From your humming festal room,
Deep and far, a broken gleaming
Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom.
Where I stand, the grass is glowing:
Doubtless you are passing fair!
But I hear the north wind blowing,
And I feel the cold night-air,
Can I look on your sweet faces,
And your proud heads backward thrown,
From this dusk of leaf-strewn places
With the dumb woods and the night alone?
Yet, indeed, this flux of guesses,—
Mad delight, and frozen calms,—
Mirth to-day, and vine-bound tresses,
And to-morrow—folded palms;
Is this all? this balanced measure?
Could life run no happier way?
Joyous at the height of pleasure,
Passive at the nadir of dismay?
But, indeed, this proud possession,
This far-reaching, magic chain,
Linking in a mad succession
Fits of joy and fits of pain,—
Have you seen it at the closing?
Have you tracked its clouded ways?
Can your eyes, while fools are dozing,
Drop, with mine, adown life’s latter days?
When a dreary light is wading
Through this waste of sunless greens,
When the flashing lights are fading
On the peerless cheek of queens,
When the mean shall no more sorrow,
And the proudest no more smile;
While the dawning of the morrow
Widens slowly westward all that while?
Then, when change itself is over,
When the slow tide sets one way,
Shall you find the radiant lover,
Even by moments, of to-day?
The eye wanders, faith is failing:
Oh, loose hands, and let it be!
Proudly, like a king bewailing,
Oh, let fall one tear, and set us free!
All true speech and large avowal
Which the jealous soul concedes;
All man’s heart which brooks bestowal,
All frank faith which passion breeds,—
These we had, and we gave truly;
Doubt not, what we had, we gave!
False we were not, nor unruly;
Lodgers in the forest and the cave.
Long we wandered with you, feeding
Our rapt souls on your replies,
In a wistful silence reading
All the meaning of your eyes.
By moss-bordered statues sitting,
By well-heads, in summer days.
But we turn, our eyes are flitting—
See, the white east, and the morning-rays!
And you too, O worshipped Graces,
Sylvan gods of this fair shade!
Is there doubt on divine faces?
Are the blessed gods dismayed?
Can men worship the wan features,
The sunk eyes, the wailing tone,
Of unsphered, discrownèd creatures,
Souls as little godlike as their own?
Come, loose hands! The wingèd fleetness
Of immortal feet is gone;
And your scents have shed their sweetness,
And your flowers are overblown.
And your jewelled gauds surrender
Half their glories to the day;
Freely did they flash their splendor,
Freely gave it—but it dies away.
In the pines, the thrush is waking;
Lo, yon orient hill in flames!
Scores of true-love-knots are breaking
At divorce which it proclaims.
When the lamps are paled at morning,
Heart quits heart, and hand quits hand.
Cold in that unlovely dawning,
Loveless, rayless, joyless, you shall stand!
Pluck no more red roses, maidens,
Leave the lilies in their dew;
Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens,
Dusk, oh, dusk the hall with yew!
—Shall I seek, that I may scorn her,
Her I loved at eventide?
Shall I ask, what faded mourner
Stands, at daybreak, weeping by my side?...
Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens!
Dusk the hall with yew!