OR THE LOVER"S RESOLUTION
Through weeds and thorns, and matted underwood I force my way; now climb, and now descend O"er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot Crushing the purple whorts;[1] while oft unseen, Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves, The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil, I know not, ask not whither! A new joy, Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust, And gladsome as the first-born of the spring, Beckons me on, or follows from behind, Playmate, or guide! The master-pa.s.sion quelled, I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak, Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake Soar up, and form a melancholy vault High o"er me, murmuring like a distant sea.
Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse; Here too the love-lorn man, who, sick in soul, And of this busy human heart aweary, Worships the spirit of unconscious life In tree or wild-flower.--Gentle lunatic!
If so he might not wholly cease to be, He would far rather not be that he is; But would be something that he knows not of, In winds or waters, or among the rocks!
But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagion here!
No myrtle-walks are these: these are no groves Where Love dare loiter! If in sullen mood He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore His dainty feet, the briar and the thorn Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs, Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades!
And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make at morn The dew-drops quiver on the spiders" webs!
You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep between The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze, Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon, The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed-- Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp, Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.
Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes!
With p.r.i.c.kles sharper than his darts bemock His little G.o.dship, making him perforce Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog"s back.
This is my hour of triumph! I can now With my own fancies play the merry fool, And laugh away worse folly, being free.
Here will I seat myself, beside this old, Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine Clothes as with net-work: here will couch my limbs, Close by this river, in this silent shade, As safe and sacred from the step of man As an invisible world--unheard, unseen, And listening only to the pebbly brook That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound; Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk Make honey-h.o.a.rds. The breeze, that visits me, Was never Love"s accomplice, never raised The tendril ringlets from the maiden"s brow, And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek; Ne"er played the wanton--never half disclosed The maiden"s snowy bosom, scattering thence Eye-poisons for some love-distempered youth, Who ne"er henceforth may see an aspen-grove Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.
Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright, Liftest the feathers of the robin"s breast, That swells its little breast, so full of song, Singing above me, on the mountain-ash.
And thou too, desert stream! no pool of thine, Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve, Did e"er reflect the stately virgin"s robe, The face, the form divine, the downcast look Contemplative! Behold! her open palm Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree, That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile Had from her countenance turned, or looked by stealth (For fear is true-love"s cruel nurse), he now With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye, Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain, E"en as that phantom-world on which he gazed, But not unheeded gazed: for see, ah! see, The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow, Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells: And suddenly, as one that toys with time, Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm Is broken--all that phantom world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shapes the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth, who scarcely dar"st lift up thine eyes!
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon The visions will return! And lo! he stays: And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once more The pool becomes a mirror; and behold Each wildflower on the marge inverted there, And there the half-uprooted tree--but where, O where the virgin"s snowy arm, that leaned On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone!
Homeward she steals through many a woodland maze Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth!
Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook, Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou Behold"st her shadow still abiding there, The Naiad of the mirror!
Not to thee, O wild and desert stream! belongs this tale: Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firs Spire from thy sh.o.r.es, and stretch across thy bed, Making thee doleful as a cavern-well: Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!
This be my chosen haunt--emanc.i.p.ate From pa.s.sion"s dreams, a freeman, and alone, I rise and trace its devious course. O lead, Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms.
Lo! stealing through the canopy of firs, How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock, Isle of the river, whose disparted waves Dart off asunder with an angry sound, How soon to re-unite! And see! they meet, Each in the other lost and found: and see Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun Throbbing within them, heart at once and eye!
With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds, The stains and shadings of forgotten tears, Dimness o"erswum with l.u.s.tre! Such the hour Of deep enjoyment, following love"s brief feuds; And hark, the noise of a near waterfall!
I pa.s.s forth into light--I find myself Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful Of forest trees, the Lady of the Woods), Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock That overbrows the cataract. How burst?
The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills Fold in behind each other, and so make A circular vale, and land-locked, as might seem, With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages, Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet, The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray, Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall.
How solemnly the pendent ivy-ma.s.s Swings in its winnow: All the air is calm.
The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light, Rises in columns; from this house alone, Close by the waterfall, the column slants, And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this?
That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke, And close beside its porch a sleeping child, His dear head pillow"d on a sleeping dog-- One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand Holds loosely its small handful of wildflowers, Unfilletted, and of unequal lengths.
A curious picture, with a master"s haste Sketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin, Peeled from the birchen bark! Divinest maid!
Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries Her pencil! See, the juice is scarcely dried On the fine skin! She has been newly here; And lo! yon patch of heath has been her couch-- The pressure still remains! O blessed couch!
For this may"st thou flower early, and the sun, Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long Upon thy purple bells! O Isabel!
Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids!
More beautiful than whom Alcaeus wooed, The Lesbian woman of immortal song!
O child of genius! stately, beautiful, And full of love to all, save only me, And not ungentle e"en to me! My heart, Why beats it thus? Through yonder coppicewood Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straightway On to her father"s house. She is alone!
