Volume 4 — POEMS OF JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1816. THE DREAM.

Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their developement have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of Joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being;[35] they become A portion of ourselves as of our time,10 And look like heralds of Eternity; They pass like spirits of the past,—they speak Like Sibyls of the future; they have power— The tyranny of pleasure and of pain; They make us what we were not—what they will, And shake us with the vision that's gone by,[36] The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so? Is not the past all shadow?—What are they? Creations of the mind?—The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own20 With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.[37] I would recall a vision which I dreamed Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought, A slumbering thought, is capable of years, And curdles a long life into one hour.[38]

I saw two beings in the hues of youth Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity, the last As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,30 Save that there was no sea to lave its base, But a most living landscape, and the wave Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke Arising from such rustic roofs;—the hill Was crowned with a peculiar diadem Of trees, in circular array, so fixed, Not by the sport of nature, but of man: These two, a maiden and a youth, were there Gazing—the one on all that was beneath40 Fair as herself—but the Boy gazed on her; And both were young, and one was beautiful: And both were young—yet not alike in youth. As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge, The Maid was on the eve of Womanhood; The Boy had fewer summers, but his heart Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye There was but one belovéd face on earth, And that was shining on him: he had looked Upon it till it could not pass away;50 He had no breath, no being, but in hers; She was his voice; he did not speak to her, But trembled on her words; she was his sight,[i][39] For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers, Which coloured all his objects:—he had ceased To live within himself; she was his life, The ocean to the river of his thoughts,[40] Which terminated all: upon a tone, A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,[41] And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart60 Unknowing of its cause of agony. But she in these fond feelings had no share: Her sighs were not for him; to her he was Even as a brother—but no more; 'twas much, For brotherless she was, save in the name Her infant friendship had bestowed on him; Herself the solitary scion left Of a time-honoured race.[42]—It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why? Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved70 Another: even now she loved another, And on the summit of that hill she stood Looking afar if yet her lover's steed[43] Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. There was an ancient mansion, and before Its walls there was a steed caparisoned: Within an antique Oratory stood The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,[44] And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon80 He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned His bowed head on his hands, and shook as 'twere With a convulsion—then arose again, And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear What he had written, but he shed no tears. And he did calm himself, and fix his brow Into a kind of quiet: as he paused, The Lady of his love re-entered there; She was serene and smiling then, and yet90 She knew she was by him beloved—she knew, For quickly comes such knowledge,[45] that his heart Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw That he was wretched, but she saw not all. He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp He took her hand; a moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced, and then it faded, as it came; He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,100 For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed From out the massy gate of that old Hall, And mounting on his steed he went his way; And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.[46]

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds Of fiery climes he made himself a home, And his Soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt With strange and dusky aspects; he was not Himself like what he had been; on the sea110 And on the shore he was a wanderer; There was a mass of many images Crowded like waves upon me, but he was A part of all; and in the last he lay Reposing from the noontide sultriness, Couched among fallen columns, in the shade Of ruined walls that had survived the names Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds Were fastened near a fountain; and a man120 Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while, While many of his tribe slumbered around: And they were canopied by the blue sky, So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.[47]

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Lady of his love was wed with One Who did not love her better:—in her home, A thousand leagues from his,—her native home, She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,130 Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold! Upon her face there was the tint of grief, The settled shadow of an inward strife, And an unquiet drooping of the eye, As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.[48] What could her grief be?—she had all she loved, And he who had so loved her was not there To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish, Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts. What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,140 Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved, Nor could he be a part of that which preyed Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand Before an Altar—with a gentle bride; Her face was fair, but was not that which made The Starlight[49] of his Boyhood;—as he stood Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock[50]150 That in the antique Oratory shook His bosom in its solitude; and then— As in that hour—a moment o'er his face The tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced,—and then it faded as it came, And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke The fitting vows, but heard not his own words, And all things reeled around him; he could see Not that which was, nor that which should have been— But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,160 And the remembered chambers, and the place, The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, All things pertaining to that place and hour And her who was his destiny, came back And thrust themselves between him and the light: What business had they there at such a time?

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Lady of his love;—Oh! she was changed As by the sickness of the soul; her mind Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes170 They had not their own lustre, but the look Which is not of the earth; she was become The Queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts Were combinations of disjointed things; And forms, impalpable and unperceived Of others' sight, familiar were to hers. And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise Have a far deeper madness—and the glance Of melancholy is a fearful gift; What is it but the telescope of truth?180 Which strips the distance of its fantasies, And brings life near in utter nakedness, Making the cold reality too real![j][51]

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was alone as heretofore, The beings which surrounded him were gone, Or were at war with him; he was a mark For blight and desolation, compassed round With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed In all which was served up to him, until,190 Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,[52] He fed on poisons, and they had no power, But were a kind of nutriment; he lived Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains:[53] with the stars And the quick Spirit of the Universe[54] He held his dialogues; and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries; To him the book of Night was opened wide, And voices from the deep abyss revealed[55]200 A marvel and a secret—Be it so.

