From Dejection: an Ode.
A GRIEF without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassion'd grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear-
O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze-and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimm'd, but always seen:
Yon crescent Moon as fix'd as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel how beautiful they are!
My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within,
O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live:
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allow'd
To the poor loveless, ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be !
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,
Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower,
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud-
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud—
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink,
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blacken'd cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations,—and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of GOD,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void: yet Time-
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.
The Ruins of the Coliseum by Moonlight. I STOOD within the Coliseum's wall, 'Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome; The trees which grew along the broken arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber; and More near from out the Cæsars' palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, Of distant sentinels the fitful song Begun and died upon the gentle wind. Some cypresses upon the time-worn breach Appear'd to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Within a bowshot-where the Cæsars dwelt, And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst A grove which springs through levell'd battlements, And twines its roots with the imperial hearths, Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ;— But the gladiator's bloody circus stands, A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Caesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls,
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.-
And thou did'st shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which soften'd down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old!
The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.
Succession of Human Beings.
LIKE leaves on trees the life of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay';
So flourish these, when those have pass'd away.
COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.
EARTH has not anything to shew more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie,
Open unto the fields and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep,
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
The Winter Speedwell.
YE wintry flowers, whose pensive dyes
Wake, where the summer's lily sleeps!
Ye are like orphans, in whose eyes
Their low-laid mother's beauty weeps.
Oh! not like stars that come at eve,
Through dim clouds gathering one by one;
And teach the failing heart to grieve,
Because another day is gone!
But like the hopes that linger yet
Upon the grave of sorrow's love;
And dare Affection to forget
The form below, the soul above.
Or like the thoughts that bid Despair
Repose in faith on Mercy's breast;
Givers of wings-from toil and care
To fly away, and be at rest.
DROP, drop into the grave, Old Leaf,
Drop, drop into the grave;
Thy acorn's grown, thy acorn's sown-
Drop, drop into the grave.
December's tempests rave, Old Leaf,
Above thy forest-grave, Old Leaf,
Drop, drop into the grave.
The birds in spring, will sweetly sing
That death alone is sad;
The grass will grow, the primrose show
That death alone is sad.
Lament above thy grave, Old Leaf,
For what has life to do with grief?
'Tis death alone that's sad.
What then? We two have both lived through The sunshine and the rain;
And bless'd be He, to me and thee,
Who sent his sun and rain!
We've had our sun and rain, Old Leaf,
And God will send again, Old Leaf,
The sunshine and the rain.
Race after race of leaves and men,
Bloom, wither, and are gone;
As winds and waters rise and fall,
So life and death roll on ;
And long as ocean heaves, Old Leaf,
And bud and fade the leaves, Old Leaf,
Will life and death roll on.
How like am I to thee, Old Leaf!
We'll drop together down;
How like art thou to me, Old Leaf!
We'll drop together down.
I'm gray, and thou art brown, Old Leaf,
We'll drop together down, Old Leaf,
We'll drop together down.
Drop, drop into the grave, Old Leaf,
Drop, drop into the grave;
Thy acorn's grown, thy acorn's sown-
Drop, drop into the grave.
December's tempests rave, Old Leaf,
Above thy forest-grave, Old Leaf;
Drop, drop into the grave!
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