"Al Aaraaf" first appeared, with the sonnet "To Silence" prefixed to it, in 1829, and is, substantially, as originally issued. In the edition for 1831, however, this poem, its author"s longest, was introduced by the following twenty-nine lines, which have been omitted in all subsequent collections:
AL AARAAF.
Mysterious star!
Thou wert my dream All a long summer night-- Be now my theme!
By this clear stream, Of thee will I write; Meantime from afar Bathe me in light!
Thy world has not the dross of ours, Yet all the beauty--all the flowers That list our love or deck our bowers In dreamy gardens, where do lie Dreamy maidens all the day; While the silver winds of Circa.s.sy On violet couches faint away.
Little--oh! little dwells in thee Like unto what on earth we see: Beauty"s eye is here the bluest In the falsest and untruest-- On the sweetest air doth float The most sad and solemn note-- If with thee be broken hearts, Joy so peacefully departs, That its echo still doth dwell, Like the murmur in the sh.e.l.l.
Thou! thy truest type of grief Is the gently falling leaf-- Thou! thy framing is so holy Sorrow is not melancholy.
31. The earliest version of "Tamerlane" was included in the suppressed volume of 1827, but differs very considerably from the poem as now published. The present draft, besides innumerable verbal alterations and improvements upon the original, is more carefully punctuated, and, the lines being indented, presents a more pleasing appearance, to the eye at least.
32. "To Helen" first appeared in the 1831 volume, as did also "The Valley of Unrest" (as "The Valley Nis"), "Israfel," and one or two others of the youthful pieces.
The poem styled "Romance" const.i.tuted the Preface of the 1829 volume, but with the addition of the following lines:
Succeeding years, too wild for song, Then rolled like tropic storms along, Where, though the garish lights that fly Dying along the troubled sky, Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven, The blackness of the general Heaven, That very blackness yet doth fling Light on the lightning"s silver wing.
For being an idle boy lang syne, Who read Anacreon and drank wine, I early found Anacreon rhymes Were almost pa.s.sionate sometimes-- And by strange alchemy of brain His pleasures always turned to pain-- His navete to wild desire-- His wit to love--his wine to fire-- And so, being young and dipt in folly, I fell in love with melancholy.
And used to throw my earthly rest And quiet all away in jest-- I could not love except where Death Was mingling his with Beauty"s breath-- Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny, Were stalking between her and me.
But _now_ my soul hath too much room-- Gone are the glory and the gloom-- The black hath mellow"d into gray, And all the fires are fading away.
My draught of pa.s.sion hath been deep-- I revell"d, and I now would sleep-- And after drunkenness of soul Succeeds the glories of the bowl-- An idle longing night and day To dream my very life away.
But dreams--of those who dream as I, Aspiringly, are d.a.m.ned, and die: Yet should I swear I mean alone, By notes so very shrilly blown, To break upon Time"s monotone, While yet my vapid joy and grief Are tintless of the yellow leaf-- Why not an imp the greybeard hath, Will shake his shadow in my path-- And e"en the greybeard will o"erlook Connivingly my dreaming-book.
DOUBTFUL POEMS.
ALONE.
From childhood"s hour I have not been As others were--I have not seen As others saw--I could not bring My pa.s.sions 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-- _Thou_--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 roll"d In its autumn tint of gold-- From the lightning in the sky As it pa.s.sed 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.
March 17, 1829.
TO ISADORE.
I. Beneath the vine-clad eaves, Whose shadows fall before Thy lowly cottage door-- Under the lilac"s tremulous leaves-- Within thy snowy clasped hand The purple flowers it bore.
Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand, Like queenly nymph from Fairy-land-- Enchantress of the flowery wand, Most beauteous Isadore!
II. And when I bade the dream Upon thy spirit flee, Thy violet eyes to me Upturned, did overflowing seem With the deep, untold delight Of Love"s serenity; Thy cla.s.sic brow, like lilies white And pale as the Imperial Night Upon her throne, with stars bedight, Enthralled my soul to thee!
III. Ah! ever I behold Thy dreamy, pa.s.sionate eyes, Blue as the languid skies Hung with the sunset"s fringe of gold; Now strangely clear thine image grows, And olden memories Are startled from their long repose Like shadows on the silent snows When suddenly the night-wind blows Where quiet moonlight lies.