Behold, behold, Proserpina!
Dark clouds from out the earth arise,
And wing their way towards the skies,
As they would veil the burning blush of day.
And, look! upon a rolling car,
Some fearful being from afar
Comes onward. As he moves along the ground,
A dull and subterranean sound
Companions him; and from his face doth shine,
Proclaiming him divine,
A light that darkens all the vale around.
"Tis he, 'tis he: he comes to us
From the depths of Tartarus.
For what of evil doth he roam
From his red and gloomy home,
In the centre of the world,
Where the sinful dead are hurl'd?
Mark him as he moves along,
Drawn by horses black and strong,
Such as may belong to Night
Ere she takes her morning flight.
Now the chariot stops: the god
On our grassy world hath trod:
Like a Titan steppeth he,
Yet full of his divinity.
On his mighty shoulders lie
Raven locks, and in his eye
A cruel beauty, such as none
Of us may wisely look upon.
He comes, indeed. How like a god he looks-
Terribly lovely! shall I shun his eye
Which even here looks brightly beautiful?
What a wild leopard glance he has!—I am
Jove's daughter, and shall I then deign to fly?
I will not yet, methinks, I fear to stay.
Come, let us go, Cyane.
From The Rape of Proserpine.
TRANSFORMATION OF CYANE INTO A FOUNTAIN.
They are gone afar-afar,
Like the shooting of a star:
See, their chariot fades away,
Farewell, lost Proserpina.
(Cyane is gradually transformed.)
But, ah! what frightful change is here?
Cyane, raise your eyes, and hear!
We call thee-vainly.-On the ground
She sinks, without a single sound,
And all her garments float around.
Again, again, she rises,-light;
Her head is like a fountain bright,
And her glossy ringlets fall
With a murmur musical
O'er her shoulders, like a river
That rushes and escapes for ever.
-Is the fair Cyane gone?
And is this fountain left alone
For a sad remembrance, where
We may in after-times repair,
With heavy heart and weeping eye,
To sing songs to her memory?
From The Rape of Proserpine.
TO THE SKY-LARK: A SONNET.
O earliest singer! O care-charming bird!
Married to morning, by a sweeter hymn
Than priest e'er chanted from his cloister dim,
At midnight, or veil'd virgin's holier word
At sunrise or the paler evening heard;
To which of all Heaven's young and lovely hours,
Who wreathe soft light in hyacinthine bowers,
Beautiful spirit, is thy suit preferr'd?
-Unlike the creatures of this low dull earth,
Still dost thou woo, although thy suit be won;
And thus thy mistress bright is pleased ever.
Oh! lose not thou this mark of finer birth;-
So may'st thou yet live on, from sun to sun,
Thy joy uncheck'd, thy sweet song silent never.
His eye like the mid-day sun was bright,
Her's had a proud but milder light,
Clear and sweet like the cloudless moon:
Alas! and must it fade as soon?
His voice was like the breath of war,
But her's was fainter, softer far;
And yet when he of his long love sigh'd,
She laugh'd in scorn-he fled, and died.
They said he died upon the wave,
And his bed was the wild and bounding billow: Her bed shall be a dry earth grave:
Prepare it quick, for she wants her pillow.
Candaules king of Lydia had a wife,
Beautiful Lais: she was such as I
(Had she not ta'en her silly husband's life,
Which shows a certain taste for cruelty)
Could love;-but no! we might have had some strife, And she was rather cold and somewhat "high,"
And I detest that stalking marble grace,
Which makes one think the heart has left its place.
She had the stature of a queen: her eyes
Were bright and large, but all too proud to rove,
And black, which I have heard some people prize;
Lightly along the ground she deign'd to move,
Gazed at and woo'd by every wind that flies,
And her deep bosom seem'd the throne of love:
And yet she was, for my poor taste, too grand,
And likely for "obey" to read "command."
Give me less faultless woman, so she might
Be all my own, trusted at home and far,
With whom the world might be forgotten quite,
The country's scandal, and the city's jar,
And in whose deep blue eyes Love's tenderest light
Should rise in beauty, like a vesper star,
On my return at evening, aye, and shine
On hearts I prized. By Jove! 'twould be divine.
Higher and higher fled the wasted throngs,
And still they hoped for life, and still they died,
One after one, some worn, some hunger-mad;
Here lay a giant's limbs sodden and shrunk,
And there an infant's, white like wax, and close
A matron with grey hairs, all dumb and dead :-
Meanwhile, upon the loftiest summit safe,
Deucalion labour'd through the dusky day,
Completing as he might his floating raft,
And Pyrrha, shelter'd in a cave, bewail'd
Her child which perish'd.
No pity, no relapse, no hope:-The world
Was vanishing like a dream. Lightning and storm,
Thunder and deluging rain, now vex'd the air
To madness, and the riotous winds laugh'd out
Like Bacchanals, whose cups some god has charm'd.
Beneath the headlong torrents towns and towers
Fell down, temples all stone, and brazen shrines;
And piles of marble, palace and pyramid
(Kings' homes or towering graves) in a breath were swept
Masses of ground and trees
Uptorn and floating, hollow rocks, brute cramm'd,
Vast herds, and bleating flocks, reptiles, and beasts
Bellowing, and vainly with the choking waves
Struggling, were hurried out,-but none return'd:
All on the altar of the giant sea
Offer'd, like twice ten thousand hecatombs,
Whose blood allays the burning wrath of gods.
-Day after day the busy death pass'd on
Full, and by night return'd hungering anew;
And still the new morn fill'd his horrid maw
With flocks, and herds, a city, a tribe, a town,
One after one borne out, and far from land
Dying in whirlpools or the sullen deeps.
All perish'd then:-The last who lived was one
Who clung to life, because a frail child lay
Upon her heart: weary, and gaunt, and worn,
From point to point she sped, with mangled feet,
Bearing for aye her little load of love :-
Both died,-last martyrs of a mother's sins,
Last children they of Earth's sad family.
From the Flood of Thessaly.
EFFECT OF SUBLIME SCENERY UPON THE HUMAN
CHARACTER.
I have seen the Alpine sun-set:-oh! how weak
My verse to tell what flash'd across my sight.
Green, blue, and burning red, was every streak:
Like rainbow beams, but trebly, trebly bright;
The earth, the air, the heavens, were living light:
My vision was absorb'd. I trembled-then
Softening his glance, and sinking in his might,
The sun slow faded from the eyes of men,
And died away. Ne'er have I seen the like again.
Yet have I lain in many a leafy nook
Sequester'd, hiding from the summer beam,
Idling, or haply with that charmed book
Writ by the Avon side; and loved to dream
Of pale Cordelia, gentle Imogen:
Or, on some brook that slid, like guilt, away
Hurrying the pilfer'd mosses down its stream,
Ponder'd, and often at the close of day
Gazed on the coming moon, and felt, perhaps, her sway.
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