Oh, God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood:
I've seen it rushing forth in blood,
I've seen it on the breaking ocean
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of Sin delirious with its dread;
But these were horrors-this was woe
Unmix'd with such-but sure and slow :
He faded, and so calm and meek,
So softly worn, so sweetly weak,
So tearless, yet so tender, kind,
And grieved for those he left behind;
With all the while a cheek whose bloom
Was as a mockery of the tomb,
Whose tints as gently sunk away
As a departing rainbow's ray;
An eye of most transparent light,
That almost made the dungeon bright,
And not a word of murmur, not
A groan o'er his untimely lot,-
A little talk of better days,
A little hope my own to raise,
For I was sunk in silence-lost
In this last loss, of all the most;
And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature's feebleness,
More slowly drawn, grew less and less:
I listen'd, but I could not hear;
I call'd, for I was wild with fear;
I knew 't was hopeless, but my dread
Would not be thus admonished;

I call'd, and thought I heard a sound-
I burst my chain with one strong bound,
And rush'd to him :-I found him not,
I only stirr'd in this black spot,
I only lived, I only drew

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew;
The last, the sole, the dearest link
Between me and the eternal brink,
Which bound me to my failing race,
Was broken in this fatal place.
One on the earth, and one beneath-
My brothers-both had ceased to breathe:
I took that hand which lay so still,
Alas! my own was full as chill;
I had not strength to stir, or strive,
But felt that I was still alive-
A frantic feeling, when we know
That what we love shall ne'er be so.
I know not why

I could not die,

I had no earthly hope but faith, And that forbade a selfish death.

What next befell me then and there

I know not well-I never knewFirst came the loss of light, and air,

And then of darkness too:

I had no thought, no feeling-none-
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was, scarce conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and gray;
It was not night, it was not day;
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness without a place;
There were no stars, no earth, no time,
No check, no change, no good, no crime,
But silence, and a stirless breath
Which neither was of life nor death;
A sea of stagnant idleness,

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!

A light broke in upon my brain,—
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased, and then it came again,

The sweetest song ear ever heard,
And mine was thankful till my eyes
Ran over with the glad surprise,
And they that moment could not see
I was the mate of misery;
But then by dull degrees came back
My senses to their wonted track;
I saw the dungeon walls and floor
Close slowly round me as before,
I saw the glimmer of the sun
Creeping as it before had done,
But through the crevice where it came
That bird was perch'd, as fond and tame,
And tamer than upon the tree;

A lovely bird, with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,
And seem'd to say them all for me!
I never saw its like before,

I ne'er shall see its likeness more :
It seem'd like me to want a mate,
But was not half so desolate,
And it was come to love me when
None lived to love me so again,

And cheering from my dungeon's brink,
Had brought me back to feel and think.
I know not if it late were free,

Or broke its cage to perch on mine, But knowing well captivity,

Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine! Or if it were, in winged guise, A visitant from Paradise ;

For-Heaven forgive that thought! the

while

Which made me both to weep and

smile--

I sometimes deem'd that it might be My brother's soul come down to me; But then at last away it flew,

A kind of change came in my fate,
My keepers grew compassionate;
I know not what had made them so,
They were inured to sights of woe,
But so it was:-my broken chain
With links unfasten'd did remain,
And it was liberty to stride
Along my cell from side to side,
And up and down, and then athwart,
And tread it over every part;
And round the pillars one by one,
Returning where my walk begun,
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod ;
For if I thought with heedless tread
My step profaned their lowly bed,
My breath came gaspingly and thick,
And my crush'd heart fell blind and
sick.

I made a footing in the wall,

It was not therefrom to escape,

For I had buried one and all

Who loved me in a human shape;

And the whole earth would henceforth

be

A wider prison unto me:

No child, no sire, no kin had I,

No partner in my misery;

I thought of this, and I was glad,
For thought of them had made me mad;
But I was curious to ascend
To my barr'd windows, and to bend
Once more, upon the mountains high,
The quiet of a loving eye.

