My years have been no slumber, but the prey

Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have fill'd a century, Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.

And for the remnant which may be to

come

I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless,-for within the crowded

sum

Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,

And for the present, I would not benumb My feelings further.--Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with a thought profound.

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart

I know myself secure, as thou in mine; We were and are-I am, even as thou art

Beings who ne'er each other can resign: It is the same, together or apart,

From life's commencement to its slow decline

We are entwined-let death come slow or fast,

The tie which bound the first endures the last! July, 1816. 1830.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC

THEY say that Hope is happiness :

But genuine Love must prize the past, And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless:

They rose the first-they set the last;

And all that Memory loves the most Was once our only Hope to be, And all that Hope adored and lost Hath melted into Memory.

Alas! it is delusion all ;

The future cheats us from afar, Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are. ?... 1829.

DARKNESS

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and

the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal

space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation: and all heartWere chill'd into a selfish prayer for light;

And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones,

The palaces of crowned kings-the hut. The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,

And men were gather'd round their blazing homes

To look once more into each other's face;

Happy were those who dwelt within the

eye

Of the volcanos, and their mountaintorch :

A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;

Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour

They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks

Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was black.

The brows of men by the despairing ligi.t Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down

And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest

Their chins upon their clenched hands and smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fel Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd

up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then agair With curses cast them down upon the

dust,

And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: th wild birds shriek'd

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground And flap their useless wings; the wild est brutes

Came tame and tremulous; and viper crawl'd

And twined themselves among the mu titude,

Which answer'd not with a caress-he died.

The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two

Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy
things

For an unholy usage; they raked up. And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Fach other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died

Even of their mutual hideousness they died.

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,

The populous and the powerful was a lump,

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless,

Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot
kill;

And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die;
The wretched gift eternity

Was thine--and thou hast borne it well. All that the Thunderer wrung from thee

Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,

And evil dread so ill dissembled, That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse

Of thine impenetrable Spirit,

Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,

A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign

To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure scurce;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;

His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence :
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself-and equal to all woes,

And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry

Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dare defy, And making Death a Victory.

July, 1816. December, 1816.

SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN

ROUSSEAU-Voltaire-our Gibbon-and De Staël

Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore,

Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more

Their memory thy remembrance would recall:

To them thy banks were lovely as to all,

But they have made them lovelier, for the lore

Of mighty minds doth hallow in the

core

Of human hearts the ruin of a wall Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee

How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel,

In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the heirs of immortality Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real!

July, 1816. December 5, 1816.

But this avail'd not :-Good, or evil, life, Powers, passions, all I see in other beings, Have been to me as rain unto the sands, Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread,

And feel the curse to have no natural fear, Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes,

Or lurking love of something on the earth. Now to my task.—

Mysterious agency! Ye spirits of the unbounded Universe! Whom I have sought in darkness and in light

Ye, who do compass earth about, and

dwell

In subtler essence-ye, to whom the tops
Of mountains inaccessible are haunts,
And earth's and ocean's caves familiar
things-

I call upon ye by the written charm
Which gives me power upon you-Rise!
Appear!
[A pause.
They come not yet.-Now by the voice

of him

Who is the first among you—by this sign, Which makes you tremble-by the claims,

of him

Who is undying,-Rise! Appear!
Appear!
[A pause.
If it be so-Spirits of earth and air,
Ye shall not thus elude me: by a power,
Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant-spell,
Which had its birthplace in a star con-
demn'd,

The burning wreck of a demolish'd world.

A wandering hell in the eternal space : By the strong curse which is upon my soul.

The thought which is within me and

around me,

I do compel ye to my will-Appear!

[A star is seen at the darker end of the gallery: it is stationary; and a voice is heard singing.

FIRST SPIRIT

Mortal! to thy bidding bow'd,
From my mansion in the cloud,
Which the breath of twilight builds,
And the summer's sunset gilds
With the azure and vermilion,
Which is mix'd for my pavilion;
Though thy quest may be forbidden,
On a star-beam I have ridden :
To thine adjuration bow'd,
Mortal-be thy wish avow'd!

SECOND SPIRIT

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains;

They crown'd him long ago

On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow.

Around his waist are forests braced,
The Avalanche in his hand;
But ere it fall, that thundering ball
Must pause for my command.
The Glacier's cold and restless mass
Moves onward day by day;
But I am he who bids it pass,

Or with its ice delay.

I am the spirit of the place,

Could make the mountain bow And quiver to his cavern'd baseAnd what with me wouldst Thou?

THIRD SPIRIT

In the blue depth of the waters, Where the wave hath no strife, Where the wind is a stranger,

And the sea-snake hath life, Where the Mermaid is decking Her green hair with shells, Like the storm on the surface Came the sound of thy spells; O'er my calm Hall of Coral

The deep echo roll'd— To the Spirit of Ocean Thy wishes unfold!

FOURTH SPIRIT

Where the slumbering earthquake Lies pillow'd on fire,

And the lakes of bitumen

Rise boilingly higher;
Where the roots of the Andes
Strike deep in the earth.
As their summits to heaven
Shoot soaringly forth;
I have quitted my birthplace,
Thy bidding to bide-
Thy spell hath subdued me,
Thy will be my guide!

FIFTH SPIRIT

I am the Rider of the wind,
The stirrer of the storm;
The hurricane I left behind

Is yet with lightning warm ;
To speed to thee, o'er shore and sea
I swept upon the blast:
The fleet I met sail'd well, and yet
'Twill sink ere night be past,

SIXTH SPIRIT

My dwelling is the shadow of the night, Why doth thy magic torture me with light?

SEVENTH SPIRIT

The star which rules thy destiny
Was ruled, ere earth began, by me:
It was a world as fresh and fair
As e'er revolved round sun in air;
Its course was free and regular,
Space bosom'd not a lovelier star.
The hour arrived-and it became
A wandering mass of shapeless flame,
A pathless comet, and a curse,
The menace of the universe;
Still rolling on with innate force,
Without a sphere, without a course,
A bright deformity on high,
The monster of the upper sky!

And thou! beneath its influence born-
Thou worm whom I obey and scorn-
Forced by a power (which is not thine,
And lent thee but to make thee mine)
For this brief moment to descend,
Where these weak spirits round thee bend
And parley with a thing like thee-
What wouldst thou, Child of Clay! with
me?

Can ye not wring from out the hidden realms

Ye offer so profusely what I ask? Spirit. It is not in our essence, in our skill;

But-thou may'st die.

Man. Will death bestow it on me? Spirit. We are immortal, and do not forget;

We are eternal; and to us the past Is, as the future, present. Art thou answer'd?

Man. Ye mock me-but the power which brought ye here

Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not at my will!

The mind, the spirit, the Promethean spark,

The lightning of my being, is as bright. Pervading, and far darting as your own. And shall not yield to yours, though coop'd in clay!

Answer, or I will teach you what I am. Spirit. We answer as we answer'd; our reply

Is even in thine own words.

Ye cannot, or ye will not, aid me. Spirit.

Say.

What we possess we offer; it is thine: Bethink ere thou dismiss us; ask again : Kingdom, and sway, and strength, and length of days

Man. Accursed! what have I to do with days?

They are too long already.-Hence-begone!

Spirit. Yet pause being here, our will would do thee service; Bethink thee, is there then no other gift Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes?

Man. No, none: yet stay--one moment, ere we part,

I would behold ye face to face. I hear Your voices, sweet and melancholy

sounds,

As music on the waters; and I see
The steady aspect of a clear large star:
But nothing more. Approach me as ye

are,

Or one, or all, in your accustom'd forms.