LYRIC AND DRAMATIC POEMS.

Again I see my bliss at hand, The town, the lake, are here; My Marguerite smiles upon the strand,[12] Unaltered with the year. I know that graceful figure fair, That cheek of languid hue; I know that soft, enkerchiefed hair, And those sweet eyes of blue. Again I spring to make my choice; Again in tones of ire I hear a God’s tremendous voice,— “Be counselled, and retire.” Ye guiding Powers who join and part, What would ye have with me? Ah, warn some more ambitious heart, And let the peaceful be!

Ye storm-winds of autumn! Who rush by, who shake The window, and ruffle The gleam-lighted lake; Who cross to the hillside Thin-sprinkled with farms, Where the high woods strip sadly Their yellowing arms,— Ye are bound for the mountains! Ah! with you let me go Where your cold, distant barrier, The vast range of snow, Through the loose clouds lifts dimly Its white peaks in air. How deep is their stillness! Ah! would I were there! But on the stairs what voice is this I hear, Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear? Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn? Or was it from some sun-flecked mountain brook That the sweet voice its upland clearness took? Ah! it comes nearer— Sweet notes, this way! Hark! fast by the window The rushing winds go, To the ice-cumbered gorges, The vast seas of snow! There the torrents drive upward Their rock-strangled hum; There the avalanche thunders The hoarse torrent dumb. —I come, O ye mountains! Ye torrents, I come! But who is this, by the half-opened door, Whose figure casts a shadow on the floor? The sweet blue eyes—the soft, ash-colored hair— The cheeks that still their gentle paleness wear— The lovely lips, with their arched smile that tells The unconquered joy in which her spirit dwells— Ah! they bend nearer— Sweet lips, this way! Hark! the wind rushes past us! Ah! with that let me go To the clear, waning hill-side, Unspotted by snow, There to watch, o’er the sunk vale, The frore mountain wall, Where the niched snow-bed sprays down Its powdery fall. There its dusky blue clusters The aconite spreads; There the pines slope, the cloud-strips Hung soft in their heads. No life but, at moments, The mountain bee’s hum. —I come, O ye mountains! Ye pine-woods, I come! Forgive me! forgive me! Ah, Marguerite, fain Would these arms reach to clasp thee! But see! ’tis in vain. In the void air, towards thee, My stretched arms are cast; But a sea rolls between us,— Our different past! To the lips, ah! of others Those lips have been prest, And others, ere I was, Were strained to that breast. Far, far from each other Our spirits have grown. And what heart knows another? Ah! who knows his own? Blow, ye winds! lift me with you! I come to the wild. Fold closely, O Nature! Thine arms round thy child. To thee only God granted A heart ever new,— To all always open, To all always true. Ah! calm me, restore me; And dry up my tears On thy high mountain platforms, Where morn first appears; Where the white mists, forever, Are spread and upfurled,— In the stir of the forces Whence issued the world.

My horse’s feet beside the lake, Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay, Sent echoes through the night to wake Each glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay. The poplar avenue was passed, And the roofed bridge that spans the stream; Up the steep street I hurried fast, Led by thy taper’s starlike beam. I came! I saw thee rise! the blood Poured flushing to thy languid cheek. Locked in each other’s arms we stood, In tears, with hearts too full to speak. Days flew; ah, soon I could discern A trouble in thine altered air! Thy hand lay languidly in mine, Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare. I blame thee not! This heart, I know, To be long loved was never framed; For something in its depths doth glow Too strange, too restless, too untamed. And women,—things that live and move Mined by the fever of the soul,— They seek to find in those they love Stern strength, and promise of control. They ask not kindness, gentle ways; These they themselves have tried and known: They ask a soul which never sways With the blind gusts that shake their own. I too have felt the load I bore In a too strong emotion’s sway; I too have wished, no woman more, This starting, feverish heart away. I too have longed for trenchant force, And will like a dividing spear; Have praised the keen, unscrupulous course, Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear. But in the world I learnt, what there Thou too wilt surely one day prove,— That will, that energy, though rare, Are yet far, far less rare than love. Go, then! till time and fate impress This truth on thee, be mine no more! They will! for thou, I feel, not less Than I, wast destined to this lore. We school our manners, act our parts; But He, who sees us through and through, Knows that the bent of both our hearts Was to be gentle, tranquil, true. And though we wear out life, alas! Distracted as a homeless wind, In beating where we must not pass, In seeking what we shall not find; Yet we shall one day gain, life past, Clear prospect o’er our being’s whole; Shall see ourselves, and learn at last Our true affinities of soul. We shall not then deny a course To every thought the mass ignore; We shall not then call hardness force, Nor lightness wisdom any more. Then, in the eternal Father’s smile, Our soothed, encouraged souls will dare To seem as free from pride and guile, As good, as generous, as they are. Then we shall know our friends! Though much Will have been lost,—the help in strife, The thousand sweet, still joys of such As hand in hand face earthly life,— Though these be lost, there will be yet A sympathy august and pure; Ennobled by a vast regret, And by contrition sealed thrice sure. And we, whose ways were unlike here, May then more neighboring courses ply; May to each other be brought near, And greet across infinity. How sweet, unreached by earthly jars, My sister! to maintain with thee The hush among the shining stars, The calm upon the moonlit sea! How sweet to feel, on the boon air, All our unquiet pulses cease! To feel that nothing can impair The gentleness, the thirst for peace,— The gentleness too rudely hurled On this wild earth of hate and fear; The thirst for peace, a raving world Would never let us satiate here.

