LXI. A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see There a lone youth who in his dreams did weep; Within, two lovers linked innocently In their loose locks which over both did creep Like ivy from one stem;-and there lay calm, Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm. LXII. But other troubled forms of sleep she saw, And pale imaginings of visioned wrong, Written upon the brows of old and young: "This," said the wizard maiden, "is the strife Which stirs the liquid surface of man's life." LXIII. And little did the sight disturb her soul- But she in the calm depths her way could take, Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide, Beneath the weltering of the restless tide. LXIV. And she saw princes couched under the glow She saw the priests asleep,-all of one sort, For all were educated to be so. The peasants in their huts, and in the port The sailors she saw cradled on the waves, And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. LXV. And all the forms in which those spirits lay, Were to her sight like the diaphanous Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us Only their scorn of all concealment they Move in the light of their own beauty thus. But these and all now lay with sleep upon them, And little thought a Witch was looking on them. LXVI. She all those human figures breathing there The naked beauty of the soul lay bare, And often through a rude and worn disguise She saw the inner form most bright and fair And then, she had a charm of strange device, Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, Could make that spirit mingle with her own. LXVII. Alas, Aurora! what wouldst thou have given Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina LXVIII. 'Tis said in after times her spirit free Knew what love was, and felt itself aloneBut holy Dian could not chaster be Before she stooped to kiss Endymion, Than now this lady-like a sexless bee Tasting all blossoms, and confined to noneAmong those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden Past with an eye serene and heart unladen. LXIX. To those she saw most beautiful, she gave They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave, Lit by the gems of many a starry flower. LXX. For on the night that they were buried, she The light out of the funeral lamps, to be And she unwound the woven imagery Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche, And threw it with contempt into a ditch. LXXI. And there the body lay, age after age, Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, Like one asleep in a green hermitage, With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing, And living in its dreams beyond the rage Of death or life; while they were still arraying In liveries ever new the rapid, blind, And fleeting generations of mankind. LXXII. And she would write strange dreams upon the brain Than in the desert is the serpent's wake The miser in such dreams would rise and shake LXXIII. The priests would write an explanation full, And nothing more; and bid the herald stick The old cant down; they licensed all to speak Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese, By pastoral letters to each diocese. LXXIV. The king would dress an ape up in his crown Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet LXXV. The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and Beating their swords to ploughshares;-in a band LXXVI. And timid lovers who had been so coy, They hardly knew whether they loved or not, And when next day the maiden and the boy Blushed at the thing which each believed was done LXXVII. And then the Witch would let them take no ill: Friends who, by practice of some envious skill, Were torn apart, a wide wound, mind from mind! She did unite again with visions clear Of deep affection and of truth sincere. LXXVIII. These were the pranks she played among the cities A tale more fit for the weird winter nights- DEATH. DEATH is here, and death is there All around, within, beneath, Above is death-and we are death. Death has set his mark and seal First our pleasures die-and then Dust claims dust-and we die too. All things that we love and cherish, Like ourselves, must fade and perish ; Such is our rude mortal lot Love itself would, did they not. TO THE MOON. ART thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, Among the stars that have a differen birth, And ever-changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy? ODE TO NAPLES.* EPODE I. α. I STOOD within the city disinterred +; And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals Thrill through those roofless halls; The oracular thunder penetrating shook The listening soul in my suspended blood; I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke I felt, but heard not :-through white columns glowed A plane of light between two heavens of azure : As in the sculptor's thought; and there Because the crystal silence of the air Weighed on their life; even as the Power divine, EPODE II. CL. Then gentle winds arose, Of wild Eolian sound and mountain odour keen; Welters with air-like motion, Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, It bore me; (like an Angel, o'er the waves The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baia with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes, which depicture the scenes and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event.-Author's note. † Pompeii. |