O, lady bright! can it be right—
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top, Laughingly through the lattice drop-The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully-so fearfully—
Above the closed and fringed lid
‘Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid, That, o’er the floor and down the wall, Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come O’er far-off seas, A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress, Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-Some vault that oft has flung its black And winged panels fluttering back, Triumphant, o’er the crested palls, Of her grand family funerals-Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown, In childhood, many an idle stone-Some tomb from out whose sounding door She ne’er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.
Sonnet
— To Science
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
Song
I saw thee on thy bridal day—
When a burning blush came o’er thee, Though happiness around thee lay,
The world all love before thee:
And in thine eye a kindling light
(Whatever it might be)
Was all on Earth my aching sight
Of Loveliness could see.
That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame-As such it well may pass—
Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame In the breast of him, alas!
Who saw thee on that bridal day,
When that deep blush would come o’er thee, Though happiness around thee lay;
The world all love before thee.
Spirits
of the Dead
Thy soul shall find itself alone
‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone; Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness-for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will Shall overshadow thee; be still.
The night, though clear, shall frown, And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in the Heaven With light like hope to mortals given, But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish, Now are visions ne’er to vanish;
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more, like dew-drop from the grass.
The breeze, the breath of God, is still, And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
Stanzas
How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature’s universal throne; Her woods-her wilds-her mountains-the intense Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence! [BYRON, The Island.]
I
In youth have I known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held-as he with it, In daylight, and in beauty from his birth: Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth A passionate light-such for his spirit was fit-And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour Of its own fervor what had o’er it power.
II
Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o’er, But I will half believe that wild light fraught With more of sovereignty than ancient lore Hath ever told-or is it of a thought The unembodied essence, and no more, That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass As dew of the night-time o’er the summer grass?
III
Doth o’er us pass, when, as th’ expanding eye To the loved object-so the tear to the lid Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
And yet it need not be- (that object) hid From us in life-but common-which doth lie Each hour before us-but then only, bid With a strange sound, as of a harpstring broken, To awake us- ‘Tis a symbol and a token IV
Of what in other worlds shall be-and given In beauty by our God, to those alone Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven Drawn by their heart’s passion, and that tone, That high tone of the spirit which hath striven, Tho’ not with Faith-with godliness-whose throne With desperate energy ‘t hath beaten down; Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
Tamerlane
Kind solace in a dying hour!
Such, father, is not (now) my theme-I will not madly deem that power
Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
Unearthly pride hath revell’d inI have no time to dote or dream:
You call it hope-that fire of fire!
It is but agony of desire:
If I can hope-Oh God! I can—
Its fount is holier-more divine—
I would not call thee fool, old man, But such is not a gift of thine.
Know thou the secret of a spirit
Bow’d from its wild pride into shame.
O yearning heart! I did inherit
Thy withering portion with the fame, The searing glory which hath shone Amid the jewels of my throne,
Halo of Hell! and with a pain
Not Hell shall make me fear again—
O craving heart, for the lost flowers And sunshine of my summer hours!
The undying voice of that dead time, With its interminable chime,
Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
Upon thy emptiness-a knell.
I have not always been as now:
The fever’d diadem on my brow
I claim’d and won usurpingly—
Hath not the same fierce heirdom given Rome to the Caesar-this to me?
The heritage of a kingly mind,
And a proud spirit which hath striven Triumphantly with human kind.
On mountain soil I first drew life: The mists of the Taglay have shed
Nightly their dews upon my head,
And, I believe, the winged strife
And tumult of the headlong air
Have nestled in my very hair.
So late from Heaven-that dew-it fell (Mid dreams of an unholy night)
Upon me with the touch of Hell,
While the red flashing of the light From clouds that hung, like banners, o’er, Appeared to my half-closing eye
The pageantry of monarchy,
And the deep trumpet-thunder’s roar Came hurriedly upon me, telling
Of human battle, where my voice,
My own voice, silly child!- was swelling (O! how my spirit would rejoice,
And leap within me at the cry)
The battle-cry of Victory!
The rain came down upon my head
Unshelter’d-and the heavy wind
Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
It was but man, I thought, who shed Laurels upon me: and the rush-The torrent of the chilly air
Gurgled within my ear the crush
Of empires-with the captive’s prayer-The hum of suitors-and the tone
Of flattery ‘round a sovereign’s throne.
My passions, from that hapless hour, Usurp’d a tyranny which men
Have deem’d, since I have reach’d to power, My innate nature-be it so:
But father, there liv’d one who, then, Then-in my boyhood-when their fire Burn’d with a still intenser glow, (For passion must, with youth, expire) E’en then who knew this iron heart In woman’s weakness had a part.
I have no words-alas!- to tell
The loveliness of loving well!
Nor would I now attempt to trace
The more than beauty of a face
Whose lineaments, upon my mind,
Are-shadows on th’ unstable wind: Thus I remember having dwelt
Some page of early lore upon,
With loitering eye, till I have felt The letters-with their meaning-melt To fantasies-with none.
O, she was worthy of all love!
Love-as in infancy was mine-
‘Twas such as angel minds above
Might envy; her young heart the shrine On which my every hope and thought Were incense-then a goodly gift,