I saw them, and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high-their wide long lake below,
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channell'd rock and broken bush ;
I saw the white-wall'd distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle,
Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in view;

A small green isle, it seem'd no more, Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, But in it there were three tall trees, And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, And by it there were waters flowing, And on it there were young flowers growing,

Of gentle breath and hue.
The fish swam by the castle wall,
And they seem'd joyous each and all;
The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seem'd to fly;
And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled-and would fain
I had not left my recent chain;
And when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save,-
And yet my glance, too much opprest,
Had almost need of such a rest.

It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count, I took no note,

I had no hope my eyes to raise,
And clear them of their dreary mote;
At last men came to set me free;

I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where; It was at length the same to me, Fetter'd or fetterless to be,

I learn'd to love despair.

And thus when they appear'd at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage-and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watch'd them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill-yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learn'd to dwell;
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:-even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.
June 27-29-July 10, 1816. December 5,
1816.

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA
THOUGH the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find.

Then when nature around me is smiling, The last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,

As the breasts I believed in with me, If their billows excite an emotion, It is that they bear me from thee.

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,

And its fragments are sunk in the wave,

Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd To pain-it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemn;

They may torture, but shall not subdue me;

'Tis of thee that I think-not of them.

Nor, mute, that the world might belie. Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, Nor the war of the many with one; If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 'Twas folly not sooner to shun: And if dearly that error hath cost me, And more than I once could foresee, I have found that, whatever it lost me, It could not deprive me of thee.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,

Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd

Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

July 24, 1816. December 5, 1816.

EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA

My sister! my sweet sister! if a name Dearer and purer. were, it should be thine;

Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the

same

A loved regret which I would not resign. There yet are two things in my destiny

A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

Kingdoms and empires in my little day I have outlived, and yet I am not old; And when I look on this, the petty spray Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd

Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: Something I know not what-does still uphold

A spirit of slight patience;-not in vain, Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

Perhaps the workings of defiance stir Within me--or perhaps a cold despair, Brought on when ills habitually recur,Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air, (For even to this may change of soul refer,

And with light armor we may learn to bear,)

Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not

The chief companion of a calmer lot.

I feel almost at times as I have felt In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,

Which do remember me of where I dwelt Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,

Come as of yore upon me, and can melt My heart with recognition of their looks; And even at moments I could think I

see

Some living thing to love--but none like thee.

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create

A fund for contemplation:-to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;
But something worthier do such scenes
inspire;

Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire,

And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

Oh that thou wert but with me!—but I grow

The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret;
There may be others which I less may
show!-

I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake By the old Hall which may be mine no

more.

Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:

Sad havoc Time must with my memory make,

Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;

Though, like all things which I have loved, they are

Resign'd for ever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask
Of Nature that with which she will
comply-

It is but in her summer's sun to bask,
To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall
be

My sister-till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one; And that I would not;--for at length I see

Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.

The earliest-even the only paths for

My years have been no slumber, but the prey

Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have fill'd a century, Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.

And for the remnant which may be to

come

I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless,-for within the crowded

sum

Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,

And for the present, I would not benumb My feelings further.-Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with a thought profound.

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart

I know myself secure, as thou in mine; We were and are-I am, even as thou art

Beings who ne'er each other can resign:
It is the same, together or apart,
From life's commencement to its slow
decline

We are entwined-let death come slow or fast,

The tie which bound the first endures the last! July, 1816. 1830.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC

THEY say that Hope is happiness;

But genuine Love must prize the past, And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless:

They rose the first-they set the last ;

And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only Hope to be,
And all that Hope adored and lost
Hath melted into Memory.

Alas! it is delusion all;

The future cheats us from afar, Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are. ?... 1829.

DARKNESS

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light;

And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones,

The palaces of crowned kings-the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,

And men were gather'd round their blazing homes

To look once more into each other's face;

Happy were those who dwelt within the