My dream was past; it had no further change. It was of a strange order, that the doom Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality—the one To end in madness—both in misery.

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, 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 hearts Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,10 The palaces of crownéd kings—the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gathered 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 mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the World contained; Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks20 Extinguished with a crash—and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light 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 clenchéd hands, and smiled; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past World; and then again30 With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnashed their teeth and howled: the wild birds shrieked, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food: And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again:—a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart40 Gorging himself in gloom: no Love was left; All earth was but one thought—and that was Death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails—men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devoured, Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, Till hunger clung them,[57] or the dropping dead50 Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress—he died. The crowd was famished 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 heaped a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they raked up,60 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[58] Each other's aspects—saw, and shrieked, 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,70 Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropped They slept on the abyss without a surge— The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The Moon, their mistress, had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air,80 And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need Of aid from them—She was the Universe.

I stood beside the grave of him who blazed The Comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it; and I asked The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory tasked, Through the thick deaths of half a century;10 And thus he answered—"Well, I do not know Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so; He died before my day of Sextonship, And I had not the digging of this grave." And is this all? I thought,—and do we rip The veil of Immortality, and crave I know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight? So soon, and so successless? As I said,[61] The Architect of all on which we tread,20 For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay To extricate remembrance from the clay, Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought, Were it not that all life must end in one, Of which we are but dreamers;—as he caught As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,[62] Thus spoke he,—"I believe the man of whom You wot, who lies in this selected[63] tomb, Was a most famous writer in his day, And therefore travellers step from out their way30 To pay him honour,—and myself whate'er Your honour pleases:"—then most pleased I shook[l] From out my pocket's avaricious nook Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare So much but inconveniently:—Ye smile, I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while, Because my homely phrase the truth would tell. You are the fools, not I—for I did dwell With a deep thought, and with a softened eye,40 On that old Sexton's natural homily, In which there was Obscurity and Fame,— The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.

Titan! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; What was thy pity's recompense?[65] A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show, The suffocating sense of woe,10 Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless.

Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven,[66] And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate,20 Which for its pleasure doth create[67] The things it may annihilate, Refused thee even the boon to die:[68] 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,[69] But would not to appease him tell;30 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,[70] 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,40 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,[71] A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny;50 His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself—an equal to all woes—[m][72] And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concentered recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.

Could I remount the river of my years To the first fountain of our smiles and tears, I would not trace again the stream of hours Between their outworn banks of withered flowers, But bid it flow as now—until it glides Into the number of the nameless tides. What is this Death?—a quiet of the heart? The whole of that of which we are a part? For Life is but a vision—what I see Of all which lives alone is Life to me,10 And being so—the absent are the dead, Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread A dreary shroud around us, and invest With sad remembrancers our hours of rest. The absent are the dead—for they are cold, And ne'er can be what once we did behold; And they are changed, and cheerless,—or if yet The unforgotten do not all forget, Since thus divided—equal must it be If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;20 It may be both—but one day end it must In the dark union of insensate dust. The under-earth inhabitants—are they But mingled millions decomposed to clay? The ashes of a thousand ages spread Wherever Man has trodden or shall tread? Or do they in their silent cities dwell Each in his incommunicative cell? Or have they their own language? and a sense Of breathless being?—darkened and intense30 As Midnight in her solitude?—Oh Earth! Where are the past?—and wherefore had they birth? The dead are thy inheritors—and we But bubbles on thy surface; and the key Of thy profundity is in the Grave, The ebon portal of thy peopled cave, Where I would walk in spirit, and behold[74] Our elements resolved to things untold, And fathom hidden wonders, and explore The essence of great bosoms now no more.40

Rousseau—Voltaire—our Gibbon—and De Staël— Leman![75] 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,[76] The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the Heirs of Immortality Is proud, and makes the breath of Glory real!

Though the day of my Destiny's over, And the star of my Fate hath declined,[o] Thy soft heart refused to discover The faults which so many could find; Though thy Soul with my grief was acquainted, It shrunk not to share it with me, And the Love which my Spirit hath painted[p] It never hath found but in Thee.

Then when Nature around me is smiling,[78] The last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling,[q] Because it reminds me of thine; And when winds are at war with the ocean, As the breasts I believed in with me,[r] If their billows excite an emotion, It is that they bear me from Thee.

