Canto the Fourth (2 of 2)
XCIV
And thus they plod in sluggish misery,Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,Bequeathing their hereditary rageTo the new race of inborn slaves, who wageWar for their chains, and rather than be free,Bleed gladiator-like, and still engageWithin the same arena where they seeTheir fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.
XCV
I speak not of men’s creeds—they rest betweenMan and his Maker—but of things allowed,Averred, and known,—and daily, hourly seen—The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,And the intent of tyranny avowed,The edict of Earth’s rulers, who are grownThe apes of him who humbled once the proud,And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done.
XCVI
Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,And Freedom find no champion and no childSuch as Columbia saw arise when sheSprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled?Or must such minds be nourished in the wild,Deep in the unpruned forest, midst the roarOf cataracts, where nursing nature smiledOn infant Washington? Has Earth no moreSuch seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?
XCVII
But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,And fatal have her Saturnalia beenTo Freedom’s cause, in every age and clime;Because the deadly days which we have seen,And vile Ambition, that built up betweenMan and his hopes an adamantine wall,And the base pageant last upon the scene,Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrallWhich nips Life’s tree, and dooms man’s worst—his second fall.
XCVIII
Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;Thy trumpet-voice, though broken now and dying,The loudest still the tempest leaves behind;Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth,But the sap lasts,—and still the seed we findSown deep, even in the bosom of the North;So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.
XCIX
There is a stern round tower of other days,Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,Such as an army’s baffled strength delays,Standing with half its battlements alone,And with two thousand years of ivy grown,The garland of eternity, where waveThe green leaves over all by time o’erthrown:What was this tower of strength? within its caveWhat treasure lay so locked, so hid?—A woman’s grave.
C
But who was she, the lady of the dead,Tombed in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?Worthy a king’s—or more—a Roman’s bed?What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear?What daughter of her beauties was the heir?How lived—how loved—how died she? Was she notSo honoured—and conspicuously there,Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?
CI
Was she as those who love their lords, or theyWho love the lords of others? such have beenEven in the olden time, Rome’s annals say.Was she a matron of Cornelia’s mien,Or the light air of Egypt’s graceful queen,Profuse of joy; or ’gainst it did she war,Inveterate in virtue? Did she leanTo the soft side of the heart, or wisely barLove from amongst her griefs?—for such the affections are.
CII
Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bowedWith woes far heavier than the ponderous tombThat weighed upon her gentle dust, a cloudMight gather o’er her beauty, and a gloomIn her dark eye, prophetic of the doomHeaven gives its favourites—early death; yet shedA sunset charm around her, and illumeWith hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.
CIII
Perchance she died in age—surviving all,Charms, kindred, children—with the silver greyOn her long tresses, which might yet recall,It may be, still a something of the dayWhen they were braided, and her proud arrayAnd lovely form were envied, praised, and eyedBy Rome—But whither would Conjecture stray?Thus much alone we know—Metella died,The wealthiest Roman’s wife: Behold his love or pride!
CIV
I know not why—but standing thus by theeIt seems as if I had thine inmate known,Thou Tomb! and other days come back on meWith recollected music, though the toneIs changed and solemn, like the cloudy groanOf dying thunder on the distant wind;Yet could I seat me by this ivied stoneTill I had bodied forth the heated mind,Forms from the floating wreck which ruin leaves behind;
CV
And from the planks, far shattered o’er the rocks,Built me a little bark of hope, once moreTo battle with the ocean and the shocksOf the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roarWhich rushes on the solitary shoreWhere all lies foundered that was ever dear:But could I gather from the wave-worn storeEnough for my rude boat, where should I steer?There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here.
CVI
Then let the winds howl on! their harmonyShall henceforth be my music, and the nightThe sound shall temper with the owlet’s cry,As I now hear them, in the fading lightDim o’er the bird of darkness’ native site,Answer each other on the Palatine,With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright,And sailing pinions.—Upon such a shrineWhat are our petty griefs?—let me not number mine.
