To Helen - (1)

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    Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore.
    On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, To the grandeur that was Rome.
    Lo! in yon brilliant window niche, How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!
    SONNET—TO SCIENCE
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    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?
    SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
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    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—tho’ 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-drops 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!
    EVENING STAR
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    ’Twas noontide of summer, And midtime of night, And stars, in their orbits, Shone pale, through the light Of the brighter, cold moon, ’Mid planets her slaves, Herself in the Heavens, Her beam on the waves.
    I gazed awhile On her cold smile, Too cold—too cold for me; There passed, as a shroud, A fleecy cloud, And I turned away to thee, Proud Evening Star, In thy glory afar And dearer thy beam shall be; For joy to my heart Is the proud part Thou bearest in Heaven at night, And more I admire Thy distant fire, Than that colder, lowly light.
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    FAIRY LAND
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    Dim vales—and shadowy floods— And cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we can’t discover For the tears that drip all over! Huge moons there wax and wane— Again—again—again— Every moment of the night— For ever changing places— And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve by the moon-dial One more filmy than the rest (A kind which, upon trial, They have found to be the best) Comes down—still down—and down With its centre on the crown Of a mountain’s eminence, While its wide circumference In easy drapery falls Over hamlets, over halls, Wherever they may be— O’er the strange woods—o’er the sea— Over spirits on the wing— Over every drowsy thing— And buries them up quite In a labyrinth of light— And then, how deep!—O, deep! Is the passion of their sleep. In the morning they arise, And their moony covering Is soaring in the skies, With the tempests as they toss, Like——almost any thing— Or a yellow Albatross. They use that moon no more For the same end as before— Videlicet a tent— Which I think extravagant: Its atomies, however, Into a shower dissever, Of which those butterflies, Of Earth, who seek the skies, And so come down again (Never-contented things!) Have brought a specimen Upon their quivering wings.
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    THE LAKE—
    TO ——
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    In spring of youth it was my lot To haunt of the wide world a spot The which I could not love the less— So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that towered around.
    But when the Night had thrown her pall Upon that spot, as upon all, And the mystic wind went by Murmuring in melody— Then—ah, then, I would awake To the terror of the lone lake.
    Yet that terror was not fright, But a tremulous delight— A feeling not the jewelled mine Could teach or bribe me to define— Nor Love—although the Love were thine.
    Death was in that poisonous wave, And in its gulf a fitting grave For him who thence could solace bring To his lone imagining— Whose solitary soul could make An Eden of that dim lake.
    A DREAM
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    In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed— But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted.
    Ah! what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past?
    That holy dream—that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam, A lonely spirit guiding.
    What though that light, thro’ storm and night, So trembled from afar— What could there be more purely bright In Truth’s day-star?
    A PÆAN
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    How shall the burial rite be read? The solemn song be sung? The requiem for the loveliest dead, That ever died so young?
    Her friends are gazing on her, And on her gaudy bier, And weep!—oh! to dishonour Dead beauty with a tear!
    They loved her for her wealth— And they hated her for her pride— But she grew in feeble health, And they love her—that she died.
    They tell me (while they speak Of her “costly broider’d pall”) That my voice is growing weak— That I should not sing at all—
    Or that my tone should be Tuned to such solemn song So mournfully—so mournfully, That the dead may feel no wrong.
    But she is gone above, With young Hope at her side, And I am drunk with love Of the dead, who is my bride.—
    Of the dead—dead who lies All perfumed there, With the death upon her eyes, And the life upon her hair.
    Thus on the coffin loud and long I strike—the murmur sent Through the grey chambers to my song, Shall be the accompaniment.
    Thou diedst in thy life’s June— But thou didst not die too fair: Thou didst not die too soon, Nor with too calm an air.
    From more than friends on earth, Thy life and love are riven, To join the untainted mirth Of more than thrones in heaven.—
    Therefore, to thee this night I will no requiem raise, But waft thee on thy flight, With a Pæan of old days.
    THE HAPPIEST DAY
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    The happiest day—the happiest hour My seared and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown.
    Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween But they have vanished long, alas! The visions of my youth have been— But let them pass.
    And pride, what have I now with thee? Another brow may ev’n inherit The venom thou hast poured on me— Be still my spirit!
