Volume 2 / Part 2 / Act 4 — FRAGMENTS[996:1]

O'er the raised earth the gales of evening sigh; And, see, a daisy peeps upon its slope! I wipe the dimming waters from mine eye; Even on the cold grave lights the Cherub Hope.[996:2]

Sea-ward, white gleaming thro' the busy scud With arching Wings, the sea-mew o'er my head Posts on, as bent on speed, now passaging Edges the stiffer Breeze, now, yielding, drifts, Now floats upon the air, and sends from far A wildly-wailing Note.

The Pleasures sport beneath the thatch; But Prudence sits upon the watch; Nor Dun nor Doctor lifts the latch!

Est meum et est tuum, amice! at si amborum nequit esse, Sit meum, amice, precor: quia certe sum mage pauper.

'Tis mine and it is likewise yours; But and if this will not do, Let it be mine, because that I Am the poorer of the Two!

Names do not always meet with Love, And Love wants courage without a name.[997:1]

The Moon, how definite its orb! Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze— 'Tis there indeed,—but where is it not?— It is suffused o'er all the sapphire Heaven, Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake, Whose very murmur does of it partake!

Such love as mourning Husbands have To her whose Spirit has been newly given To her guardian Saint in Heaven— Whose Beauty lieth in the grave—

Far liker to a Flower now than when alive, Cold to the Touch and blooming to the eye.

I know 'tis but a dream, yet feel more anguish Than if 'twere truth. It has been often so: Must I die under it? Is no one near? Will no one hear these stifled groans and wake me?

Bright clouds of reverence, sufferably bright, That intercept the dazzle, not the Light; That veil the finite form, the boundless power reveal, Itself an earthly sun of pure intensest white.

Over the broad, the shallow, rapid stream, The Alder, a vast hollow Trunk, and ribb'd— All mossy green with mosses manifold, And ferns still waving in the river-breeze [999]Sent out, like fingers, five projecting trunks— The shortest twice 6 (?) of a tall man's strides.— One curving upward in its middle growth Rose straight with grove of twigs—a pollard tree:— The rest more backward, gradual in descent— One in the brook and one befoamed its waters: One ran along the bank in the elk-like head And pomp of antlers—

I from the influence of thy Looks receive, Access in every virtue, in thy Sight More wise, more wakeful, stronger, if need were Of outward strength.—

What never is, but only is to be This is not Life:— O hopeless Hope, and Death's Hypocrisy! And with perpetual promise breaks its promises.

The silence of a City, how awful at Midnight! Mute as the battlements and crags and towers That Fancy makes in the clouds, yea, as mute As the moonlight that sleeps on the steady vanes.

The cell of a departed anchoret, His skeleton and flitting ghost are there, Sole tenants— And all the City silent as the Moon That steeps in quiet light the steady vanes Of her huge temples.

O beauty in a beauteous body dight! Body that veiling brightness, beamest bright; Fair cloud which less we see, than by thee see the light.

O th' Oppressive, irksome weight Felt in an uncertain state: Comfort, peace, and rest adieu Should I prove at last untrue! Self-confiding wretch, I thought I could love thee as I ought, Win thee and deserve to feel All the Love thou canst reveal, And still I chuse thee, follow still.

'Twas not a mist, nor was it quite a cloud, But it pass'd smoothly on towards the sea— Smoothly and lightly between Earth and Heaven: So, thin a cloud, It scarce bedimm'd the star that shone behind it: And Hesper now Paus'd on the welkin blue, and cloudless brink, A golden circlet! while the Star of Jove— That other lovely star—high o'er my head Shone whitely in the centre of his Haze . . . one black-blue cloud Stretch'd, like the heaven, o'er all the cope of Heaven.

Whom should I choose for my Judge? the earnest, impersonal reader, Who, in the work, forgets me and the world and himself! You who have eyes to detect, and Gall to Chastise the imperfect, Have you the heart, too, that loves,—feels and rewards the Compleat?

A sumptuous and magnificent Revenge.

Come, come thou bleak December wind, And blow the dry leaves from the tree! Flash, like a love-thought, thro' me, Death! And take a life that wearies me.

Marti'mas wind when wilt thou blaw, And shake the green leaves aff the tree? O gentle death, when wilt thou cum? For of my life I am wearie.

As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood, That crests its head with clouds, beneath the flood Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank Of its wide base controls the fronting bank— (By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay) High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits His channel'd brow; low murmurs stir by fits And dark below the horrid Faquir sits— An Horror from its broad Head's branching wreath Broods o'er the rude Idolatry beneath—

Let Eagle bid the Tortoise sunward soar— As vainly Strength speaks to a broken Mind.[1001:1]

The body, Eternal Shadow of the finite Soul, The Soul's self-symbol, its image of itself. Its own yet not itself.

Or Wren or Linnet, In Bush and Bushet; No tree, but in it A cooing Cushat.

The reed roof'd village still bepatch'd with snow Smok'd in the sun-thaw.

