A SATIRE ON SATIRE

IF gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,
And racks of subtle torture, if the pains
Of shame, of fiery Hell's tempestuous wave,
Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,
Hurling the damned into the murky air
While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair
And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror
Hunts through the world the homeless steps of
Error,

Are the true secrets of the commonweal

To make men wise and just;

And not the sophisms of revenge and fear,

Bloodier than is revenge

Then send the priests to every hearth and home
To preach the burning wrath which is to come,
In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw
The frozen tears . . .

If Satire's scourge could wake the slumbering hounds

Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds,

The leprous scars of callous infamy;

If it could make the present not to be,

Or charm the dark past never to have been,
Or turn regret to hope; who that has seen
What Southey is and was, would not exclaim,
Lash on!
be the keen verse dipped in flame ;
Follow his flight with wingèd words, and urge

A Satire on Satire. Published by Dowden, Correspondence of Robert Southey and Caroline Bowles, 1880, and dated, 1820.

The strokes of the inexorable scourge

Until the heart be naked, till his soul

See the contagion's spots

foul;

And from the mirror of Truth's sunlike shield,

From which his Parthian arrow . .

Flash on his sight the spectres of the past,
Until his mind's eye paint thereon -

Let scorn like

yawn below,

And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.
This cannot be, it ought not, evil still-
Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill.
Rough words beget sad thoughts,

Men take a sullen and a stupid pride

In being all they hate in others' shame,
By a perverse antipathy of fame.

and, beside,

'Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how
From the sweet fountains of our Nature flow
These bitter waters; I will only say,

If any friend would take Southey some day,
And tell him, in a country walk alone,

Softening harsh words with friendship's gentle tone,

How incorrect his public conduct is,

And what men think of it, 'twere not amiss.
Far better than to make innocent ink-

GINEVRA

WILD, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one

Who staggers forth into the air and sun

From the dark chamber of a mortal fever,

Bewildered, and incapable, and ever

Ginevra. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and dated, Pisa, 1821.

Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain
Of usual shapes, till the familiar train

Of objects and of persons passed like things
Strange as a dreamer's mad imaginings,
Ginevra from the nuptial altar went;

The vows to which her lips had sworn assent
Rung in her brain still with a jarring din,
Deafening the lost intelligence within.

And so she moved under the bridal veil,
Which made the paleness of her cheek more pale,
And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth,
And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth,-
And of the gold and jewels glittering there
She scarce felt conscious, but the weary glare
Lay like a chaos of unwelcome light,
Vexing the sense with gorgeous undelight.
A moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud

Was less heavenly fair- her face was bowed,
And as she passed, the diamonds in her hair
Were mirrored in the polished marble stair
Which led from the cathedral to the street;
And even as she went her light fair feet
Erased these images.

The bride-maidens who round her thronging

came,

Some with a sense of self-rebuke and shame,

Envying the unenviable; and others

Making the joy which should have been another's Their own by gentle sympathy; and some

Sighing to think of a unhappy home;

22 was less were less, Rossetti.

Some few admiring what can ever lure
Maidens to leave the heaven serene and pure
Of parents' smiles for life's great cheat; a thing
Bitter to taste, sweet in imagining.

But they are all dispersed — and lo! she stands Looking in idle grief on her white hands,

Alone within the garden now her own;

And through the sunny air, with jangling tone,
The music of the merry marriage-bells,

Killing the azure silence, sinks and swells;-
Absorbed like one within a dream who dreams
That he is dreaming, until slumber seems
A mockery of itself when suddenly

Antonio stood before her, pale as she.
With agony, with sorrow, and with pride,
He lifted his wan eyes upon the bride,

And said "Is this thy faith?" and then as

one

Whose sleeping face is stricken by the sun

With light like a harsh voice, which bids him rise And look upon his day of life with eyes

Which weep in vain that they can dream no more, Ginevra saw her lover, and forbore

To shriek or faint, and checked the stifling blood Rushing upon her heart, and unsubdued

Said "Friend, if earthly violence or ill,
Suspicion, doubt, or the tyrannic will

Of parents, chance, or custom, time, or change,
Or circumstance, or terror, or revenge,

Or wildered looks, or words, or evil speech,
With all their stings and venom, can impeach

Our love, we love not. If the grave, which hides

The victim from the tyrant, and divides

The cheek that whitens from the eyes that dart
Imperious inquisition to the heart

That is another's, could dissever ours,

We love not."

"What! do not the silent hours

Beckon thee to Gherardi's bridal bed?

Is not that ring" — a pledge, he would have

said,

Of broken vows, but she with patient look
The golden circle from her finger took,
And said" Accept this token of my faith,
The pledge of vows to be absolved by death;
And I am dead or shall be soon
my knell
Will mix its music with that merry bell;
Does it not sound as if they sweetly said,
'We toll a corpse out of the marriage-bed'?
The flowers upon my bridal chamber strewn
Will serve unfaded for my bier

so soon

That even the dying violet will not die
Before Ginevra." The strong fantasy
Had made her accents weaker and more weak,
And quenched the crimson life upon her cheek,
And glazed her eyes, and spread an atmosphere
Round her, which chilled the burning noon with

fear,

Making her but an image of the thought,
Which, like a prophet or a shadow, brought
News of the terrors of the coming time.
Like an accuser branded with the crime
He would have cast on a beloved friend,
Whose dying eyes reproach not to the end
The pale betrayer he then with vain repentance
Would share, he cannot now avert, the sentence