HOW MANY BARDS GILD THE LAPSES OF TIME How many bards gild the lapses of time! A few of them have ever been the food Of my delighted fancy,-I could brood Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime : And often, when I sit me down to rhyme, These will in throngs before my mind intrude: But no confusion, no disturbance rude Do they occasion; 'tis a pleasing chime. So the unnumber'd sounds that evening store; The songs of birds-the whisp'ring of the leaves- The voice of waters-the great bell that heaves With solemn sound,-and others more, thousand That distance of recognizance bereaves, Make pleasing music, and not wild up91816. 1817. roar. KEEN, FITFUL GUSTS ARE WHISPERING HERE AND THERE KEEN, fitful gusts are whispering here and there Among the bushes half leafless, and dry; Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair: For I am brimful of the friendliness That in a little cottage I have found; Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress, And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd; Of lovely Laura in her light green dress, And faithful Petrarch gloriously And gentle tale of love and languishment? Returning home at evening, with an ear Catching the notes of Philomel,-an eye Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, He mourns that day so soon has glided by: E'en like the passage of an angel's tear That falls through the clear ether silently. June, 1816. 1817. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne ; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild sur mise- Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 1816. Dec. 1, 1816. GREAT SPIRITS NOW ON EARTH ARE SOJOURNING GREAT spirits now on earth are sojourning; He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake, Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing; He of the rose, the violet, the spring, The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake: And lo!-whose steadfastness would never take A meaner sound than Raphael's whis pering. And other spirits there are standing apart Upon the forehead of the age to come; But what is higher beyond thought thar thee? Fresher than berries of a mountain tree' More strange, more beautiful, more smooth, more regal, Than wings of swans, than doves, than dim-seen eagle? What is it? And to what shall I com pare it? It has a glory, and nought else can share it: The thought thereof is awful, sweet, and holy, Chasing away all worldliness and folly; Coming sometimes like fearful claps of thunder, Or the low rumblings earth's regions under; And sometimes like a gentle whispering Of all the secrets of some wondrous thing That breathes about us in the vacant air: So that we look around with prying stare, Perhaps to see shapes of light, aërial Timning, And catch soft floatings from a faintheard hymning; To see the laurel wreath, on high suspended, That is to crown our name when life is ended. Sometimes it gives a glory to the voice, And from the heart up-springs, rejoice' rejoice! Sounds which will reach the Framer of all things, And die away in ardent mutterings. No one who once the glorious sun has seen And all the clouds, and felt his bosom clean For his great Maker's presence, but must know What 'tis I mean, and feel his being glow: Therefore no insult will I give his spirit, By telling what he sees from native merit. O Poesy! for thee I hold my pen Upon some mountain-top until I feel And echo back the voice of thine own tongue? O Poesy! for thee I grasp my pen prayer, Yield from thy sanctuary some clear air, Smoothed for intoxication by the breath Of flowering bays, that I may die a death Of luxury, and my young spirit follow The morning sun-beams to the great Apollo Like a fresh sacrifice; or if I can bear The o'erwhelming sweets, 'twill bring me to the fair Visions of all places: a bowery nook Will be elysium—an eternal book Whence I may copy many a lovely saying About the leaves, and flowers-about the playing Of nymphs in woods, and fountains; and the shade Keeping a silence round a sleeping maid And many a verse from so strange influence That we must ever wonder how, and whence It came. Also imaginings will hover Round my fireside, and haply there dis cover Vistas of solemn beauty, where I'd wander In happy silence, like the clear meander Through its lone vales; and where I found a spot Of awfuller shade, or an enchanted grot, Or a green hill o'erspread with chequered dress We rest in silence, like two gems upcurl'd In the recesses of a pearly shell. And can I ever bid these joys farewell? Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, Where I may find the agonies, the strife Of human hearts: for lo! I see afar, O'er-sailing the blue cragginess, a car And steeds with streamy manes-the charioteer Looks out upon the winds with glorious fear: And now the numerous tramplings quiver lightly Along a huge cloud's ridge; and now with sprightly Wheel downward come they into fresher skies, Tipt round with silver from the sun's bright eyes. Still downward with capacious whirl they glide; And now I see them on a green-hill's Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew Why were ye not awake? But ye were dead To things ye knew not of,-were closely wed To musty laws lined out with wretched rule And compass vile: so that ye taught a school Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit, Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit, Their verses tallied. Easy was the task: A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask Of Poesy. Ill-fated, impious race! That blasphemed the bright Lyrist to his face, And did not know it,-no, they went about, Holding a poor, decrepit standard out Mark'd with most flimsy mottos, and in large The name of one Boileau ! |