I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, Lured by the love of the genii that move And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead. As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, IV. That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march, When the powers of the air are chained to my Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the I arise and unbuild it again. [tomb, LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. THE fountains mingle with the river, See the mountains kiss high heaven, And the moonbeams kiss the sea;→ January, 1820. TO I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, Thou needest not fear mine; My spirit is too deeply laden Ever to burthen thine. I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, Innocent is the heart's devotion Like a star of heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, III. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied Of the sun's throne: palace and pyramid, Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, Into the shadow of her pinions wide, Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood, Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. IV. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves The world should listen then, as I am listening Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles now. Spain, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, And, in the rapid plumes of song, Clothed itself sublime and strong; As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey; Till from its station in the heaven of fame The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray Of the remotest sphere of living flame Which paves the void, was from behind it flung, As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came A voice out of the deep; I will record the same. Of favouring heaven: from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody On the unapprehensive wild. The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child, Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the Ægean main Athens arose a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision Of kingliest masonry: the ocean floors Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it; Its portals are inhabited By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded, A divine work! Athens diviner yet Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. VI. Within the surface of Time's fleeting river It trembles, but it cannot pass away! One sun illumines Heaven; one spirit vast renew. VII. Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, By thy sweet love was sanctified; Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone VIII. From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, Or piny promontory of the Arctic main, Or utmost islet inaccessible, Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn? And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. IX. A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou? Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea And burst around their walls, like idle foam, Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep, Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb Dissonant arms; and Art which cannot die, With divine want traced on our earthly home Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome, X. Thou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terror Of the world's wolves! thou bearer of the quiver, Whose sun-like shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever In the calm regions of the orient day! Luther caught thy wakening glance: Like lightning from his leaden lance Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay; And England's prophets hailed thee as their In songs whose music cannot pass away, [queen, Though it must flow for ever: not unseen Before the spirit-sighted countenance Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. * See the Baccha of Euripides. The eager hours and unreluctant years As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood, Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, Darkening each other with their multitude, And cried aloud, Liberty! Indignation Answered Pity from her cave; Death grew pale within the grave, And desolation howled to the destroyer, Save! When, like heaven's sun, girt by the exhalation Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise, Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. хл. Thou heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee In ominous eclipse? A thousand years, [then, Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den, Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears, Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away; How like Bacchanals of blood Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood Destruction's sceptered slaves, and Folly's mitred brood! When one, like them, but mightier far than they, The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, Rose armies mingled in obscure array, Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, [bowers Rests with those dead but unforgotten hours, Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ances tral towers. XIII. England yet sleeps: was she not called of old! From Pithecusa to Pelorus Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus: [us. They cry, Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended o'er Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile And they dissolve, but Spain's were links of Till bit to dust, by virtue's keenest file. [steel, Twins of a single destiny! appeal To the eternal years enthroned before us, XIV. Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, His soul may stream over the tyrant's head! Thy victory shall be his epitaph, Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, King-deluded Germany, His dead spirit lives in thee. Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free! And thou, lost Paradise of this divine And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness! Thou island of eternity! thou shrine Where desolation, clothed with loveliness, Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy, Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. 1 XV. O that the free would stamp the impious name Of**** into the dust; or write it there, So that this blot upon the page of fame Were as a serpent's path, which the light air Erases, and the flat sands close behind! Ye the oracle have heard: Lift the victory-flashing sword, And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, The axes and the rods which awe mankind; To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. XVI. O that the wise from their bright minds would kindle Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle Into the hell from which it first was hurled, A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure, Till human thoughts might kneel alone, Each before the judgment-throne Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown! Othat the words which make the thoughts obscure From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture, Were stript of their thin masks and various hue, And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, Till in the nakedness of false and true They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due. XVII. He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever Diving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, XVIII. Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned lot? Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? O, Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought [thee: By blood or tears, have not the wise and free Wept tears, and blood like tears? The solemn harmony XIX. Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing When the bolt has pierced its brain; Drooped; o'er it closed the echoes far away Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, As waves which lately paved his watery way Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play. |