We were apart: yet, day by day, I bade my heart more constant be. I bade it keep the world away, And grow a home for only thee; Nor feared but thy love likewise grew, Like mine, each day, more tried, more true. The fault was grave! I might have known, What far too soon, alas! I learned,— The heart can bind itself alone, And faith may oft be unreturned. Self-swayed our feelings ebb and swell. Thou lov’st no more. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!—And thou, thou lonely heart, Which never yet without remorse Even for a moment didst depart From thy remote and spherèd course To haunt the place where passions reign,— Back to thy solitude again! Back! with the conscious thrill of shame Which Luna felt, that summer-night, Flash through her pure immortal frame, When she forsook the starry height To hang o’er Endymion’s sleep Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep. Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved How vain a thing is mortal love, Wandering in heaven, far removed; But thou hast long had place to prove This truth,—to prove, and make thine own: “Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.” Or, if not quite alone, yet they Which touch thee are unmating things,— Ocean and clouds and night and day; Lorn autumns and triumphant springs; And life, and others’ joy and pain, And love, if love, of happier men. Of happier men; for they, at least, Have dreamed two human hearts might blend In one, and were through faith released From isolation without end Prolonged; nor knew, although not less Alone than thou, their loneliness.

Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know. But when the moon their hollows lights, And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing; And lovely notes, from shore to shore, Across the sounds and channels pour,— Oh! then a longing like despair Is to their farthest caverns sent; For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent! Now round us spreads the watery plain: Oh, might our marges meet again! Who ordered that their longing’s fire Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled? Who renders vain their deep desire?— A God, a God their severance ruled! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.

In this fair stranger’s eyes of gray, Thine eyes, my love! I see. I shiver; for the passing day Had borne me far from thee. This is the curse of life! that not A nobler, calmer train Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot Our passions from our brain; But each day brings its petty dust, Our soon-choked souls to fill; And we forget because we must, And not because we will. I struggle towards the light; and ye, Once-longed-for storms of love! If with the light ye cannot be, I bear that ye remove. I struggle towards the light; but oh, While yet the night is chill, Upon time’s barren, stormy flow, Stay with me, Marguerite, still!

Ten years! and to my waking eye Once more the roofs of Berne appear; The rocky banks, the terrace high, The stream! and do I linger here? The clouds are on the Oberland, The Jungfrau snows look faint and far; But bright are those green fields at hand, And through those fields comes down the Aar, And from the blue twin-lakes it comes, Flows by the town, the churchyard fair; And ’neath the garden-walk it hums, The house! and is my Marguerite there Ah! shall I see thee, while a flush Of startled pleasure floods thy brow, Quick through the oleanders brush, And clap thy hands, and cry, ’Tis thou! Or hast thou long since wandered back, Daughter of France! to France, thy home; And flitted down the flowery track Where feet like thine too lightly come? Doth riotous laughter now replace Thy smile, and rouge, with stony glare, Thy cheek’s soft hue, and fluttering lace The kerchief that inwound thy hair? Or is it over? art thou dead?— Dead!—and no warning shiver ran Across my heart, to say thy thread Of life was cut, and closed thy span! Could from earth’s ways that figure slight Be lost, and I not feel ’twas so? Of that fresh voice the gay delight Fail from earth’s air, and I not know? Or shall I find thee still, but changed, But not the Marguerite of thy prime? With all thy being re-arranged,— Passed through the crucible of time; With spirit vanished, beauty waned, And hardly yet a glance, a tone, A gesture—any thing—retained Of all that was my Marguerite’s own? I will not know! For wherefore try, To things by mortal course that live, A shadowy durability, For which they were not meant, to give? Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass Upon the boundless ocean-plain, So on the sea of life, alas! Man meets man,—meets, and quits again. I knew it when my life was young; I feel it still now youth is o’er. —The mists are on the mountain hung, And Marguerite I shall see no more.

