SUMMER-EVENING CHURCH-YARD,
LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray; And pallid evening twines its beaming hair In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day: Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
They breathe their spells towards the departing day, Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea; Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway, Responding to the charm with its own mystery. The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.
Thou too, aerial Pile! whose pinnacles Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,
Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, Around whose lessening and invisible height Gather among the stars the clouds of night.
The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres: And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around, And mingling with the still night and mute sky Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.
Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild
And terrorless as this serenest night:
Here could I hope, like some enquiring child
Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.
POET of Nature, thou hast wept to know That things depart which never may return: Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. These common woes I feel. One loss is mine Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore. Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar: Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood Above the blind and battling multitude: In honoured poverty thy voice did weave Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,- Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.
1 It is probable that students have often compared this lament over Wordsworth's defection from the republican cause with Robert Browning's admirable dramatic treatment of that defection in The Lost Leader; and much controversy has from time to time had place as to whether that fine poem really did refer to Words. worth. Browning's name must ever
stand in honourable connexion with that of Shelley (mentioned, indeed, in The Lost Leader); and, even if this sonnet be not among the origines of Browning's lyric, it is fitting to note here the recent publication, in Wordsworth's prose works (vol. I, p. xxxvii), of a letter from the living poet avowing that his composition was based (only based) on the character of Wordsworth.
ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE.
I HATED thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan To think that a most unambitious slave, Like thou, shouldst1 dance and revel on the grave Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer A frail and bloody pomp which time has swept In fragments towards oblivion. Massacre, For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept, Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust, And stifled thee, their minister. I know
Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, That virtue owns a more eternal foe
Than force or fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith the foulest birth of time.
THOU taintest all thou lookest upon! The stars, Which on thy cradle beamed so brightly sweet, Were gods to the distempered playfulness Of thy untutored infancy; the trees,
The grass, the clouds, the mountains, and the sea, All living things that walk, swim, creep, or fly, Were gods: the sun had homage, and the moon Her worshipper. Then thou becamest, a boy, More daring in thy frenzies: every shape, Monstrous or vast, or beautifully wild,
I leave the heretical grammar undisturbed. Mr. Rossetti substitutes like thee should for like thou shouldst.
2 These lines are from the sixth section of Queen Mab, privately printed by Shelley in the year 1813, and, as
he stated in his preface to Alastor &c., not intended for publication. The last two lines stand instead of the single line in Queen Mab,
Converging, thou didst bend, and called it GOD!
Which, from sensation's relics, fancy culls; The spirits of the air, the shuddering ghost, The genii of the elements, the powers That give a shape to nature's varied works, Had life and place in the corrupt belief
Of thy blind heart: yet still thy youthful hands Were pure of human blood. Then manhood gave Its strength and ardour to thy frenzied brain; Thine eager gaze scanned the stupendous scene, Whose wonders mocked the knowledge of thy pride :
Their everlasting and unchanging laws
Reproached thine ignorance. Awhile thou stoodest Baffled and gloomy; then thou didst sum up The elements of all that thou didst know; The changing seasons, winter's leafless reign, The budding of the heaven-breathing trees, The eternal orbs that beautify the night, The sun-rise, and the setting of the moon, Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and disease, And all their causes, to an abstract point Converging thou didst give it name, and form, Intelligence, and unity, and power.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.
Dante Alighieri to Guido Cavalcanti.1
GUIDO, I would that Lappo, thou, and I, Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly
With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend, And that no change, nor any evil chance
1 Among the MSS. of Leigh Hunt, several times referred to in this edi• tion, is a translation by Shelley of Guido Cavalcanti's Sonnet to Dante,
"Io vegno il giorno a te infinite volte." It will be found in a later volume.
2 Mrs. Shelley's editions read so for and.
Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be, That even satiety should still enhance
Between our hearts their strict community : And that the bounteous wizard then would place Vanna and Bice and my gentle love,
Companions of our wandering, and would grace With passionate talk wherever we might rove Our time, and each were as content and free As I believe that thou and I should be.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
Ταν άλα ταν γλαυκαν όταν άνεμος ατρεμα βαλλῃ, κ.τ.λ.
WHEN winds that move not its calm surface sweep The azure sea, I love the land no more; The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep Tempt my unquiet mind.-But when the roar Of ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst, I turn from the drear aspect to the home Of earth and its deep woods, where interspersed, When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody. Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea, Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot Has chosen.-But I my languid limbs will fling Beneath the plane, where the brook's murmuring Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.
1 Shelley can hardly have forgotten that Bice was the beloved of Dante, and I suspect the word my is a misprint for thy. The translation would still be incorrect; but the poet might easily have got confused about the less important ladies of Lapo and Guido. I cannot bring myself to think Shelley
Vanna and Bice and his gentle love as a translation of the lines
E Monna Vanna, e Monna Bice poi, Con quella su il numer delle trenta, meaning literally "and Lady Vanna, and then Lady Bice, with her on num ber thirty" (of Dante's list of the sixty fairest ladies of Florence: see Vita Nuova),
« AnteriorContinua » |