Imatges de pàgina
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THE NEW WORLD.

DEMOGORGON.

THOU, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul,
Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies,
Beautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll
The love which paves thy path along the skies:

THE EARTH.

I hear: I am as a drop of dew that dies.

DEMOGORGON.

Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth
With wonder, as it gazes upon thee;

Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth
Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony;

THE MOON.

I hear: I am a leaf shaken by thee!

DEMOGORGON.

Ye kings of suns and stars, Dæmons and Gods,
Ætherial Dominations, who possess

Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes

Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness :

A VOICE FROM ABOVE.

Our great Republic hears, we are blest, and bless.

DEMOGORGON.

Ye happy dead, whom beams of brightest verse
Are clouds to hide, not colours to pourtray,
Whether your nature is that universe
Which once ye saw and suffered-

A VOICE FROM BENEATH.

Or as they

Whom we have left, we change and pass away.

DEMOGORGON.

Ye elemental Genii, who have homes

From man's high mind even to the central stone Of sullen lead; from Heaven's star-fretted domes To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on:

A CONFUSED VOICE.

We hear thy words waken Oblivion.

DEMOGORGON.

Spirits, whose homes are flesh ye beasts and birds, Ye worms, and fish; ye living leaves and buds; Lightning and wind; and ye untameable herds, Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes :

A VOICE.

Thy voice to us is wind among still woods.

DEMOGORGON.

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave;
A dupe and a deceiver; a decay ;

A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day:

ALL.

Speak: thy strong words may never pass away.

DEMOGORGON.

This is the day, which down the void abysm
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour

Of dead endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, These are the seals of that most firm assurance, Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,

Mother of many acts and hours, should free

The serpent that would clasp her with his length; These are the spells by which to re-assume

An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor faulter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.
Prom. Unbound. 1820.

LIFE may change, but it may fly not;
Hope may vanish, but can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth;
Love repulsed,—but it returneth!

Yet were Life a charnel where
Hope lay coffined with Despair;
Yet were truth a sacred lie,
Love were lust-if Liberty

Sent not life its soul of light,
Hope its iris of delight,
Truth its prophet's robe to wear,
Love its power to give and bear.

Hellas.

The Sensitive Plant.

PART FIRST.

A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt every where ;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss

In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,

Like a doe in the noon-tide with love's sweet want, As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snow-drop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,

And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness;

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