    The happiest day—the happiest hour Mine eyes shall see—have ever seen The brightest glance of pride and power I feel have been:
    But were that hope of pride and power Now offered with the pain Ev’n then I felt—that brightest hour I would not live again:
    For on its wing was dark alloy And as it fluttered—fell An essence—powerful to destroy A soul that knew it well.
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    ALONE
    From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow—I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone— And all I loved, I loved alone. Then—in my childhood—in the dawn Of a most stormy life—was drawn From every depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still— From the torrent, or the fountain— From the red cliff of the mountain— From the sun that round me rolled In its autumn tint of gold— From the lightning in the sky As it passed me flying by— From the thunder and the storm— And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view.
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    STANZAS
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    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.
    I
    In youth I have 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 fervour, 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 harp-string 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 Though not with Faith—with godliness—whose throne With desperate energy ’t hath beaten down; Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
    TO ——.
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    The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see The wantonest singing birds, Are lips—and all thy melody Of lip-begotten words—
    Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined Then desolately fall, O God! on my funereal mind Like starlight on a pall—
    Thy heart—thy heart!—I wake and sigh, And sleep to dream till day Of the truth that gold can never buy— Of the baubles that it may.
    TO THE RIVER
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    Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow Of crystal, wandering water, Thou art an emblem of the glow Of beauty—the unhidden heart— The playful maziness of art In old Alberto’s daughter;
    But when within thy wave she looks— Which glistens then, and trembles— Why, then, the prettiest of brooks Her worshipper resembles; For in his heart, as in thy stream, Her image deeply lies— His heart which trembles at the beam Of her soul-searching eyes.
    TO ——
    I heed not that my earthly lot Hath little of Earth in it, That years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute:— I mourn not that the desolate Are happier, sweet, than I, But that you sorrow for my fate Who am a passer-by.
    SONG
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    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.
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    DREAMS
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    Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! My spirit not awakening, till the beam Of an Eternity should bring the morrow. Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, ’Twere better than the cold reality Of waking life, to him whose heart must be, And hath been still, upon the lovely earth, A chaos of deep passion, from his birth. But should it be—that dream eternally Continuing—as dreams have been to me In my young boyhood—should it thus be given, ’Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven. For I have revelled, when the sun was bright In the summer sky, in dreams of living light And loveliness,—have left my very heart In climes of mine imagining, apart From mine own home, with beings that have been Of mine own thought—what more could I have seen? ’Twas once—and only once—and the wild hour From my remembrance shall not pass—some power Or spell had bound me—’twas the chilly wind Came o’er me in the night, and left behind Its image on my spirit—or the moon Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon Too coldly—or the stars—howe’er it was That dream was as that night-wind—let it pass. I have been happy, though in a dream. I have been happy—and I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life As in that fleeting; shadowy, misty strife Of semblance with reality, which brings To the delirious eye more lovely things Of Paradise and Love—and all our own!— Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
    ROMANCE
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    Romance, who loves to nod and sing, With drowsy head and folded wing, Among the green leaves as they shake Far down within some shadowy lake, To me a painted paroquet Hath been—a most familiar bird— Taught me my alphabet to say— To lisp my very earliest word While in the wild wood I did lie, A child—with a most knowing eye.
    Of late, eternal condor years So shake the very Heaven on high With tumult as they thunder by, I have no time for idle cares Through gazing on the unquiet sky. And when an hour with calmer wings Its down upon my spirit flings— That little time with lyre and rhyme To while away—forbidden things! My heart would feel to be a crime Unless it trembled with the strings.
    TAMERLANE
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    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 revelled in— I 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—O 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 Bowed 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 fevered diadem on my brow I claimed and won usurpingly— Hath not the same fierce heirdom given Rome to the Cæsar—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 wingèd 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 Unsheltered—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, Usurped a tyranny which men Have deemed since I have reached to power, My innate nature—be it so: But, father, there lived one who, then, Then—in my boyhood—when their fire Burned 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, For they were childish and upright— Pure as her young example taught: Why did I leave it, and, adrift, Trust to the fire within, for light?