CVII
Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grownMatted and massed together, hillocks heapedOn what were chambers, arch crushed, column strownIn fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steepedIn subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,Deeming it midnight:—Temples, baths, or halls?Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reapedFrom her research hath been, that these are walls—Behold the Imperial Mount! ’tis thus the mighty falls.
CVIII
There is the moral of all human tales:’Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,First Freedom, and then Glory—when that fails,Wealth, vice, corruption—barbarism at last.And History, with all her volumes vast,Hath but one page,—’tis better written here,Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassedAll treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask—Away with words! draw near,
CIX
Admire, exult—despise—laugh, weep—for hereThere is such matter for all feeling:—Man!Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,Ages and realms are crowded in this span,This mountain, whose obliterated planThe pyramid of empires pinnacled,Of Glory’s gewgaws shining in the vanTill the sun’s rays with added flame were filled!Where are its golden roofs? where those who dared to build?
CX
Tully was not so eloquent as thou,Thou nameless column with the buried base!What are the laurels of the Caesar’s brow?Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place.Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,Titus or Trajan’s? No; ’tis that of Time:Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace,Scoffing; and apostolic statues climbTo crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,
CXI
Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,And looking to the stars; they had containedA spirit which with these would find a home,The last of those who o’er the whole earth reigned,The Roman globe, for after none sustainedBut yielded back his conquests:—he was moreThan a mere Alexander, and unstainedWith household blood and wine, serenely woreHis sovereign virtues—still we Trajan’s name adore.
CXII
Where is the rock of Triumph, the high placeWhere Rome embraced her heroes? where the steepTarpeian—fittest goal of Treason’s race,The promontory whence the traitor’s leapCured all ambition? Did the Conquerors heapTheir spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below,A thousand years of silenced factions sleep—The Forum, where the immortal accents glow,And still the eloquent air breathes—burns with Cicero!
CXIII
The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood:Here a proud people’s passions were exhaled,From the first hour of empire in the budTo that when further worlds to conquer failed;But long before had Freedom’s face been veiled,And Anarchy assumed her attributes:Till every lawless soldier who assailedTrod on the trembling Senate’s slavish mutes,Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes.
CXIV
Then turn we to our latest tribune’s name,From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—Rienzi! last of Romans! While the treeOf freedom’s withered trunk puts forth a leaf,Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—The forum’s champion, and the people’s chief—Her new-born Numa thou, with reign, alas! too brief.
CXV
Egeria! sweet creation of some heartWhich found no mortal resting-place so fairAs thine ideal breast; whate’er thou artOr wert,—a young Aurora of the air,The nympholepsy of some fond despair;Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,Who found a more than common votary thereToo much adoring; whatsoe’er thy birth,Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.
CXVI
The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkledWith thine Elysian water-drops; the faceOf thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,Whose green wild margin now no more eraseArt’s works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the baseOf the cleft statue, with a gentle leapThe rill runs o’er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep,
CXVII
Fantastically tangled; the green hillsAre clothed with early blossoms, through the grassThe quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the billsOf summer birds sing welcome as ye pass;Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,Implore the pausing step, and with their dyesDance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;The sweetness of the violet’s deep blue eyes,Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.
CXVIII
Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beatingFor the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meetingWith her most starry canopy, and seatingThyself by thine adorer, what befell?This cave was surely shaped out for the greetingOf an enamoured Goddess, and the cellHaunted by holy Love—the earliest oracle!
CXIX
And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,Blend a celestial with a human heart;And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,Share with immortal transports? could thine artMake them indeed immortal, and impartThe purity of heaven to earthly joys,Expel the venom and not blunt the dart—The dull satiety which all destroys—And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?
CXX
Alas! our young affections run to waste,Or water but the desert: whence ariseBut weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes,Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies,And trees whose gums are poison; such the plantsWhich spring beneath her steps as Passion fliesO’er the world’s wilderness, and vainly pantsFor some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.
