Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. XII. Thou heaven of earth! whatspells could pall thee then, Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears, Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood Destruction's sceptred slaves, and folly's mitred brood! When one, like them, but mightier far than they, The Anarch of thine own bewilder'd powers, Rose: armies mingled in obscure array Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead, Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free! And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness! Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy, XV. O, that the free would stamp the impious name Were as a serpent's path, which the light air Left the victory-flashing sword, And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, Which weak itself as stubble, yet can bind Into a mass, irrefragably firm, The axes and the rods which awe mankind; The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorr'd; Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm XVI. O, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle Into the hell from which it first was hurl'd, A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure; Till human thoughts might kneel alone Each before the judgment-throne Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown! O, that the words which make the thoughts obscure From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture, Were stript of their thin masks and various hue, And frowns and smiles and splendors not their own, Till in the nakedness of false and true They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due. XVII. He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever Can be between the cradle and the grave, Crown'd him the King of Life. O vain endeavor! If on his own high will, a willing slave, What if earth can clothe and feed And power in thought be as the tree within the seed Diving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, And cries: Give me, thy child, dominion Over all heighth and depth? if Life can breed New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one. XVIII. Come Thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car To judge, with solemn truth, life's ill-apportion'd lot! Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be! O, Liberty! if such could be thy name, Wert thou disjoin'd from these, or they from thee: If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought ΧΙΧ. Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn; man to vanquish w en the cradle and the co King of Life. O high will, a whining slave | the oppression and the arth can clothe and feed Jons at their need, ght be as the tree w an ardent intercessor ry wings to Nature at mother stooping a co ive me, thy child ind depth! if Life ealth from those whe ts and hers a thou XVIIL ead out of the inmost parit, as the monagar rom the Eoan wave r the pennons of her loud charioted by thame not, and come yea ternal thought emn truth, bes eqrani Justice, and be fit seen, the Hope of what tch could be thy name d from these or ther re treasures to be have not the wise ant duke teary! The Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging On the heavy-sounding plain, When the bolt has pierced its brain; From the unknown graves As summer clouds dissolve, unburthen'd of their rain; Made the invisible water white as snow; As a far taper fades with fading night, As a brief insect dies with dying day, My song, its pinions disarray'd of might, Droop'd; o'er it closed the echoes far away As waves which lately paved his watery way play. ODE TO NAPLES.* EPODE 1. α. I STOOD within the city disinterr'd; t And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard The listening soul in my suspended blood; I felt, but heard not:-through white columns The isle-sustaining Ocean flood, A plane of light between two Heavens of azure: The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine, Because the crystal silence of the air Naples! thou Heart of men which ever pantest Elysian City, which to calm enchantest The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even Long lost, late won, and yet but half regain'd! Which armed Victory offers up unstain'd Thou which wert once, and then did cease to be, STROPHE β. 2. Thou youngest giant birth Leap'st, clothed in armor of impenetrable scale! Who 'gainst the Crown'd Transgressors Weigh'd on their life; even as the Power divine, EPODE II. a. Then gentle winds arose, With many a mingled close Of wild Æolian sound and mountain odor keen; Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, It bore me like an Angel, o'er the waves No storm can overwhelm; • The Author has connected many recollections of his pressors With hurried legions move! ANTISTROPHE a. What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme A new Acteon's error Shall their's have been devour'd by their own hounds! Be thou like the imperial Basilisk, ANTISTROPHE В 2. From Freedom's form divine, ‡ Homer and Virgil. 461 Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling pean To the cold Alps, eternal Italy Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs, Murmuring, where is Doria? fair Milan, EPODE II. β. Great Spirit, deepest Love! All things which live and are, within the Italian shore; Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor, Bid the Earth's plenty kill! Or, with thine harmonizing ardors fill And frowns and fears from Thee, Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds- September, 1820. THE CLOUD. I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shades for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken As she dances about the sun. I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits, In a cavern under is fetter'd the thunder, Lured by the love of the genii that move With fire-from their red feet the streams run gory! Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, * Ææa, the Island of Circe. † The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, tyrants of Milan. The Spirit he loves remains; Whilst he is dissolving in rains. That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn ; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these. I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chain'd to my chair, To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded now Is the million-color'd bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, While the moist earth was laughing below. I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. TO A SKYLARK. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Till the world is wrought Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Match'd with thine would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Poets are on this cold earth, In a cave beneath the sea. Yet dare not stain with wealth or power A poet's free and heavenly mind: It visits with inconstant glance Like hues and harmonies of evening, Like clouds in starlight widely spread, Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. Spirit of BEAUTY! that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, Ask why the sunlight not for ever For love and hate, despondency and hope? No voice from some sublimer world hath ever The world should listen then, as I am listening now. Remain the records of their vain endeavor: AN EXHORTATION. CHAMELEONS feed on light and air; Suiting it to every ray Frail spells, whose utter'd charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds, depart |