THE YOUTH. Faster, faster, O Circe, goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, The bright procession Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul! Thou standest, smiling Down on me! thy right arm, Leaned up against the column there, Props thy soft cheek; Thy left holds, hanging loosely, The deep cup, ivy-cinctured, I held but now. Is it then evening So soon? I see, the night-dews, Clustered in thick beads, dim The agate brooch-stones On thy white shoulder; The cool night-wind, too, Blows through the portico, Stirs thy hair, goddess, Waves thy white robe! CIRCE. Whence art thou, sleeper? THE YOUTH. When the white dawn first Through the rough fir-planks Of my hut, by the chestnuts, Up at the valley-head, Came breaking, goddess! I sprang up, I threw round me My dappled fawn-skin; Passing out, from the wet turf, Where they lay, by the hut door, I snatched up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, All drenched in dew,— Came swift down to join The rout early gathered In the town, round the temple, Iacchus’ white fane On yonder hill. Quick I passed, following The woodcutters’ cart-track Down the dark valley. I saw On my left, through the beeches, Thy palace, goddess, Smokeless, empty! Trembling, I entered; beheld The court all silent, The lions sleeping, On the altar this bowl. I drank, goddess! And sank down here, sleeping, On the steps of thy portico. CIRCE. Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou? Thou lovest it, then, my wine? Wouldst more of it? See how glows, Through the delicate, flushed marble, The red creaming liquor, Strewn with dark seeds! Drink, then! I chide thee not, Deny thee not my bowl. Come, stretch forth thy hand, then—so! Drink—drink again! THE YOUTH. Thanks, gracious one! Ah, the sweet fumes again! More soft, ah me! More subtle-winding, Than Pan’s flute-music! Faint—faint! Ah me, Again the sweet sleep! CIRCE. Hist! Thou—within there! Come forth, Ulysses! Art tired with hunting? While we range the woodland, See what the day brings. ULYSSES. Ever new magic! Hast thou then lured hither, Wonderful goddess, by thy art, The young, languid-eyed Ampelus, Iacchus’ darling, Or some youth beloved of Pan, Of Pan and the nymphs; That he sits, bending downward His white, delicate neck To the ivy-wreathed marge Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves That crown his hair, Falling forward, mingling With the dark ivy-plants; His fawn-skin, half untied, Smeared with red wine-stains? Who is he, That he sits, overweighed By fumes of wine and sleep, So late, in thy portico? What youth, goddess,—what guest Of gods or mortals? CIRCE. Hist! he wakes! I lured him not hither, Ulysses. Nay, ask him! THE YOUTH. Who speaks? Ah! who comes forth To thy side, goddess, from within? How shall I name him,— This spare, dark-featured, Quick-eyed stranger? Ah! and I see too His sailor’s bonnet, His short coat, travel-tarnished, With one arm bare!— Art thou not he, whom fame This long time rumors The favored guest of Circe, brought by the waves? Art thou he, stranger,— The wise Ulysses, Laertes’ son? ULYSSES. I am Ulysses. And thou too, sleeper? Thy voice is sweet. It may be thou hast followed Through the islands some divine bard, By age taught many things,— Age, and the Muses; And heard him delighting The chiefs and people In the banquet, and learned his songs, Of gods and heroes, Of war and arts, And peopled cities, Inland, or built By the gray sea. If so, then hail! I honor and welcome thee. THE YOUTH. The gods are happy. They turn on all sides Their shining eyes, And see below them The earth and men. They see Tiresias Sitting, staff in hand, On the warm, grassy Asopus bank, His robe drawn over His old sightless head, Revolving inly The doom of Thebes. They see the centaurs In the upper glens Of Pelion, in the streams Where red-berried ashes fringe The clear-brown shallow pools, With streaming flanks, and heads Reared proudly, snuffing The mountain wind. They see the Indian Drifting, knife in hand, His frail boat moored to A floating isle thick-matted With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants, And the dark cucumber. He reaps and stows them, Drifting—drifting; round him, Round his green harvest-plot, Flow the cool lake-waves, The mountains ring them. They see the Scythian On the wide steppe, unharnessing His wheeled house at noon. He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal,— Mares’ milk, and bread Baked on the embers. All around, The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starred With saffron and the yellow hollyhock And flag-leaved iris-flowers. Sitting in his cart He makes his meal; before him, for long miles, Alive with bright green lizards, And the springing bustard-fowl, The track, a straight black line, Furrows the rich soil; here and there Clusters of lonely mounds Topped with rough-hewn, Gray, rain-bleared statues, overpeer The sunny waste. They see the ferry On the broad, clay-laden Lone Chorasmian stream; thereon, With snort and strain, Two horses, strongly swimming, tow The ferry-boat, with woven ropes To either bow Firm-harnessed by the mane; a chief, With shout and shaken spear, Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern The cowering merchants in long robes Sit pale beside their wealth Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, Of gold and ivory, Of turquoise-earth, and amethyst, Jasper and chalcedony, And milk-barred onyx-stones. The loaded boat swings groaning In the yellow eddies; The gods behold them. They see the heroes Sitting in the dark ship On the foamless, long-heaving, Violet sea, At sunset nearing The Happy Islands. These things, Ulysses, The wise bards also Behold, and sing. But oh, what labor! O prince, what pain! They too can see Tiresias; but the gods, Who gave them vision, Added this law: That they should bear too His groping blindness, His dark foreboding, His scorned white hairs; Bear Hera’s anger Through a life lengthened To seven ages. They see the centaurs On Pelion: then they feel, They too, the maddening wine Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain They feel the biting spears Of the grim Lapithæ, and Theseus, drive, Drive crashing through their bones; they feel, High on a jutting rock in the red stream, Alcmena’s dreadful son Ply his bow. Such a price The gods exact for song: To become what we sing. They see the Indian On his mountain lake; but squalls Make their skiff reel, and worms In the unkind spring have gnawn Their melon-harvest to the heart. They see The Scythian; but long frosts Parch them in winter-time on the bare steppe, Till they too fade like grass; they crawl Like shadows forth in spring. They see the merchants On the Oxus-stream; but care Must visit first them too, and make them pale: Whether, through whirling sand, A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst Upon their caravan; or greedy kings, In the walled cities the way passes through, Crushed them with tolls; or fever-airs, On some great river’s marge, Mown them down, far from home. They see the heroes Near harbor; but they share Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,— Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy; Or where the echoing oars Of Argo first Startled the unknown sea. The old Silenus Came, lolling in the sunshine, From the dewy forest-coverts, This way, at noon. Sitting by me, while his fauns Down at the water-side Sprinkled and smoothed His drooping garland, He told me these things. But I, Ulysses, Sitting on the warm steps, Looking over the valley, All day long, have seen, Without pain, without labor, Sometimes a wild-haired mænad, Sometimes a faun with torches, And sometimes, for a moment, Passing through the dark stems Flowing-robed, the beloved, The desired, the divine, Beloved Iacchus. Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars! Ah, glimmering water, Fitful earth-murmur, Dreaming woods! Ah, golden-haired, strangely smiling goddess, And thou, proved, much-enduring, Wave-tossed wanderer! Who can stand still? Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me— The cup again! Faster, faster, O Circe, goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, The bright procession Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul!

Well hath he done who hath seized happiness! For little do the all-containing hours, Though opulent, freely give,— Who, weighing that life well Fortune presents unprayed, Declines her ministry, and carves his own; And, justice not infringed, Makes his own welfare his unswerved-from law. He does well too, who keeps that clew the mild Birth-goddess and the austere Fates first gave. For, from the day when these Bring him, a weeping child, First to the light, and mark A country for him, kinsfolk, and a home, Unguided he remains, Till the Fates come again, this time with death. In little companies, And, our own place once left, Ignorant where to stand, or whom to avoid, By city and household grouped, we live; and many shocks Our order heaven-ordained Must every day endure,— Voyages, exiles, hates, dissensions, wars. Besides what waste he makes, The all-hated, order-breaking, Without friend, city, or home,— Death, who dissevers all. Him then I praise, who dares To self-selected good Prefer obedience to the primal law Which consecrates the ties of blood; for these, indeed, Are to the gods a care: That touches but himself. For every day man may be linked and loosed With strangers; but the bond Original, deep-inwound, Of blood, can he not bind, Nor, if fate binds, not bear. But hush! Hæmon, whom Antigone, Robbing herself of life in burying, Against Creon’s law, Polynices, Robs of a loved bride,—pale, imploring, Waiting her passage, Forth from the palace hitherward comes. HÆMON. No, no, old men, Creon I curse not! I weep, Thebans, One than Creon crueller far! For he, he, at least, by slaying her, August laws doth mightily vindicate; But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless!— Ah me!—honorest more than thy lover, O Antigone! A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse. THE CHORUS. Nor was the love untrue Which the Dawn-Goddess bore To that fair youth she erst, Leaving the salt sea-beds, And coming flushed over the stormy frith Of loud Euripus, saw,— Saw and snatched, wild with love, From the pine-dotted spurs Of Parnes, where thy waves, Asopus! gleam rock-hemmed,— The Hunter of the Tanagræan Field.[13] But him, in his sweet prime, By severance immature, By Artemis’ soft shafts, She, though a goddess born, Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die. Such end o’ertook that love. For she desired to make Immortal mortal man, And blend his happy life, Far from the gods, with hers; To him postponing an eternal law. HÆMON. But like me, she, wroth, complaining, Succumbed to the envy of unkind gods; And, her beautiful arms unclasping, Her fair youth unwillingly gave. THE CHORUS. Nor, though enthroned too high To fear assault of envious gods, His beloved Argive seer would Zeus retain From his appointed end In this our Thebes; but when His flying steeds came near To cross the steep Ismenian glen, The broad earth opened, and whelmed them and him, And through the void air sang At large his enemy’s spear. And fain would Zeus have saved his tired son, Beholding him where the Two Pillars stand O’er the sun-reddened western straits,[14] Or at his work in that dim lower world. Fain would he have recalled The fraudulent oath which bound To a much feebler wight the heroic man. But he preferred fate to his strong desire. Nor did there need less than the burning pile Under the towering Trachis crags, And the Spercheios vale, shaken with groans, And the roused Maliac gulf, And scared Œtæan snows, To achieve his son’s deliverance, O my child!

