Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desart; whence arise But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, Rank at the core though tempting to the eyes, Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, And trees whose gums are poison; such plants Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.
Oh love! no habitant of earth thou art— An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see The naked eye, the form, as it should be; The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, Even with its own desiring phantasy,
And to a thought such shapes and image given As haunts the unquench'd soul, parch'd wearied, wrung, CXXII.
Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, And fevers into false creation :- where
Where are the charms the sculptor's soul hath seized? In him alone. Can Nature shew so fair?
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare Conceive in boy-hood and pursue as men
The unreach'd Paradise of our despair,
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, And overpowers the page where it would bloom again? CXXIII.
Who loves, raves-'tis youth's frenzy-but the cure Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,
Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun
Seems ever near the prize,-wealthiest when most u ndone
We wither from our youth, we gasp away Sick-sick; unfound the boon-uuslaked the thirst, Though to the last, in verge of our decay, Some phantoms lure, such as we sought at first- But all too late, so are we doubly curst. Love, fame, ambition, a varice, 'tis the same, Each idle and all ill-and none the worst- For all are meteors with a different name,
And death the sabre smoke where vanishes the flame. CXXV.
Few-none-find what they love or could have loved, Through accident, blind contract, and the strong Necessity of loving, having removed Antipathies-but to recur, ere long, Envenomed with irrevocable wrong; And Circumstance, that unspiritual god And miscreator, makes and helps along Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,
Whose touch turns Hope to dust-the dust we all have
Our life is a false nature-'tis not in
The harmony of things,-this hard decree,
This uneradicable taint of sin,
This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree,
Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be
The skies which rain their plagues on men like dewDisease, death, bondage-all woes we see
And worse, the woes we see not-which throb through The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new.
Yet let us ponder boldly-'tis a base (53) Abandonment of reason to resign
Our right of thought-our last and only place Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine. Though from our birth the faculty divine
Is chain'd and tortured-cabin'd cribb'd, confined, And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine Too brightly on the unprepared mind,
The beams pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind.
Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 'twere its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation; and the azure gloom
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume CXXIX.
Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of earth, which time hath bent, A spirit's feelings and where he hath leant His hands, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement,
For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. CXXX.
Oh time! the beautifier of the dead, Adorner of the ruin, comforter
And only healer when the heart hath bled- Time! the corrector where our judgments err, The test of truth, love, sole philosopher, For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift, Which never loses though it doth defer- Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:
Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine And temble more divinely desolate
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,
Ruins of years-though few, yet full of fate :- If thou hast ever seen me too elate, Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn This iron in my soul in vain-shall they not mourn?
And thou, who never yet of human wrong Lost the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis! (54) Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long- Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss, And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss For that unnatural retribution-just
Had it but been from hands less near-in this Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust! [must. Dost thou not hear my heart?-Awake! thou shalt, and CXXXIII.
It is not that I may not have incurr'd
For my ancestral faults or mine the wound I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound; But now my blood shall not sink in the ground; To thee I do devote it-thou shalt take
The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found, Which if I have not taken for the sake.
Butlet that pass-I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake,
And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now I shrink from what is suffered: let him speak Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak; But in this page a record will I seek. Not in the air shall these my words disperse, Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse! CXXXV.
That curse shall be Forgiveness.-Have I not- Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!- Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?
Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven, Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied away? And only not to desperation driven,
Because not altogether of such clay As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.
From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy Have I not seen what human things could do? From the loud roar of foaming calumny To the small whisper of the as paltry few, And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance of whose significant eye Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy, CXXXVII.
But I have lived, and have not lived in vain ; My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain, But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; Something unearthly, which they deem not of, Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.
The seal is set-Now welcome, thou dread power! Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear; Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls roar Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear That we become a part of what has been, And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen. CXXXIX.
And here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, As man was slaughtered by his fellow man. And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, And the imperial pleasure.-Wherefore not? What matters where we fall to fill the maws, Of worms-on battle plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. N
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