CXXI
O Love! no habitant of earth thou art—An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,—A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,But never yet hath seen, nor e’er shall see,The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,Even with its own desiring phantasy,And to a thought such shape and image given,As haunts the unquenched soul—parched—wearied—wrung—and riven.
CXXII
Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,And fevers into false creation;—where,Where are the forms the sculptor’s soul hath seized?In him alone. Can Nature show so fair?Where are the charms and virtues which we dareConceive in boyhood and pursue as men,The unreached Paradise of our despair,Which o’er-informs the pencil and the pen,And overpowers the page where it would bloom again.
CXXIII
Who loves, raves—’tis youth’s frenzy—but the cureIs bitterer still; as charm by charm unwindsWhich robed our idols, and we see too sureNor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind’sIdeal shape of such; yet still it bindsThe fatal spell, and still it draws us on,Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,Seems ever near the prize—wealthiest when most undone.
CXXIV
We wither from our youth, we gasp away—Sick—sick; unfound the boon, unslaked the thirst,Though to the last, in verge of our decay,Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first—But all too late,—so are we doubly curst.Love, fame, ambition, avarice—’tis the same—Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst—For all are meteors with a different name,And death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.
CXXV
Few—none—find what they love or could have loved:Though accident, blind contact, and the strongNecessity of loving, have removedAntipathies—but to recur, ere long,Envenomed with irrevocable wrong;And Circumstance, that unspiritual godAnd miscreator, makes and helps alongOur coming evils with a crutch-like rod,Whose touch turns hope to dust—the dust we all have trod.
CXXVI
Our life is a false nature—’tis not inThe harmony of things,—this hard decree,This uneradicable taint of sin,This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree,Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches beThe skies which rain their plagues on men like dew—Disease, death, bondage, all the woes we see—And worse, the woes we see not—which throb throughThe immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new.
CXXVII
Yet let us ponder boldly—’tis a baseAbandonment of reason to resignOur right of thought—our last and only placeOf refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine:Though from our birth the faculty divineIs chained and tortured—cabined, cribbed, confined,And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shineToo brightly on the unprepared mind,The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind.
CXXVIII
Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,Collecting the chief trophies of her line,Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shineAs ’twere its natural torches, for divineShould be the light which streams here, to illumeThis long explored but still exhaustless mineOf contemplation; and the azure gloomOf an Italian night, where the deep skies assume
CXXIX
Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,Floats o’er this vast and wondrous monument,And shadows forth its glory. There is givenUnto the things of earth, which Time hath bent,A spirit’s feeling, and where he hath leantHis hand, but broke his scythe, there is a powerAnd magic in the ruined battlement,For which the palace of the present hourMust yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.
CXXX
O Time! the beautifier of the dead,Adorner of the ruin, comforterAnd only healer when the heart hath bled—Time! the corrector where our judgments err,The test of truth, love,—sole philosopher,For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift,Which never loses though it doth defer—Time, the avenger! unto thee I liftMy hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:
CXXXI
Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrineAnd temple more divinely desolate,Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,Ruins of years—though few, yet full of fate:If thou hast ever seen me too elate,Hear me not; but if calmly I have borneGood, and reserved my pride against the hateWhich shall not whelm me, let me not have wornThis iron in my soul in vain—shall they not mourn?
CXXXII
And thou, who never yet of human wrongLeft the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!Here, where the ancients paid thee homage long—Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss,And round Orestes bade them howl and hissFor that unnatural retribution—just,Had it but been from hands less near—in thisThy former realm, I call thee from the dust!Dost thou not hear my heart?—Awake! thou shalt, and must.
CXXXIII
It is not that I may not have incurredFor my ancestral faults or mine the woundI bleed withal, and had it been conferredWith a just weapon, it had flowed unbound.But now my blood shall not sink in the ground;To thee I do devote it—thou shalt takeThe vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found,Which if I have not taken for the sake—But let that pass—I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake.