O frivolous mind of man, Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts! Though man bewails you not, How I bewail you! Little in your prosperity Do you seek counsel of the gods. Proud, ignorant, self-adored, you live alone. In profound silence stern, Among their savage gorges and cold springs, Unvisited remain The great oracular shrines. Thither in your adversity Do you betake yourselves for light, But strangely misinterpret all you hear. For you will not put on New hearts with the inquirer’s holy robe, And purged, considerate minds. And him on whom, at the end Of toil and dolour untold, The gods have said that repose At last shall descend undisturbed,— Him you expect to behold In an easy old age, in a happy home: No end but this you praise. But him on whom, in the prime Of life, with vigor undimmed, With unspent mind, and a soul Unworn, undebased, undecayed, Mournfully grating, the gates Of the city of death have forever closed,— Him, I count him, well-starred.

For him who must see many years, I praise the life which slips away Out of the light, and mutely; which avoids Fame, and her less fair followers, envy, strife, Stupid detraction, jealousy, cabal, Insincere praises; which descends The quiet mossy track to age. But when immature death Beckons too early the guest From the half-tried banquet of life, Young, in the bloom of his days; Leaves no leisure to press, Slow and surely, the sweets Of a tranquil life in the shade,— Fuller for him be the hours! Give him emotion, though pain! Let him live, let him feel, I have lived. Heap up his moments with life! Triple his pulses with fame!

