Death was in that poisonous wave,

And in its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining,

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.

20

(1827)

SONNETTO SCIENCE

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

18 poisonous poison'd (1827, 1829, M.M.).

5

IO

18, 19 Omitted in 1831.

20 How could I from that water bring (1831).

21 lone: dark (1827); Solace to my imagining (1831).

22 Whose wild'ring thought could even make (1827); My solitary soul - how make (1831).

Title Omitted in 1829, in 1831 (where the poem serves as a prelude to Al Aaraaf), and in Graham's (where it is prefixed to The Island of the Fay). Entitled simply "Sonnet" in S. E. P., Casket, S. L. M.

1 true: meet (1829, S. E. P., Casket, 1831, S. L. M.).

2 peering: piercing (S. E. P., Casket).

3 the thy (S. E. P., Casket).

:

5 should: shall (S. E. P., Casket).

8 soared: soar (1829, S. E. P., Casket, 1831, S. L.M.); he: be (Graham's).

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

(1829)

AL AARAAF

PART I

O! NOTHING earthly save the ray

(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy —
O nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill-
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That, like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell

5

ΙΟ

11 Hast thou not spoilt a story in each star? (Graham's); a: for (S. E. P., Casket).

12 The gentle Naiad from her fountain flood (1829, 1831, S. L. M.); The gentle Nais from the fountain flood (S. E. P., Casket).

13 green grass: greenwood (S. E. P., Casket); The elfin from the grass? the dainty fay (Graham's).

14 summer: summer's (S. E. P., Casket); tamarind tree: shrubbery (1829, S. E. P., Casket, 1831, S. L. M.); The witch, the sprite, the goblin — where are they? (Graham's).

1-15 For these lines, 1831 substitutes the following:

Mysterious star!

Thou wert my dream

All a long summer night —

Be now my theme!

By this clear stream,
Of thee will I write;
Meantime from afar
Bathe me in light!

'T was a sweet time for Nesace - for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns a temporary rest

An oasis in desert of the blest.

Away-away

'mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soul-
The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
Can struggle to its destin'd eminence

Thy world has not the dross of ours,
Yet all the beauty — all the flowers
That list our love, or deck our bowers
In dreamy gardens, where do lie
Dreamy maidens all the day,
While the silver winds of Circassy
On violet couches faint away

Little

oh! little dwells in thee
Like unto what on earth we see:
Beauty's eye is here the bluest
In the falsest and untruest·
On the sweetest air doth float
The most sad and solemn note-
If with thee be broken hearts,
Joy so peacefully departs,
That its echo still doth dwell,
Like the murmur in the shell.
Thou! thy truest type of grief
Is the gently falling leaf-
Thou! thy framing is so holy
Sorrow is not melancholy.

11 Oh: With (1829).

19 An oasis: A garden-spot (1829, 1831).

15

20

To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favor'd one of God
But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
She throws aside the sceptre - leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.

Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth
(Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star,
Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt),
She look'd into Infinity and knelt.

Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled
Fit emblems of the model of her world
Seen but in beauty not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering thro' the light-

25

30

35

A wreath that twined each starry form around,

40

And all the opal'd air in color bound.

All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed

Of flowers of lilies such as rear'd the head

:

On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang

So eagerly around about to hang

Upon the flying footsteps of deep pride —
Of her who lov'd a mortal - and so died.
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees:
And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd
All other loveliness: its honied dew
(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)

43 rear'd: rear (1829, 1831).

45

50

Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven

So like its own above, that, to this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the bee
With madness, and unwonted reverie :
In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger — grief that hangs her head,

Repenting follies that full long have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair:
Nyctanthes, too, as sacred as the light

She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:
And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run:
And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth
And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king:

55

60

65

Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given

80

To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven:

"Spirit! that dwellest where,

In the deep sky,

The terrible and fair,

In beauty vie!

Beyond the line of blue

The boundary of the star

85