The night draws on-such ways are hard to hit-- And fit it is I should restore this sketch, Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I yearn To keep the relique? "twill but idly feed The pa.s.sion that consumes me. Let me haste!
The picture in my hand which she has left; She cannot blame me that I follow"d her: And I may be her guide the long wood through.
1802.
[Footnote 1: _Vaccinium Myrtillus_ known by the different names of Whorts, Whortle-berries, Bilberries; and in the North of England, Blea-berries and Bloom-berries. [Note by S. T. C. 1802.]]
THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO
Of late, in one of those most weary hours, When life seems emptied of all genial powers, A dreary mood, which he who ne"er has known May bless his happy lot, I sate alone; And, from the numbing spell to win relief, Call"d on the Past for thought of glee or grief.
In vain! bereft alike of grief and glee, I sate and cow"r"d o"er my own vacancy!
And as I watch"d the dull continuous ache, Which, all else slum"bring, seem"d alone to wake; O Friend! long wont to notice yet conceal, And soothe by silence what words cannot heal, I but half saw that quiet hand of thine Place on my desk this exquisite design.
Boccaccio"s Garden and its faery, The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry!
An Idyll, with Boccaccio"s spirit warm, Framed in the silent poesy of form.
Like flocks adown a newly-bathed steep Emerging from a mist: or like a stream Of music soft that not dispels the sleep, But casts in happier moulds the slumberer"s dream, Gazed by an idle eye with silent might The picture stole upon my inward sight.
A tremulous warmth crept gradual o"er my chest, As though an infant"s finger touch"d my breast.
And one by one (I know not whence) were brought All spirits of power that most had stirr"d my thought In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost; Or charm"d my youth, that, kindled from above, Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love; Or lent a l.u.s.tre to the earnest scan Of manhood, musing what and whence is man!
Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves Rehea.r.s.ed their war-spell to the winds and waves; Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids, That call"d on Hertha in deep forest glades; Or minstrel lay, that cheer"d the baron"s feast; Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest, Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array, To high-church pacing on the great saint"s day.
And many a verse which to myself I sang, That woke the tear yet stole away the pang, Of hopes which in lamenting I renew"d.
And last, a matron now, of sober mien, Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen, Whom as a faery child my childhood woo"d Even in my dawn of thought--Philosophy; Though then unconscious of herself, pardie, She bore no other name than Poesy; And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee, That had but newly left a mother"s knee, Prattled and play"d with bird and flower, and stone, As if with elfin playfellows well known, And life reveal"d to innocence alone.
Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry Thy fair creation with a mastering eye, And _all_ awake! And now in fix"d gaze stand, Now wander through the Eden of thy hand; Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear See fragment shadows of the crossing deer; And with that serviceable nymph I stoop The crystal from its restless pool to scoop.
I see no longer! I myself am there, Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share.
"Tis I, that sweep that lute"s love-echoing strings, And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings; Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells From the high tower, and think that there she dwells.
With old Boccaccio"s soul I stand possest, And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest.
The brightness of the world, O thou once free, And always fair, rare land of courtesy!
O Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills And famous Arno, fed with all their rills; Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy!
Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine, The golden corn, the olive, and the vine.
Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old, And forests, where beside his leafy hold The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn, And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn; Palladian palace with its storied halls; Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls; Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span, And Nature makes her happy home with man; Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed With its own rill, on its own spangled bed, And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head, A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn;-- Thine all delights, and every muse is thine; And more than all, the embrace and intertwine Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance!
Mid G.o.ds of Greece and warriors of romance, See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees The new-found roll of old Maeonides; But from his mantle"s fold, and near the heart, Peers Ovid"s Holy Book of Love"s sweet smart!
O all-enjoying and all-blending sage, Long be it mine to con thy mazy page, Where, half conceal"d, the eye of fancy views Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy muse!
Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, And see in Dian"s vest between the ranks Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes The _vestal_ fires, of which her lover grieves, With that sly satyr peeping through the leaves!
1828.
THE TWO FOUNTS
STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY [MRS. ADERS] ON HER RECOVERY WITH UNBLEMISHED LOOKS, FROM A SEVERE ATTACK OF PAIN
"T was my last waking thought, how it could be That thou, sweet friend, such anguish should"st endure; When straight from Dreamland came a Dwarf, and he Could tell the cause, forsooth, and knew the cure.
Methought he fronted me with peering look Fix"d on my heart; and read aloud in game The loves and griefs therein, as from a book: And uttered praise like one who wished to blame.
In every heart (quoth he) since Adam"s sin Two Founts there are, of Suffering and of Cheer!
_That_ to let forth, and _this_ to keep within!
But she, whose aspect I find imaged here,
Of Pleasure only will to all dispense, _That_ Fount alone unlock, by no distress Choked or turned inward, but still issue thence Unconquered cheer, persistent loveliness.
As on the driving cloud the shiny bow, That gracious thing made up of tears and light, Mid the wild rack and rain that slants below Stands smiling forth, unmoved and freshly bright: