Perhaps we should be dull were we not chidden; Paradise fruits are sweetest when forbidden. Folly can season Wisdom, Hatred Love. Farewell, if it can be to say farewell To those who— I will not, as most dedicators do, That faultless you are Assure myself and all the world and you, And would to God I were, or even as near it And rise again, and in our death and birth, Which makes in mortal hearts its brief abode, Love, only love a wind which o'er the wires Of the soul's giant harp There is a mood which language faints beneath; You feel it striding, as Almighty Death His bloodless steed. And what is that most brief and bright delight Which rushes through the touch and through the sight, And stands before the spirit's inmost throne, It fills the world with glory — and is gone. It floats with rainbow pinions o'er the stream Into the light of morning, to the dream grave What is that joy which serene infancy ever new? Remembrance borrows Fancy's glass, to show These forms more sincere Than now they are, than then, perhaps, they were. When everything familiar seemed to be Wonderful, and the immortality Of this great world, which all things must inherit, Were it not a sweet refuge, Emily, For all those exiles from the dull insane Who vex this pleasant world with pride and pain, For all that band of sister-spirits known To one another by a voiceless tone? LINES WRITTEN FOR ADONAIS And ever as he went he swept a lyre Of unaccustomed shape, and Now like the strings of impetuous fire, Which shakes the forest with its murmurings, Of the enamoured wind among the treen, And dying on the streams of dew serene, Which feed the unmown meads with ever-during green. And the green Paradise which western waves And then came one of sweet and earnest looks, Whose soft smiles to his dark and night-like eyes Were as the clear and ever living brooks Are to the obscure fountains whence they rise, Showing how pure they are: a Paradise Of happy truth upon his forehead low Lay, making wisdom lovely, in the guise Of earth-awakening morn upon the brow Of star-deserted heaven, while ocean gleams below. Lines written for Adonais. Published by Garnett, 1862. His song, though very sweet, was low and faint, A simple strain A mighty Phantasm, half concealed In darkness of his own exceeding light, Which clothed his awful presence unrevealed, Charioted on the night Of thunder-smoke, whose skirts were chrysolite. And like a sudden meteor, which outstrips eclipse LINES WRITTEN FOR HELLAS I FAIREST of the Destinies, Disarray thy dazzling eyes : Keener far thy lightnings are Than the wingèd [bolts] thou bearest, And the smile thou wearest Wraps thee as a star Is wrapped in light. II Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn Again into the quivers of the Sun Be gathered could one thought from its wild flight Return into the temple of the brain Without a change, without a stain, — Be what it once has ceased to be, III A star has fallen upon the earth A quenchless atom of immortal light, A cresset shaken from the constellations. To the heart of Earth, the well course Guides the sphere which is its prison, Like an angelic spirit pent In a form of mortal birth, Till, as a spirit half arisen Shatters its charnel, it has rent, The thin and painted garment of the Earth, Consuming all its forms of living death. |