Thou and all thy sister-band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
If not, perish thou and they!
Clouds which stain truth's rising day
By her sun consumed away,
Earth can spare ye; while like flowers,
In the waste of years and hours,
From your dust new nations spring
With more kindly blossoming.
Perish! let there only be
Floating o'er thy hearthless sea,
As the garment of thy sky
Clothes the world immortally,
One remembrance, more sublime
Than the tattered pall of time,
Which scarce hides thy visage wan;
That a tempest-cleaving swan
Of the songs of Albion,
Driven from his ancestral streams
By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and occan
Welcomed him with such emotion
That its joy grew his, and sprung
From his lips like music flung
O'er a mighty thunder-fit,
Chastening terror: what though yet
Poesy's unfailing river,
Which through Albion winds for ever,
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred poet's grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled!
What though thou with all thy dead
Scarce can for this fame repay
Aught thine own,-oh, rather say,
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sunlike soul!
As the ghost of Homer clings
Round Scamander's wasting springs;
As divinest Skakspeare's might
Fills Avon and the world with light
Like omniscient power, which he
Imaged 'mid mortality;
As the love from Petrach's urn
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
A quenchless lamp, by which the heart
Sees things unearthly; so thou art,
Mighty spirit: so shall be
The city that did refuge thee.
Lo, the sun floats up the sky
Like thought-winged liberty,
Till the universal light
Seems to level plain and height;
From the sea a mist has spread,
And the beans of morn lie dead
On the towers of Venice now,
Like its glory long ago.
By the skirts of that gray cloud
Many-domed Padua proud
Stands, a peopled solitude,
'Mid the harvest-shining plain,
Where the peasant heaps his grain
In the garner of his foe,
And the milk-white oxen slow
With the purple vintage strain,
Heaped upon the creaking wain,
That the brutal Celt may swill
Drunken sleep with savage will;
And the sickle to the sword
Lies unchanged, though many a lord,
Like a weed whose shade is poison,
Overgrows this region's foizon,
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come
To destruction's harvest-home:
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse! but 'tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
The despot's rage, the slave's revenge.
Padua, thou, within whose walls
Those mute guests at festivals,
Son and Mother, Death and Sin,
Played at dice for Ezzelin,
Till Death cried: I win, I win!
And Sin cursed to lose the wager,
But Death promised, to assuage her,
That he would petition for
Her to be made Vice-Emperor,
When the destined years were o'er,
Over all between the Po
And the eastern Alpine snow,
Under the mighty Austrian.
Sin smiled so as Sin only can,
And since that time, aye long before,
Both have ruled from shore to shore,
That incestuous pair, who follow
Tyrants as the sun the swallow,
As Repentance follows Crime,
And as changes follow Time.
In thine halls the lamp of learning,
Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way
Is lost over the grave of day,
It gleams betrayed and to betray:
Once remotest nations came
To adore that sacred flame,
When it lit not many a hearth
On this cold and gloomy earth:
Now new fires from antique light
Spring beneath the wide world's might;
But their spark lies dead in thee,
Trampled out by tyranny.
As the Norway woodman quells,
In the depth of piny dells,
One light flame among the brakes,
While the boundless forest shakes,
And its mighty trunks are torn
By the fire thus lowly born:
The spark beneath his feet is dead,
He starts to see the flames it fed,
Howling through the darkened sky
With myriad tongues victoriously,
And sinks down in fear: so thou,
O Tyranny, beholdest now
Light around thee, and thon hearest
The loud flames ascend and fearest:
Grovel on the earth: aye, hide
In the dust thy purple pride!
Noon descends around me now:
'Tis the noon of autumn's glow,
When a soft and purple mist
Like a vaporous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolved star,
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon's bound
To the point of heaven's profound
Fills the overflowing sky,
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath, the leaves unsodden
Where the infant Frost has trodden
With his morning-winged feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines,
Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandaled Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one;
And my spirit which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky:
Be it love, light, harmony,
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from heaven like dew doth fall
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.
Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn's evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine moon,
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister
Half the crimson light she brings
From the sunset's radiant springs:
And the soft dreams of the morn,
(Which like winged winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
'Mid remembered agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being;)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its antient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must he
In the sea of life and agony:
Other spirits float and flee
O'er that gulph: even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folded wings they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it
To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell 'mid lawny hills,
Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine
Of all flowers that breathe and shine:
We may live so happy there,
That the spirits of the air,
Envying us, may even entice
To our healing paradise
The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued
By that clime divine and calm,
And the winds, whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
'The inspired soul supplies
With its own deep melodies,
And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood:
They, not it would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain,
And the earth grow young again.
O, WILD West-wind, thou breath of autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild spirit which art moving every where; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Make me thy lyrc, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit
fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth,
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind,
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
THE fountains mingle with the river,
And the river with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix for ever,
With a sweet emotion:
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle-
Why not I with thine?
A noble range it was, of many a rood. Walled round with trees, and ending i wood:
Indeed the whole was leafy; and it had A winding stream about it, clear and g That danced from shade to shade, and its way
Seemed smiling with delight to feel the d There was the pouting rose, both red = white,
The flamy heart's-ease, flashed with pur? light,
Blush-hiding strawberry, sunny - colo box,
Hyacinth, handsome with his clusters , locks,
The lady lily, looking gently down,
Pure lavender, to lay in bridal gown,
The daisy, lovely on both sides,-in
All the sweet cups to which the bees res
With plots of grass, and perfumed va
between
Of citron, honeysuckle, and jessamine,
With orange, whose warm leaves so finely | The ground within was lawn, with plots of flowers snit,
And in the midst of all, clustered about
With bay and myrtle, and just gleaming out,
-a delicious sight,
Lurked a pavilion,—
Small, marble, well-proportioned, mellowy
white,
With yellow vine-leaves sprinkled,—but no
And look as if they'd shade a golden fruit; | Heaped towards the centre, and with citron-
bowers;
And midst the flowers, turfed round beneath
a shade
Of circling pines, a babbling fountain played,
And 'twixt their shafts you saw the water
bright,
Which through the darksome tops glimmer-
ed with showering light.
So now you walked beside an odorous bed
Of gorgeous hues, white, azure, golden, red;
And now turned off into a leafy walk,
Close and continuous, fit for lovers' talk;
And now pursued the stream, and as you trod
Onward and onward o'er the velvet sod,
Felt on your face an air, watery and sweet,
And a new sense in your soft-lighting feet;
And then perhaps you entered upon shades,
Pillowed with dells and uplands 'twixt the
glades,
Through which the distant palace, now and
Looked lordly forth with many-windowed
A land of trees, which reaching round about,
In shady blessing stretched their old arms
With spots of sunny opening, and with nooks,
To lie and read in, sloping into brooks,
Where at her drink you started the slim
Retreating lightly with a lovely fear.
And all about the birds kept leafy house,
And sung and sparkled in and out the boughs;
And all about a lovely sky of blue
Clearly was felt, or down the leaves laughed
through;
And here and there, in every part, were seats,
Some in the open walks, some in retreats;
With bowering leaves o'erhead, to which
the eye
Looked up half sweetly and half awfully,
Places of nestling green, for poets made,
Where, when the sunshine struck a yellow
The slender trunks, to inward peeping sight, Thronged in dark pillars up the gold green light.
From under which, sent through a marble
spont,
Betwixt the dark wet green, a rill gushed
out,
Whose low sweet talking seemed as if it said
Something eternal to that happy shade:
And a young orange either side the door.
The door was to the wood, forward, and
square,
The rest was domed at top, and circular;
And through the dome the only light came in,
Tinged, as it entered, with the vine-leaves
thin.