CXXXIV
And if my voice break forth, ’tis not that nowI shrink from what is suffered: let him speakWho hath beheld decline upon my brow,Or seen my mind’s convulsion leave it weak;But in this page a record will I seek.Not in the air shall these my words disperse,Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreakThe deep prophetic fulness of this verse,And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!
CXXXV
That curse shall be forgiveness.—Have I not—Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!—Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life’s life lied away?And only not to desperation driven,Because not altogether of such clayAs rots into the souls of those whom I survey.
CXXXVI
From mighty wrongs to petty perfidyHave I not seen what human things could do?From the loud roar of foaming calumnyTo the small whisper of the as paltry fewAnd subtler venom of the reptile crew,The Janus glance of whose significant eye,Learning to lie with silence, would seem true,And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh,Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.
CXXXVII
But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,And my frame perish even in conquering pain,But there is that within me which shall tireTorture and Time, and breathe when I expire:Something unearthly, which they deem not of,Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,Shall on their softened spirits sink, and moveIn hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.
CXXXVIII
The seal is set.—Now welcome, thou dread PowerNameless, yet thus omnipotent, which hereWalk’st in the shadow of the midnight hourWith a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear:Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rearTheir ivy mantles, and the solemn sceneDerives from thee a sense so deep and clearThat we become a part of what has been,And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.
CXXXIX
And here the buzz of eager nations ran,In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause,As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man.And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but becauseSuch were the bloody circus’ genial laws,And the imperial pleasure.—Wherefore not?What matters where we fall to fill the mawsOf worms—on battle-plains or listed spot?Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.
CXL
I see before me the Gladiator lie:He leans upon his hand—his manly browConsents to death, but conquers agony,And his drooped head sinks gradually low—And through his side the last drops, ebbing slowFrom the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,Like the first of a thunder-shower; and nowThe arena swims around him: he is gone,Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
CXLI
He heard it, but he heeded not—his eyesWere with his heart, and that was far away;He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,There were his young barbarians all at play,There was their Dacian mother—he, their sire,Butchered to make a Roman holiday—All this rushed with his blood—Shall he expire,And unavenged?—Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!
CXLII
But here, where murder breathed her bloody steam;And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,And roared or murmured like a mountain-streamDashing or winding as its torrent strays;Here, where the Roman million’s blame or praiseWas death or life, the playthings of a crowd,My voice sounds much—and fall the stars’ faint raysOn the arena void—seats crushed, walls bowed,And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.
CXLIII
A ruin—yet what ruin! from its massWalls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared;Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,And marvel where the spoil could have appeared.Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared?Alas! developed, opens the decay,When the colossal fabric’s form is neared:It will not bear the brightness of the day,Which streams too much on all, years, man, have reft away.
CXLIV
But when the rising moon begins to climbIts topmost arch, and gently pauses there;When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,And the low night-breeze waves along the air,The garland-forest, which the grey walls wear,Like laurels on the bald first Caesar’s head;When the light shines serene, but doth not glare,Then in this magic circle raise the dead:Heroes have trod this spot—’tis on their dust ye tread.
CXLV
‘While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;And when Rome falls—the World.’ From our own landThus spake the pilgrims o’er this mighty wallIn Saxon times, which we are wont to callAncient; and these three mortal things are stillOn their foundations, and unaltered all;Rome and her Ruin past Redemption’s skill,The World, the same wide den—of thieves, or what ye will.
CXLVI
Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime—Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,From Jove to Jesus—spared and blest by time;Looking tranquillity, while falls or nodsArch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plodsHis way through thorns to ashes—glorious dome!Shalt thou not last?—Time’s scythe and tyrants’ rodsShiver upon thee—sanctuary and homeOf art and piety—Pantheon!—pride of Rome!
CXLVII
Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!Despoiled yet perfect, with thy circle spreadsA holiness appealing to all hearts—To art a model; and to him who treadsRome for the sake of ages, Glory shedsHer light through thy sole aperture; to thoseWho worship, here are altars for their beads;And they who feel for genius may reposeTheir eyes on honoured forms, whose busts around them close.