Hark! ah, the nightingale— The tawny-throated! Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark! what pain! O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain, Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy racked heart and brain Afford no balm? Dost thou to-night behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? Dost thou again peruse With hot cheeks and seared eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb sister’s shame? Dost thou once more assay Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor fugitive, the feathery change. Once more, and once more seem to make resound With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? Listen, Eugenia,— How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Again—thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!

She smiles and smiles, and will not sigh, While we for hopeless passion die; Yet she could love, those eyes declare, Were but men nobler than they are. Eagerly once her gracious ken Was turned upon the sons of men; But light the serious visage grew grew— She looked, and smiled, and saw them through. Our petty souls, our strutting wits, Our labored, puny passion-fits,— Ah, may she scorn them still, till we Scorn them as bitterly as she! Yet show her once, ye heavenly Powers, One of some worthier race than ours! One for whose sake she once might prove How deeply she who scorns can love. His eyes be like the starry lights, His voice like sounds of summer nights; In all his lovely mien let pierce The magic of the universe! And she to him will reach her hand, And gazing in his eyes will stand, And know her friend, and weep for glee, And cry, Long, long I’ve looked for thee. Then will she weep: with smiles, till then, Coldly she mocks the sons of men; Till then, her lovely eyes maintain Their pure, unwavering, deep disdain.

I must not say that she was true, Yet let me say that she was fair; And they, that lovely face who view, They should not ask if truth be there. Truth—what is truth? Two bleeding hearts, Wounded by men, by fortune tried, Outwearied with their lonely parts, Vow to beat henceforth side by side. The world to them was stern and drear, Their lot was but to weep and moan; Ah! let them keep their faith sincere, For neither could subsist alone. But souls whom some benignant breath Hath charmed at birth from gloom and care,— These ask no love, these plight no faith, For they are happy as they are. The world to them may homage make, And garlands for their forehead weave; And what the world can give, they take— But they bring more than they receive. They shine upon the world; their ears To one demand alone are coy: They will not give us love and tears, They bring us light and warmth and joy. On one she smiled, and he was blest; She smiles elsewhere—we make a din! But ’twas not love which heaved her breast, Fair child! it was the bliss within.

A thousand knights have reined their steeds To watch this line of sand-hills run, Along the never-silent strait, To Calais glittering in the sun; To look toward Ardres’ Golden Field Across this wide aërial plain, Which glows as if the Middle Age Were gorgeous upon earth again. Oh, that to share this famous scene, I saw, upon the open sand, Thy lovely presence at my side,— Thy shawl, thy look, thy smile, thy hand! How exquisite thy voice would come, My darling, on this lonely air! How sweetly would the fresh sea-breeze Shake loose some band of soft brown hair! Yet now my glance but once hath roved O’er Calais and its famous plain; To England’s cliffs my gaze is turned, O’er the blue strait mine eyes I strain. Thou comest! Yes! the vessel’s cloud Hangs dark upon the rolling sea. Oh that yon sea-bird’s wings were mine, To win one instant’s glimpse of thee! I must not spring to grasp thy hand, To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye; But I may stand far off, and gaze, And watch thee pass unconscious by,— And spell thy looks, and guess thy thoughts, Mixed with the idlers on the pier. Ah! might I always rest unseen, So I might have thee always near! To-morrow hurry through the fields Of Flanders to the storied Rhine! To-night those soft-fringed eyes shall close Beneath one roof, my queen! with mine.

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat Under the rustling poplars’ shade; Silent the swans beside us float: None speaks, none heeds; ah, turn thy head! Let those arch eyes now softly shine, That mocking mouth grow sweetly bland; Ah! let them rest, those eyes, on mine! On mine let rest that lovely hand! My pent-up tears oppress my brain, My heart is swoln with love unsaid. Ah! let me weep, and tell my pain, And on thy shoulder rest my head! Before I die,—before the soul, Which now is mine, must re-attain Immunity from my control, And wander round the world again; Before this teased, o’er-labored heart Forever leaves its vain employ, Dead to its deep habitual smart, And dead to hopes of future joy.

Each on his own strict line we move, And some find death ere they find love; So far apart their lives are thrown From the twin soul that halves their own. And sometimes, by still harder fate, The lovers meet, but meet too late. —Thy heart is mine! True, true! ah, true! —Then, love, thy hand! Ah, no! adieu!