Though the rock of my last Hope is shivered,[s] And its fragments are sunk in the wave, Though I feel that my soul is delivered To Pain—it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemn; They may torture, but shall not subdue me; 'Tis of Thee that I think—not of them.[t]

Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Though woman, thou didst not forsake, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, Though slandered, thou never couldst shake;[u][79] Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, Though parted, it was not to fly, Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, Nor, mute, that the world might belie.[v]

Yet I blame not the World, nor despise it, Nor the war of the many with one; If my Soul was not fitted to prize it, 'Twas folly not sooner to shun:[80] And if dearly that error hath cost me, And more than I once could foresee, I have found that, whatever it lost me,[w] It could not deprive me of Thee.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,[x] Thus much I at least may recall, It hath taught me that what I most cherished Deserved to be dearest of all: In the Desert a fountain is springing,[y][81] In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of Thee.[82]

My Sister! my sweet Sister! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the same— A loved regret which I would not resign.[z] There yet are two things in my destiny,— A world to roam through, and a home with thee.[84]

The first were nothing—had I still the last, It were the haven of my happiness; But other claims and other ties thou hast,[aa] And mine is not the wish to make them less. A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past[ab] Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; Reversed for him our grandsire's[85] fate of yore,— He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

If my inheritance of storms hath been In other elements, and on the rocks Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen, I have sustained my share of worldly shocks, The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen My errors with defensive paradox;[ac] I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of my proper woe.

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. My whole life was a contest, since the day That gave me being, gave me that which marred The gift,—a fate, or will, that walked astray;[86] And I at times have found the struggle hard, And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: But now I fain would for a time survive, If but to see what next can well arrive.

Kingdoms and Empires in my little day I have outlived, and yet I am not old; And when I look on this, the petty spray Of my own years of trouble, which have rolled Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: Something—I know not what—does still uphold A spirit of slight patience;—not in vain, Even for its own sake, do we purchase Pain.

Perhaps the workings of defiance stir Within me—or, perhaps, a cold despair Brought on when ills habitually recur,— Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air, (For even to this may change of soul refer,[ad] And with light armour we may learn to bear,) Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not The chief companion of a calmer lot.[ae]

I feel almost at times as I have felt In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, Which do remember me of where I dwelt, Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,[af] Come as of yore upon me, and can melt My heart with recognition of their looks; And even at moments I could think I see Some living thing to love—but none like thee.[ag]

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create A fund for contemplation;—to admire Is a brief feeling of a trivial date; But something worthier do such scenes inspire: Here to be lonely is not desolate,[87] For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a Lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.[88]

Oh that thou wert but with me!—but I grow The fool of my own wishes, and forget The solitude which I have vaunted so Has lost its praise in this but one regret; There may be others which I less may show;— I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet I feel an ebb in my philosophy, And the tide rising in my altered eye.[ah]

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, By the old Hall which may be mine no more. Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore: Sad havoc Time must with my memory make, Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; Though, like all things which I have loved, they are Resigned for ever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask Of Nature that with which she will comply— It is but in her Summer's sun to bask, To mingle with the quiet of her sky, To see her gentle face without a mask, And never gaze on it with apathy. She was my early friend, and now shall be My sister—till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one; And that I would not;—for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun—[89] The earliest—even the only paths for me—[ai] Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be; The Passions which have torn me would have slept; I had not suffered, and thou hadst not wept.

With false Ambition what had I to do? Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make—a Name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over—I am one the more To baffled millions which have gone before.

And for the future, this world's future may[aj] From me demand but little of my care; I have outlived myself by many a day;[ak] Having survived so many things that were; My years have been no slumber, but the prey Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have filled a century,[90] Before its fourth in time had passed me by.

And for the remnant which may be to come[al] 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 farther.—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—[am] 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,[an] The tie which bound the first endures the last!

And thou wert sad—yet I was not with thee; And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near; Methought that Joy and Health alone could be Where I was not—and pain and sorrow here! And is it thus?—it is as I foretold, And shall be more so; for the mind recoils Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold, While Heaviness collects the shattered spoils. It is not in the storm nor in the strife We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more, But in the after-silence on the shore, When all is lost, except a little life.

I am too well avenged!—but 'twas my right; Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent To be the Nemesis who should requite—[92] Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument. Mercy is for the merciful!—if thou Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. Thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep:—[93] Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shall feel A hollow agony which will not heal, For thou art pillowed on a curse too deep; Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap The bitter harvest in a woe as real! I have had many foes, but none like thee; For 'gainst the rest myself I could defend, And be avenged, or turn them into friend; But thou in safe implacability Hadst nought to dread—in thy own weakness shielded, And in my love, which hath but too much yielded, And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare; And thus upon the world—trust in thy truth, And the wild fame of my ungoverned youth— On things that were not, and on things that are— Even upon such a basis hast thou built A monument, whose cement hath been guilt! The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,[94] And hewed down, with an unsuspected sword, Fame, peace, and hope—and all the better life Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, Might still have risen from out the grave of strife, And found a nobler duty than to part. But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice, Trafficking with them in a purpose cold, For present anger, and for future gold— And buying others' grief at any price.[95] And thus once entered into crooked ways, The early truth, which was thy proper praise,[96] Did not still walk beside thee—but at times, And with a breast unknowing its own crimes, Deceit, averments incompatible, Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell In Janus-spirits—the significant eye Which learns to lie with silence—the pretext[97] Of prudence, with advantages annexed— The acquiescence in all things which tend, No matter how, to the desired end— All found a place in thy philosophy. The means were worthy, and the end is won— I would not do by thee as thou hast done!