CXLVIII
There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear lightWhat do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again!Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight—Two insulated phantoms of the brain:It is not so: I see them full and plain—An old man, and a female young and fair,Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose veinThe blood is nectar:—but what doth she there,With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?
CXLIX
Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life,Where on the heart and from the heart we tookOur first and sweetest nurture, when the wife,Blest into mother, in the innocent look,Or even the piping cry of lips that brookNo pain and small suspense, a joy perceivesMan knows not, when from out its cradled nookShe sees her little bud put forth its leaves—What may the fruit be yet?—I know not—Cain was Eve’s.
CL
But here youth offers to old age the food,The milk of his own gift:—it is her sireTo whom she renders back the debt of bloodBorn with her birth. No; he shall not expireWhile in those warm and lovely veins the fireOf health and holy feeling can provideGreat Nature’s Nile, whose deep stream rises higherThan Egypt’s river:—from that gentle sideDrink, drink and live, old man! heaven’s realm holds no such tide.
CLI
The starry fable of the milky wayHas not thy story’s purity; it isA constellation of a sweeter ray,And sacred Nature triumphs more in thisReverse of her decree, than in the abyssWhere sparkle distant worlds:—Oh, holiest nurse!No drop of that clear stream its way shall missTo thy sire’s heart, replenishing its sourceWith life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe.
CLII
Turn to the mole which Hadrian reared on high,Imperial mimic of old Egypt’s piles,Colossal copyist of deformity,Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile’sEnormous model, doomed the artist’s toilsTo build for giants, and for his vain earth,His shrunken ashes, raise this dome: How smilesThe gazer’s eye with philosophic mirth,To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth!
CLIII
But lo! the dome—the vast and wondrous dome,To which Diana’s marvel was a cell—Christ’s mighty shrine above his martyr’s tomb!I have beheld the Ephesian’s miracle—Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwellThe hyaena and the jackal in their shade;I have beheld Sophia’s bright roofs swellTheir glittering mass i’ the sun, and have surveyedIts sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed;
CLIV
But thou, of temples old, or altars new,Standest alone—with nothing like to thee—Worthiest of God, the holy and the true,Since Zion’s desolation, when that heForsook his former city, what could be,Of earthly structures, in his honour piled,Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisledIn this eternal ark of worship undefiled.
CLV
Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;And why? it is not lessened; but thy mind,Expanded by the genius of the spot,Has grown colossal, and can only findA fit abode wherein appear enshrinedThy hopes of immortality; and thouShalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,See thy God face to face, as thou dost nowHis Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.
CLVI
Thou movest—but increasing with th’ advance,Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,Deceived by its gigantic elegance;Vastness which grows—but grows to harmonise—All musical in its immensities;Rich marbles—richer painting—shrines where flameThe lamps of gold—and haughty dome which viesIn air with Earth’s chief structures, though their frameSits on the firm-set ground—and this the clouds must claim.
CLVII
Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must breakTo separate contemplation, the great whole;And as the ocean many bays will make,That ask the eye—so here condense thy soulTo more immediate objects, and controlThy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heartIts eloquent proportions, and unrollIn mighty graduations, part by part,The glory which at once upon thee did not dart.
CLVIII
Not by its fault—but thine: Our outward senseIs but of gradual grasp—and as it isThat what we have of feeling most intenseOutstrips our faint expression; e’en so thisOutshining and o’erwhelming edificeFools our fond gaze, and greatest of the greatDefies at first our nature’s littleness,Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilateOur spirits to the size of that they contemplate.
CLIX
Then pause and be enlightened; there is moreIn such a survey than the sating gazeOf wonder pleased, or awe which would adoreThe worship of the place, or the mere praiseOf art and its great masters, who could raiseWhat former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan;The fountain of sublimity displaysIts depth, and thence may draw the mind of manIts golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can.
