Hate, and pride, and fear
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds, depar And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal, and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his
Thou messenger of sympathies
That wax and wane in lovers' eyes;
Thou, that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame! Depart not as thy shadow came; Depart not, lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality.
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead: I call'd on poisonous names with which our youth is fed:
I was not heard: I saw them not. When musing deeply on the lot
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming, Sudden, thy shadow fell on me :
I shriek'd, and clasp'd my hands in ecstasy! I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in vision'd bowers
Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatch'd with me the envious night: They know that never joy illumined my brow, Unlink'd with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou, O awful LOVELINESS, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot
The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past: there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my pensive youth Descended, to my onward life supply
Its calm, to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee,
Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human-kind.
MONT BLANC.
LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. I.
THE everlasting universe of things
| Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves Now dark-now glittering now reflecting
Now ending splendour, where from secret springs The ource of human thought its tribute brings Of waters, with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread And wind among the accumulated steeps; A desert peopled by the storms alone,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, And the wolf tracks her there-how hideously Its shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high,
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
Thus thou, Ravine of Arve-dark, deep Ravine- Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale, Over whose pines and crags and caverns sail Fast clouds, shadows, and sunbeams: awful
Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven.-Is this the scene Where the old Earthquake-demon taught her
Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea Of fire envelope once this silent snow? None can reply-all seems eternal now.
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes The wilderness has a mysterious tongue
From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, Bursting through these dark mountains, like the flame
Of lightning through the tempest; thou dost lie, Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, Children of elder time, in whose devotion
The chainless winds still come and ever came To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging To hear an old and solemn harmony: Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil Robes some unsculptured image; the strange sleep
Which, when the voices of the desert fail, Wraps all in its own deep eternity;- Thy caverns, echoing to the Arve's commotion A loud lone sound, no other sound can tame: Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound- Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange To muse on my own separate phantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange With the clear universe of things around; One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings
Now float above thy darkness, and now rest Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, In the still cave of the witch Poesy, Seeking among the shadows that pass by, Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!
Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep,-that death is slumber, And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.-I look on high; Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd The veil of life and death? or do I lie
In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep Spread far around and inaccessibly
Its circles? For the very spirit fails,
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, So solemn, so serene, that man may be But for such faith with nature reconciled: Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, Ocean, and all the living things that dwell Within the dædal earth; lightning, and rain, Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, The torpor of the year when feeble dreams Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep Holds every future leaf and flower;-the bound With which from that detested trance they leap; The works and ways of man, their death and
And that of him and all that his may be;
All things that move and breathe with toil and sound
Are born and dic, revolve, subside, and swell. Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And this, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains, Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep, Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,
Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have piled-dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower And wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing Its destined path, or in the mangled soil Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown The limits of the dead and living world, Never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place Of insects, beasts, and birds becomes its spoil; Their food and their retreat for ever gone, So much of life and joy is lost. The race
Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling
That vanishes among the viewless gales!
Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, And their place is not known. Below, vast caves
Mont Blanc appears.-still, snowy, and serene-Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam,
The still and solemn power of many sights And many sounds, and much of life and death. In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, In the lone glare of day, the snows descend Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there, Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, Or the star-beams dart through them:-Winds contend
Silently there, and heap the snow with breath Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home The voiceless lightning in these solitudes Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods Over the snow. The secret strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite
And from isle, tower and rock, The blue beacon cloud broke, And though dumb in the blast, The red cannon flash'd fast From the lee.
"And fear'st thou, and fear'st thou? And see'st thou, and hear'st thou ? And drive we not free O'er the terrible sea,
One boat-cloak did cover The loved and the lover- Their blood beats one measure, They murmur proud pleasure Soft and low;-
While around the lash'd Ocean, Like mountains in motion, Is withdrawn and uplifted, Sunk, shatter'd and shifted, To and fro.
In the court of the fortress, Beside the pale portress,
Like a blood-hound well beaten, The bridegroom stands, eaten
On the topmost watch-turret, As a death-boding spirit, Stands the gray tyrant father, To his voice the mad weather Seems tame;
And with curses as wild As ere clung to child,
He devotes to the blast The best, loveliest, and last Of his name!
SWIFTER far than summer's flight, Swifter far than youth's delight, Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and gone: As the earth when leaves are dead, As the night when sleep is sped, As the heart when joy is fled, I am left lone, alone.
The swallow Summer comes again, The owlet Night resumes her reign, But the wild swan Youth is fain To fly with thee, false as thou. My heart each day desires the morrow, Sleep itself is turn'd to sorrow, Vainly would my winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.
Lilies for a bridal bed, Roses for a matron's head, Violets for a maiden dead
'What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.
Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship too rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy and all Which ours we call.
Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day,
Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou-and from thy sleep Then wake to weep.
I ARISE from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright.. I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me-who knows how ?— To thy chamber-window, sweet!
The wandering airs, they faint On the dark and silent stream; The champak odors fail Like sweet thoughts in a dream; The nightingale's complaint, It dies upon her heart, As I must die on thine,
O beloved as thou art!
Oh, lift me from the grass! I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast; Oh! press it close to thine again, Where it will break at last.
THE flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay,
Tempts and then flies:
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