You mould my Hopes you fashion me within: And to the leading love-throb in the heart, Through all my being, through my pulses beat; You lie in all my many thoughts like Light, Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve, On rippling stream, or cloud-reflecting lake; And looking to the Heaven that bends above you, How oft! I bless the lot that made me love you.

And my heart mantles in its own delight.

The spruce and limber yellow-hammer In the dawn of spring and sultry summer, In hedge or tree the hours beguiling With notes as of one who brass is filing.

O'erhung with yew, midway the Muses mount From thy sweet murmurs far, O Hippocrene! Turbid and black upboils an angry fount Tossing its shatter'd foam in vengeful spleen— Phlegethon's rage Cocytus' wailings hoarse Alternate now, now mixt, made known its headlong course: Thither with terror stricken and surprise, (For sure such haunts were ne'er to Muse's choice) Euterpe led me. Mute with asking eyes I stood expectant of her heavenly voice. Her voice entranc'd my terror and made flow In a rude understrain the maniac fount below. 'Whene'er (the Goddess said) abhorr'd of Jove Usurping Power his hands in blood imbrues—

The singing Kettle and the purring Cat, The gentle breathing of the cradled Babe, The silence of the Mother's love-bright eye, And tender smile answering its smile of Sleep.

Two wedded hearts, if ere were such, Imprison'd in adjoining cells, Across whose thin partition-wall The builder left one narrow rent, And where, most content in discontent, A joy with itself at strife— Die into an intenser life.

The builder left one narrow rent, Two wedded hearts, if ere were such, Contented most in discontent, Still there cling, and try in vain to touch! [1004] O Joy! with thy own joy at strife, That yearning for the Realm above Wouldst die into intenser Life, And Union absolute of Love!

Sole Maid, associate sole, to me beyond Compare all living creatures dear— Thoughts, which have found their harbour in thy heart Dearest! me thought of him to thee so dear!

No mortal spirit yet had clomb so high As Kepler—yet his Country saw him die For very want! the Minds alone he fed, And so the Bodies left him without bread.

When Hope but made Tranquillity be felt: A flight of Hope for ever on the wing But made Tranquillity a conscious thing; And wheeling round and round in sportive coil, Fann'd the calm air upon the brow of Toil.

I have experienced The worst the world can wreak on me—the worst That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb With whisper'd discontent the dying prayer— I have beheld the whole of all, wherein My heart had any interest in this life To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes [1005] That nothing now is left. Why then live on? That hostage that the world had in its keeping Given by me as a pledge that I would live— That hope of Her, say rather that pure Faith In her fix'd Love, which held me to keep truce With the tyranny of Life—is gone, ah! whither? What boots it to reply? 'tis gone! and now Well may I break this Pact, this league of Blood That ties me to myself—and break I shall.

As when the new or full Moon urges The high, large, long, unbreaking surges Of the Pacific main.

O mercy, O me, miserable man! Slowly my wisdom, and how slowly comes My Virtue! and how rapidly pass off My Joys! my Hopes! my Friendships, and my Love!

A low dead Thunder mutter'd thro' the night, As 'twere a giant angry in his sleep— Nature! sweet nurse, O take me in thy lap And tell me of my Father yet unseen, Sweet tales, and true, that lull me into sleep And leave me dreaming.

His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead, His tender smiles, Love's day-dawn on his lips, Put on such heavenly, spiritual light, At the same moment in his steadfast eye Were Virtue's native crest, th' innocent soul's Unconscious meek self-heraldry,—to man Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel. He suffer'd nor complain'd;—though oft with tears [1006] He mourn'd th' oppression of his helpless brethren,— And sometimes with a deeper holier grief Mourn'd for the oppressor—but this in sabbath hours— A solemn grief, that like a cloud at sunset, Was but the veil of inward meditation Pierced thro' and saturate with the intellectual rays It soften'd.

'Behold yon row of pines, that shorn and bow'd Bend from the sea-blast, seen at twilight eve.'

'Yon row of bleak and visionary pines, By twilight-glimpse discerned, mark! how they flee From the fierce sea-blast, all their tresses wild Streaming before them.'

Ye harp-controlling hymns! (or) Ye hymns the sovereigns of harps! What God? what Hero? What Man shall we celebrate? Truly Pisa indeed is of Jove, But the Olympiad (or, the Olympic games) did Hercules establish, The first-fruits of the spoils of war. But Theron for the four-horsed car [1007] That bore victory to him, It behoves us now to voice aloud: The Just, the Hospitable, The Bulwark of Agrigentum, Of renowned fathers The Flower, even him Who preserves his native city erect and safe.

O! Superstition is the giant shadow Which the solicitude of weak mortality, Its back toward Religion's rising sun, Casts on the thin mist of th' uncertain future.

Not hers To win the sense by words of rhetoric, Lip-blossoms breathing perishable sweets; But by the power of the informing Word Roll sounding onward through a thousand years Her deep prophetic bodements.

Truth I pursued, as Fancy sketch'd the way, And wiser men than I went worse astray.

