FROM THE "ODE ON THE INTIMATIONS OF
IMMORTALITY ".-(Wordsworth.)
OUR birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar ;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies above us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy ;
The youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
LINES.—(P. B. Shelley.)
WHEN the lamp is shatter'd,
The light in the dust lies dead-
When the cloud is scatter'd,
The rainbow's glory is shed;
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remember'd not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute ;-
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruin'd cell,
Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.
When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possessed.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?
Its passions will rock thee,
As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee,
Like sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter,
When leaves fall and cold winds come.
EVENING.-(P. B. Shelley.)
Ponte al Mare, Pisa.
The sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the grey air;
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep;
And evening's breath wandering here and there
Over the quivering surface of the stream,
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.
There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,
Nor damp within the shadow of the trees:
The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;
And in the inconstant motion of the breeze
The dust and straws are driven up and down,
And whirled about the pavement of the town.
Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay, Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it never fades away.
The chasm, in which the sun has sunk, is shut
By darkest barriers of enormous cloud,
Like mountain over mountain huddled-but
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd;
And over it a space of watery blue,
Which the keen evening star is shining through.
TO MY MOTHER. (H. Kirke White.)
AND can'st thou, Mother, for a moment think,
That we, thy children, when old age shall shed
Its blanching honours on thy weary head,
Could from our best of duties ever shrink?
Sooner the sun from his bright sphere should sink
Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,
To pine in solitude thy life away :
Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.
Banish the thought!-where'er our steps may roam,
O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,
Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee,
And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home;
While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
And smoothe the pillow of thy sinking age.
MOTHER AND POET.—(Mrs. Browning.)
[This was Laura Savio, of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sons were killed at Ancona and Gaeta.]
By kind permission of Robert Browning.
DEAD! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me!
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a woman, men said;
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
For ever instead.
What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain!
What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain?
Ah boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed,
And I proud, by that test.
What art's for a woman? To hold on her knees
Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat,
Cling, strangle a little! to sew by degrees
And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat;
To dream and to dote.
To teach them. . It stings there! I made them indeed
Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,
That a country's a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant cast out.
And when their eyes flashed
I exulted; nay, let them go
Of the guns, and denied not.
When one sits quite alone!
Then one kneels !
O my beautiful eyes !
forth at the wheels
But then the surprise
Then one weeps,
God, how the house feels!
At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled
With my kisses,—of camp-life and glory, and how
They both loved me; and, soon coming home to be spoiled,
In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.
Then was triumph at Turin: “Ancona was free !”
And some one came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet,
While they cheered in the street.
I bore it; friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained
To be leant on, and walked with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained
To the height he had gained.
And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand. "I was not to faint,-
One loved me for two-would be with me ere long :
And Viva l'Italia! he died for, our saint,
Who forbids our complaint."
My Nanni would add, "he was safe, and aware
Of a presence that turned off the balls,—was imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed,
To live on for the rest.'
On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta :-Shot.
Tell his mother. Ah, ah, "his," "their" mother, -not "mine,"
My mother" again to me.
You think Guido forgot?
Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?
I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through that Love and Sorrow which reconciled so
The Above and Below.
O Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark
To the face of Thy mother! Consider,
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,
Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,
And no last word to say!
Both boys dead? but that's out of nature.
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall;
And, when Italy's made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son?
Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then?
When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men? When the guns of Cavalli with final retort
When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,
When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red, When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,
(And I have my Dead)—
What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,
And burn your lights faintly! My country is there,
Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow:
My Italy's There, with my brave civic Pair,
To disfranchise despair!
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