Stop! not to me, at this bitter departing, Speak of the sure consolations of time! Fresh be the wound, still-renewed be its smarting, So but thy image endure in its prime! But if the steadfast commandment of Nature Wills that remembrance should always decay; If the loved form and the deep-cherished feature Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away,— Me let no half-effaced memories cumber; Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee! Deep be the darkness, and still be the slumber; Dead be the past and its phantoms to me! Then, when we meet, and thy look strays toward me, Scanning my face and the changes wrought there; Who, let me say, is this stranger regards me, With the gray eyes, and the lovely brown hair?

Vain is the effort to forget. Some day I shall be cold, I know, As is the eternal moon-lit snow Of the high Alps, to which I go; But ah! not yet, not yet! Vain is the agony of grief. ’Tis true, indeed, an iron knot Ties straitly up from mine thy lot; And, were it snapped—thou lov’st me not! But is despair relief? A while let me with thought have done. And as this brimmed unwrinkled Rhine, And that far purple mountain line, Lie sweetly in the look divine Of the slow-sinking sun; So let me lie, and, calm as they, Let beam upon my inward view Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue,— Eyes too expressive to be blue, Too lovely to be gray. Ah, quiet, all things feel thy balm! Those blue hills too, this river’s flow, Were restless once, but long ago. Tamed is their turbulent youthful glow; Their joy is in their calm.

Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times, A messenger from radiant climes, And smile on thy new world, and be As kind to others as to me! Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth, Come now, and let me dream it truth; And part my hair, and kiss my brow, And say, My love! why sufferest thou? Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.

The thoughts that rain their steady glow Like stars on life’s cold sea, Which others know, or say they know,— They never shone for me. Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit’s sky, But they will not remain. They light me once, they hurry by, And never come again.

Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory Of possessing powers not our share? —Since man woke on earth, he knows his story; But, before we woke on earth, we were. Long, long since, undowered yet, our spirit Roamed, ere birth, the treasuries of God; Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit, Asked an outfit for its earthly road. Then, as now, this tremulous, eager being Strained and longed, and grasped each gift it saw; Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing Staved us back, and gave our choice the law. Ah! whose hand that day through heaven guided Man’s new spirit, since it was not we? Ah! who swayed our choice, and who decided What our gifts and what our wants should be? For, alas! he left us each retaining Shreds of gifts which he refused in full; Still these waste us with their hopeless straining, Still the attempt to use them proves them null. And on earth we wander, groping, reeling; Powers stir in us, stir and disappear. Ah! and he, who placed our master-feeling, Failed to place that master-feeling clear. We but dream we have our wished-for powers; Ends we seek, we never shall attain. Ah! some power exists there, which is ours? Some end is there, we indeed may gain?

The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched sand, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery: we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? —Yes, but not this alone. Is it to feel our strength— Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung? Yes, this, and more; but not, Ah! ’tis not what in youth we dreamed ’twould be. ’Tis not to have our life Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,— A golden day’s decline. ’Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirred; And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, The years that are no more. It is to spend long days, And not once feel that we were ever young; It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain. It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change, But no emotion,—none. It is—last stage of all— When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost, Which blamed the living man.

Youth rambles on life’s arid mount, And strikes the rock, and finds the vein, And brings the water from the fount,— The fount which shall not flow again. The man mature with labor chops For the bright stream a channel grand, And sees not that the sacred drops Ran off and vanished out of hand. And then the old man totters nigh, And feebly rakes among the stones. The mount is mute, the channel dry; And down he lays his weary bones.

“Man is blind because of sin; Revelation makes him sure: Without that, who looks within Looks in vain, for all’s obscure.” Nay, look closer into man! Tell me, can you find indeed Nothing sure, no moral plan Clear prescribed, without your creed? “No, I nothing can perceive! Without that, all’s dark for men. That, or nothing, I believe.”— For God’s sake, believe it, then!

Creep into thy narrow bed,— Creep, and let no more be said. Vain thy onset! all stands fast. Thou thyself must break at last. Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired: best be still. They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee? Better men fared thus before thee; Fired their ringing shot, and passed, Hotly charged—and sank at last. Charge once more, then, and be dumb! Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall!

Ask not my name, O friend! That Being only, which hath known each man From the beginning, can Remember each unto the end.

Empedocles. Pausanias, a Physician. Callicles, a young Harp-player.