MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. ON THE MEDUSA OF LEONARDO DA VINCI, IN THE FLORENTINE GALLERY. Ir lieth, gazing on the midnight sky, Loveliness like a shadow, from which shrine, Yet it is less the horror than the grace Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone; Whereon the lineaments of that dead face Are graven, till the characters be grown Into itself, and thought no more can trace; "Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain, Which humanize and harmonize the strain. And from its head as from one body grow, As [ grass out of a watery rock, Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow And their long tangles in each other lock, And with unending involutions shew Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock The torture and the death within, and saw The solid air with many a ragged jaw. And from a stone beside a poisonous eft Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise Flares, a light more dread than obscurity. 'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror; For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare Kindled by that inextricable error, Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air Become a [ ] and evershifting mirror Of all the beauty and the terror there A woman's countenance, with serpent locks, Gazing in death on heaven from those wet rocks. Florence, 1819. SONG. RARELY, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight! Wherefore hast thou left me now Many a day and night? Many a weary night and day 'Tis since thou art fled away. How shall ever one like me All but those who need thee not. As a lizard with the shade Of a trembling leaf, Thou with sorrow art dismayed; Even the sighs of grief Reproach thee, that thou art not near, And reproach thou wilt not hear. Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure, Thou wilt come for pleasure, Pity then will cut away Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. |