μεγάλαι θεαὶ ἀνδράσιν ἀργοῖς, αἵπερ γνώμην καὶ διάλεξιν καὶ νοῦν ἡμῖν παρέχουσι καὶ τερατείαν καὶ περίλεξιν καὶ κροῦσιν καὶ καταληψιν.

Great goddesses are they to lazy folks, Who pour down on us gifts of fluent speech, Sense most sententious, wonderful fine effect, And how to talk about it and about it, Thoughts brisk as bees, and pathos soft and thawy.

Let clumps of earth, however glorified, Roll round and round and still renew their cycle— Man rushes like a winged Cherub through The infinite space, and that which has been Can therefore never be again——

Friend pure of heart and fervent! we have learnt A different lore! We may not thus profane The Idea and Name of Him whose Absolute Will Is Reason—Truth Supreme!—Essential Order!

'The angel's like a flea, The devil is a bore;—' No matter for that! quoth S. T. C., I love him the better therefore.

Water and windmills, greenness, Islets green;— Willows whose Trunks beside the shadows stood Of their own higher half, and willowy swamp:— Farmhouses that at anchor seem'd—in the inland sky The fog-transfixing Spires— Water, wide water, greenness and green banks, And water seen—

Dulce dona mihi tu mittis semper Elisa! Et quicquid mittis Thura putare decet.

Sweet Gift! and always doth Elisa send Sweet Gifts and full of fragrance to her Friend Enough for Him to know they come from Her: Whate'er she sends is Frankincense and Myrrh.

Semper Elisa! mihi tu suaveolentia donas: Nam quicquid donas, te redolere puto.

Whate'er thou giv'st, it still is sweet to me, For still I find it redolent of thee.

What a spring-tide of Love to dear friends in a shoal! Half of it to one were worth double the whole!

I stand alone, nor tho' my heart should break, Have I, to whom I may complain or speak. Here I stand, a hopeless man and sad, Who hoped to have seen my Love, my Life. And strange it were indeed, could I be glad Remembering her, my soul's betrothéd wife. For in this world no creature that has life Was e'er to me so gracious and so good. Her loss is to my Heart, like the Heart's blood.

The Sun with gentle beams his rage disguises, And, like aspiring Tyrants, temporises— Never to be endured but when he falls or rises.

Thicker than rain-drops on November thorn.

His native accents to her stranger's ear, Skill'd in the tongues of France and Italy— Or while she warbles with bright eyes upraised, Her fingers shoot like streams of silver light Amid the golden haze of thrilling strings.

Each crime that once estranges from the virtues Doth make the memory of their features daily More dim and vague, till each coarse counterfeit Can have the passport to our confidence Sign'd by ourselves. And fitly are they punish'd Who prize and seek the honest man but as A safer lock to guard dishonest treasures.

Where'er I find the Good, the True, the Fair, I ask no names—God's spirit dwelleth there! The unconfounded, undivided Three, Each for itself, and all in each, to see In man and Nature, is Philosophy.

A wind that with Aurora hath abiding Among the Arabian and the Persian Hills.

What boots to tell how o'er his grave She wept, that would have died to save; Little they know the heart, who deem Her sorrow but an infant's dream Of transient love begotten; A passing gale, that as it blows Just shakes the ripe drop from the rose— That dies and is forgotten. [1012] O Woman! nurse of hopes and fears, All lovely in thy spring of years, Thy soul in blameless mirth possessing, Most lovely in affliction's tears, More lovely still than tears suppressing.

Though friendships differ endless in degree, The sorts, methinks, may be reduced to three. Acquaintance many, and Conquaintance few; But for Inquaintance I know only two— The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!

If fair by Nature She honours the fair Boon with fair adorning, And graces that bespeak a gracious breeding, Can gracious Nature lessen Nature's Graces? If taught by both she betters both and honours Fair gifts with fair adorning, know you not There is a beauty that resides within;— A fine and delicate spirit of womanhood Of inward birth?—

In the corner one— I spy Love! In the corner None, I spy Love.

As the shy hind, the soft-eyed gentle Brute Now moves, now stops, approaches by degrees— At length emerges from the shelt'ring Trees, Lur'd by her Hunter with the Shepherd's flute, Whose music travelling on the twilight breeze, When all besides was mute— She oft had heard, and ever lov'd to hear; She fearful Beast! but that no sound of Fear——

For ever in the world of Fame We live and yet abide the same: Clouds may intercept our rays, Or desert Lands reflect our blaze. The beauteous Month of May began, And all was Mirth and Sport, When Baron Guelph of Adelstan Took leave and left the Court. From Fête and Rout and Opera far The full town he forsook, And changed his wand and golden star For Shepherd's Crown and Crook. The knotted net of light and shade Beneath the budding tree, A sweeter day-bed for him made Than Couch and Canopy. In copse or lane, as Choice or Chance Might lead him was he seen; And join'd at eve the village dance Upon the village green. Nor endless—