It was a beauteous piece of ancient skill, Spared from the rage of war, and perfect still;
By most supposed the work of fairy-hands,
Famed for luxurious taste, and choice of
lands,-
Alcina, or Morgana,—who from fights
And errant fame inveigled amorous knights,
And lived with them in a long round of
Feasts, concerts, baths, and bower-enshaded
But 'twas a temple, as its sculpture told,
Built to the nymphs that haunted there of
old;
For o'er the door was carved a sacrifice
By girls and shepherds brought, with reve-
Of sylvan drinks and foods, simple and sweet,
And goats with struggling horns and planted
And on a line with this ran round about
A like relief, touched exquisitely out,
That shewed, in various scenes, the nymphs
Some by the water-side on bowery shelves
Leaning at will,-some in the water sporting
With sides half swelling forth, and looks of
courting,-
Some in a flowery dell, hearing a swain
Play on his pipe, till the hills rang again,—
Some tying up their long moist hair,- some
sleeping
Under the trees, with fauns and satyrs peep-
ing,-
Or, sidelong-eyed, pretending not to see
The latter in the brakes come creepingly,
While their forgotten urns, lying about
In the green herbage, let the water out.
Never, be sure, before or since was seen
A summer-house so fine in such a nest of
Whenever she walked forth, wherever went | And snatching from the fields her thoughti About the grounds, to this at last she bent:
look, Here she had brought a lute and a few She reached o'er-head, and took her in
books; Here would she lie for hours with grateful looks, Thanking at heart the sunshine and the leaves, The summer rain-drops counting from the
a book, And fell to reading with as fixed an air As though she had been wrapt since mont there.
'Twas Launcelot of the Lake, a br romance,
That like a trumpet, made young pun
dance,
Yet had a softer note that shook still mar
She had begun it but the day before,
And read with a full heart, half sweet, b
sad,
How old King Ban was spoiled of all he ha
But one fair castle: how one summer's
With his fair queen and child he went av
To ask the great King Arthur for assistan
How reaching by himself a hill at diste
He turned to give his castle a last look.
And saw its far white face: and how a
As he was looking, burst in volumes for...
And good King Ban saw all that he w
worth,
And his fair castle, burning to the grou
So that his wearied pulse felt over-vm
And he lay down, and said a prayer
And grasshoppers are loud, and day-work | For those he loved, and broke his poor t
And shades have heavy outlines in the sun,-
The princess came to her accustomed bower
To get her, if she could, a soothing hour,
Trying, as she was used, to leave her cares
Without, and slumberously enjoy the airs,
And the low-talking leaves, and that cool
light
The vines let in, and all that hushing sight
Of closing wood seen through the opening
door,
And distant plash of waters tumbling o'er,
And smell of citron-blooms, and fifty luxuries
She tried, as usual, for the trial's sake,
For even that diminished her heart-ache;
And never yet, how ill soe'er at ease,
Came she for nothing, midst the flowers and
Yet somehow or another, on that day,
She seemed to feel too lightly borne away,-
Too much relieved,-too much inclined to
draw
A careless joy from every thing she saw,
And looking round her with a new-born eye,
As if some tree of knowledge had been nigh,
To taste of nature, primitive and free,
And bask at ease in her heart's liberty.
Painfully clear those rising thoughts ap-
peared,
With something dark at bottom that she
feared;
How she came up, and nearly had gone
And how, in journeying on in her desp
She reached a lake, and met a lady the
Who pitied her, and took the baby sweet
Into her arms, when lo, with closing for
She sprang up all at once, like bird fr
brake,
And vanished with him underneath the h
The mother's feelings we as well may pass
The fairy of the place that lady was.
And Launcelot (so the boy was called) beran
Her inmate, till in search of knightly an
He went to Arthur's court, and played
So rarely, and displayed so frank a hear.
That what with all his charms of look at
limb,
The Queen Genevra fell in love with his -
And here, with growing interest in
reading,
The princess, doubly fixed, was now p
ceeding.
Ready she sat with one hand to turn o
The leaf, to which her thoughts ra before,
The other propping her white brow,
throwing
Its ringlets out, under the skylight glow
So sat she fixed; and so observed was s
Of one, who at the door stood tenderly,
|