CLX
Or, turning to the Vatican, go seeLaocoon’s torture dignifying pain—A father’s love and mortal’s agonyWith an immortal’s patience blending:—VainThe struggle; vain, against the coiling strainAnd gripe, and deepening of the dragon’s grasp,The old man’s clench; the long envenomed chainRivets the living links,—the enormous aspEnforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.
CLXI
Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,The God of life, and poesy, and light—The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and browAll radiant from his triumph in the fight;The shaft hath just been shot—the arrow brightWith an immortal’s vengeance; in his eyeAnd nostril beautiful disdain, and mightAnd majesty, flash their full lightnings by,Developing in that one glance the Deity.
CLXII
But in his delicate form—a dream of Love,Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breastLonged for a deathless lover from above,And maddened in that vision—are expressedAll that ideal beauty ever blessedThe mind within its most unearthly mood,When each conception was a heavenly guest—A ray of immortality—and stoodStarlike, around, until they gathered to a god?
CLXIII
And if it be Prometheus stole from heavenThe fire which we endure, it was repaidBy him to whom the energy was givenWhich this poetic marble hath arrayedWith an eternal glory—which, if madeBy human hands, is not of human thoughtAnd Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laidOne ringlet in the dust—nor hath it caughtA tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which ’twas wrought.
CLXIV
But where is he, the pilgrim of my song,The being who upheld it through the past?Methinks he cometh late and tarries long.He is no more—these breathings are his last;His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast,And he himself as nothing:—if he wasAught but a phantasy, and could be classedWith forms which live and suffer—let that pass—His shadow fades away into Destruction’s mass,
CLXV
Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and allThat we inherit in its mortal shroud,And spreads the dim and universal pallThro’ which all things grow phantoms; and the cloudBetween us sinks and all which ever glowed,Till Glory’s self is twilight, and displaysA melancholy halo scarce allowedTo hover on the verge of darkness; raysSadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,
CLXVI
And send us prying into the abyss,To gather what we shall be when the frameShall be resolved to something less than thisIts wretched essence; and to dream of fame,And wipe the dust from off the idle nameWe never more shall hear,—but never more,Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same:It is enough, in sooth, that once we boreThese fardels of the heart—the heart whose sweat was gore.
CLXVII
Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,A long, low distant murmur of dread sound,Such as arises when a nation bleedsWith some deep and immedicable wound;Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground.The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chiefSeems royal still, though with her head discrowned,And pale, but lovely, with maternal griefShe clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.
CLXVIII
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?Could not the grave forget thee, and lay lowSome less majestic, less beloved head?In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled,The mother of a moment, o’er thy boy,Death hushed that pang for ever: with thee fledThe present happiness and promised joyWhich filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy.
CLXIX
Peasants bring forth in safety.—Can it be,O thou that wert so happy, so adored!Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee,And Freedom’s heart, grown heavy, cease to hoardHer many griefs for One; for she had pouredHer orisons for thee, and o’er thy headBeheld her Iris.—Thou, too, lonely lord,And desolate consort—vainly wert thou wed!The husband of a year! the father of the dead!
CLXX
Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made:Thy bridal’s fruit is ashes; in the dustThe fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid,The love of millions! How we did entrustFuturity to her! and, though it mustDarken above our bones, yet fondly deemedOur children should obey her child, and blessedHer and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemedLike star to shepherd’s eyes; ’twas but a meteor beamed.
CLXXI
Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well:The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongueOf hollow counsel, the false oracle,Which from the birth of monarchy hath rungIts knell in princely ears, till the o’erstrungNations have armed in madness, the strange fateWhich tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flungAgainst their blind omnipotence a weightWithin the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,—
CLXXII
These might have been her destiny; but no,Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair,Good without effort, great without a foe;But now a bride and mother—and now there!How many ties did that stern moment tear!From thy Sire’s to his humblest subject’s breastIs linked the electric chain of that despair,Whose shock was as an earthquake’s, and oppressedThe land which loved thee so, that none could love thee best.