    We grew in age and love together— Roaming the forest and the wild; My breast her shield in wintry weather— And, when the friendly sunshine smiled And she would mark the opening skies, I saw no Heaven but in her eyes. Young Love’s first lesson is the heart: For ’mid that sunshine, and those smiles, When, from our little cares apart, And laughing at her girlish wiles, I’d throw me on her throbbing breast, And pour my spirit out in tears— There was no need to speak the rest— No need to quiet any fears Of her—who asked no reason why, But turned on me her quiet eye!
    Yet more than worthy of the love My spirit struggled with, and strove, When on the mountain peak alone Ambition lent it a new tone— I had no being but in thee: The world, and all it did contain In the earth—the air—the sea— Its joy—its little lot of pain That was new pleasure—the ideal, Dim vanities of dreams by night— And dimmer nothings which were real— (Shadows, and a more shadowy light!) Parted upon their misty wings, And so confusedly became Thine image and—a name—a name! Two separate yet most intimate things.
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    I was ambitious—have you known The passion, father? You have not: A cottager, I marked a throne Of half the world as all my own, And murmured at such lowly lot; But, just like any other dream, Upon the vapour of the dew My own had past, did not the beam Of beauty which did while it thro’ The minute—the hour—the day—oppress My mind with double loveliness.
    We walked together on the crown Of a high mountain which looked down Afar from its proud natural towers Of rock and forest, on the hills— The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers And shouting with a thousand rills.
    I spoke to her of power and pride, But mystically—in such guise That she might deem it nought beside The moment’s converse; in her eyes I read, perhaps too carelessly, A mingled feeling with my own— The flush on her bright cheek, to me Seemed to become a queenly throne Too well that I should let it be Light in the wilderness alone.
    I wrapped myself in grandeur then, And donned a visionary crown— Yet it was not that Fantasy Had thrown her mantle over me; But that, among the rabble—men, Lion ambition is chained down And crouches to a keeper’s hand: Not so in deserts where the grand, The wild, the terrible, conspire With their own breath to fan his fire.
    Look round thee now on Samarcand!— Is she not queen of Earth? her pride Above all cities? in her hand Their destinies? in all beside Of glory which the world hath known Stands she not nobly and alone? Falling—her veriest stepping-stone Shall form the pedestal of a throne— And who her sovereign? Timour—he Whom the astonished people saw Striding o’er empires haughtily A diademed outlaw!
    O, human love! thou spirit given, On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven! Which fall’st into the soul like rain Upon the Siroc-withered plain, And, failing in thy power to bless, But leav’st the heart a wilderness! Idea! which bindest life around With music of so strange a sound And beauty of so wild a birth— Farewell! for I have won the Earth.
    When Hope, the eagle that towered, could see No cliff beyond him in the sky, His pinions were bent droopingly— And homeward turned his softened eye. ’Twas sunset: when the sun will part There comes a sullenness of heart To him who still would look upon The glory of the summer sun. That soul will hate the evening mist So often lovely, and will list To the sound of the coming darkness (known To those whose spirits hearken) as one Who, in a dream of night, would fly, But cannot, from a danger nigh.
    What tho’ the moon—the white moon Shed all the splendour of her noon? Her smile is chilly—and her beam, In that time of dreariness, will seem (So like you gather in your breath) A portrait taken after death. And boyhood is a summer sun Whose waning is the dreariest one— For all we live to know is known, And all we seek to keep hath flown. Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall With the noon-day beauty—which is all.
    I reached my home—my home no more— For all had flown who made it so. I passed from out its mossy door, And, tho’ my tread was soft and low, A voice came from the threshold stone Of one whom I had earlier known— O, I defy thee, Hell, to show On beds of fire that burn below, An humbler heart—a deeper woe.
    Father, I firmly do believe— I know—for Death who comes for me From regions of the blest afar, Where there is nothing to deceive, Hath left his iron gate ajar, And rays of truth you cannot see Are flashing thro’ Eternity—— I do believe that Eblis hath A snare in every human path; Else how, when in the holy grove I wandered of the idol, Love,— Who daily scents his snowy wings With incense of burnt offerings From the most unpolluted things, Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven Above with trellised rays from Heaven No mote may shun—no tiniest fly— The lightning of his eagle eye— How was it that Ambition crept, Unseen, amid the revels there, Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt In the tangles of Love’s very hair?