CLXXIII
Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hillsSo far, that the uprooting wind which tearsThe oak from his foundation, and which spillsThe ocean o’er its boundary, and bearsIts foam against the skies, reluctant sparesThe oval mirror of thy glassy lake;And, calm as cherished hate, its surface wearsA deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.
CLXXIV
And near Albano’s scarce divided wavesShine from a sister valley;—and afarThe Tiber winds, and the broad ocean lavesThe Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,‘Arms and the Man,’ whose reascending starRose o’er an empire,—but beneath thy rightTully reposed from Rome;—and where yon barOf girdling mountains intercepts the sight,The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary bard’s delight.
CLXXV
But I forget.—My pilgrim’s shrine is won,And he and I must part,—so let it be,—His task and mine alike are nearly done;Yet once more let us look upon the sea:The midland ocean breaks on him and me,And from the Alban mount we now beholdOur friend of youth, that ocean, which when weBeheld it last by Calpe’s rock unfoldThose waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled
CLXXVI
Upon the blue Symplegades: long years—Long, though not very many—since have doneTheir work on both; some suffering and some tearsHave left us nearly where we had begun:Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run,We have had our reward—and it is here;That we can yet feel gladdened by the sun,And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dearAs if there were no man to trouble what is clear.
CLXXVII
Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,With one fair Spirit for my minister,That I might all forget the human race,And, hating no one, love but only her!Ye Elements!—in whose ennobling stirI feel myself exalted—can ye notAccord me such a being? Do I errIn deeming such inhabit many a spot?Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.
CLXXVIII
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture on the lonely shore,There is society where none intrudes,By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:I love not Man the less, but Nature more,From these our interviews, in which I stealFrom all I may be, or have been before,To mingle with the Universe, and feelWhat I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
CLXXIX
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;Man marks the earth with ruin—his controlStops with the shore;—upon the watery plainThe wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remainA shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,When for a moment, like a drop of rain,He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
CLXXX
His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fieldsAre not a spoil for him,—thou dost ariseAnd shake him from thee; the vile strength he wieldsFor earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,And send’st him, shivering in thy playful sprayAnd howling, to his gods, where haply liesHis petty hope in some near port or bay,And dashest him again to earth:—there let him lay.
CLXXXI
The armaments which thunderstrike the wallsOf rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,And monarchs tremble in their capitals.The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs makeTheir clay creator the vain title takeOf lord of thee, and arbiter of war;These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,They melt into thy yeast of waves, which marAlike the Armada’s pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
CLXXXII
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?Thy waters washed them power while they were freeAnd many a tyrant since: their shores obeyThe stranger, slave, or savage; their decayHas dried up realms to deserts: not so thou,Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ play—Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
CLXXXIII
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s formGlasses itself in tempests; in all time,Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm,Icing the pole, or in the torrid climeDark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime—The image of Eternity—the throneOf the Invisible; even from out thy slimeThe monsters of the deep are made; each zoneObeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
CLXXXIV
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joyOf youthful sports was on thy breast to beBorne like thy bubbles, onward: from a boyI wantoned with thy breakers—they to meWere a delight; and if the freshening seaMade them a terror—’twas a pleasing fear,For I was as it were a child of thee,And trusted to thy billows far and near,And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here.
CLXXXV
My task is done—my song hath ceased—my themeHas died into an echo; it is fitThe spell should break of this protracted dream.The torch shall be extinguished which hath litMy midnight lamp—and what is writ, is writ—Would it were worthier! but I am not nowThat which I have been—and my visions flitLess palpably before me—and the glowWhich in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low.
CLXXXVI
Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been—A sound which makes us linger; yet, farewell!Ye, who have traced the Pilgrim to the sceneWhich is his last, if in your memories dwellA thought which once was his, if on ye swellA single recollection, not in vainHe wore his sandal-shoon and scallop shell;Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain,If such there were—with you, the moral of his strain.