Part 2

O rarest interchange of truth and lies, Love, ever pandering to thine own deceit! Thou sweet chameleon of a thousand dyes! Truth still is varying with thy wayward heat; Truth long ago has banish’d thee his court, Yet by thy essence Truth thou still must be; Though different winds waft to a changeful port, If Truth be gone, then it departs with thee; Lo! thou art Truth, and Truth developed lies In Love, whose home is Beauty, and the world, And the quick sympathy of unfathomed eyes, And maddening forms out of their orbits hurl’d; And all are drunken for a little space, Then drink disgust, quite sickened of the chase.

XXXVI.

Love takes its impress from the formless hues That signify the thing they yet conceal; Love leads that heart to life, which it endues With joys that aggravate the harm they heal; Love’s treasures are not priceless to all eyes, All may not learn what their full magic means: By various grades of hopes, and fears, and sighs, And ecstacies, and woes, raptures, and dreams, The soul of man ascends to that it loves, And is developed into something more; In a more rich creation now it moves, And seeks in other souls a priceless ore: Something it finds, yet loses what it lacks, So must the conqueror in the town he sacks.

XXXVII.

Love gain’d is love unlovely, joy ne’er seeth’d But in desire, still with possession cloy’d; If that the vows whose once perfection breath’d, Could hide with words the margin of their void, Then Love were hope, fulfilment, peace, combined, Into a concord of unearthly bliss; Then were the roses of enjoyment twined Around the satire on young Love’s first kiss: But Love says, no, and Nature too denies; For Rapture rises but by woe’s decline: And too much bliss, with a brief respite, dies By coldness, that shall make love dimlier shine. All love betrays man past its paltry base, He mounts his bubble, soars, and falls apace.

XXXVIII.

Puff’d with the pride that feeds on lonely thoughts, In seeking secure harbours, thou must fail Of all the aim which with such toil thou sought’st: Either thy lot be wretchedness, or hail The empty, fond creations of the brain, For the warm, glowing, living forms of flesh. I smile at danger, and such fears as reign, In some men’s brooding minds entangled mesh; I have a pleasant harbour, and a hope, For ever wooed by an ethereal breeze; Not Love but Friendship’s my ambitious scope, Ne’er shall such fantasies my bosom tease: Yet if I knew not Friendship, I would rest, Sad, not despairing, on Creation’s breast.

XXXIX.

Theme of my thought, and beacon to my verse, Too long thy words have stolen me from thy praise; Yet now I’ll linger round thee, and rehearse All that thou wast in past delightful days: As one, a boy, who leaves his home, his friends, And thinks he knows them well, sudden discerns A charm in what seem’d dead, he stops and sends Message to tree and stone, yet weeps not, turns Only one parting glance on what, review’d After few years, heaps quick Eternity On the bright Past, severing it from the brood Of the moody Future and the Present’s pity: So thick, so warm, the thoughts that press my heart, And goad the gain their frequence fails to impart.

XL.

How loathing’s germ is longing, grief wooes joy, ’Tis but a comment on the hurrying world; Man knows such shiftings and is only coy To match them to the stage, whereon he’s hurl’d: But thou, immutable substance of all beauty, Shalt yet defeat the purpose of this change, Shalt purge the essence of its vestment sooty, And guide its explorations quick and strange; Thou shalt inhabit and invest a soul, Whose myriad, intricate voices know one tone; And I, where’er wavers my wintry pole, Shall hail that music’s influence as my own: All Beauty, and all Love radiate from thee, Thou centre of my soul’s full harmony.

XLI.

Bring me to some waste, whose stream’s Lethean trail, Scarce stirs its islands of monotonous grass; Where circling hills heal their huge tattered mail, With foliage fringing all the mountain pass; Where the quire that sings, deepens the deadly lull; Where Time responds, chiming a sullen note; Where Phœbus, mellowing, blends a glory dull, With shades that on the wings of darkness float; Where a gloom of mystery wears strange, luminous, shapes, Shadowing unholy, ghastly, wizard forms; Growing into the pulsing life, whose pregnance apes Fierce fascinations, foul unspeaking storms; Where, in brief space, myriads of demons urge One quivering form to Hell’s red hideous verge.

XLII.

Methought, a breath stole and unsealed my eyes And bared the workings of the carcase world; An engine, like a skeleton, ever plies A trade infernal, Death’s flag stood unfurled; With iron teeth, I mark’d, this hell-fiend tore The gaspings relics of Creation’s throes; Fitted to a rack each substance, looming more, Lengthens unnatural shapes, in awful rows; And howlings, tears, and shriekings thrill’d the night, That mourn’d for ever, dumbly consonant; Each shape, to other bound in pitiless plight, Reluctant, must destroy, foster, or plant, What, it knows not, and cares not; whizzing wheels Whirl, till the sick heart pants, the mad brain reels.

XLIII.

I gazed, with unaccustomed eyes, on night, Whose blackness dazzled more than midday sun, It rather seem’d, some new intenser light, Through which immortal powers, far wandering, run: I gazed, and hurled my curses at the rage, That traced its will on such a reckless course; Methought, a golden form of light did cage My utterance’ portals, strengthening vision’s source; And, fool, it cried, look nearer, nor despair. I saw, ’twas, as the thunder-cloud, that burst Is glorious with the lightning, a child’s hair Within whose gold entwined sunbeams are nurst, No cradle else so sweet; it was the breath Whose loveliness of life scares dreary death.

XLIV.

Dreams, visions, foolish echoings to the thought, That homeless wanders for the thing it loves: The fancies of man’s waking are so fraught With folly, or philosophy that roves It knows not where, that ’tis no marvel sleep Should pass its coinage as the current dross: Could man contain his dreamings in their keep, How great a gain should balance little loss: The world is wearied, to know why it plods The equal tenour of a various way; But half attends, smiles sometimes, sometimes nods O’er its dissection, while its head is grey. It clears the rubble from its own high-road, And asks but truth, nor cares to increase its load.

XLV.

Life is a river, that hath caught its gleam From age’s lingering years, and youth’s proud date, From dull despair, and from the hopes, that seem To form their longing, and to hide their hate; From sickness, quailing underneath her pains; And health, exulting in his pride of life; From black meláncholy, that turns her gains, All to the theme of an unending strife; From that fine frame of beauty and of bliss, That, over-sensitive, will not distort Nature’s delights to Hell’s triumphant hiss, That, ’mid its sorrows, lives near joy’s high court: From genius, freedom, beauty it assumes As many forms, as hate’s dark hell consumes.

XLVI.

I once inquired, whence the cicada brought The joy whose music prattles through the day; I wished that the glad lark would but have taught, Whence came the glee that could incite his lay; And, as the rolling streams of music flow, Building all heaven along the deep blue wave, I prayed, that I might e’er thus rapturous glow And wholly live within the bliss they gave, When, on the dancing waters, the white sail Grows big with kisses of the lustful wind, Blushing at sunrise, and at midnight pale, All for some lurking love that match’d their kind; Then, anxiously, I sought that blissful bound; That was long since e’er thou, my friend, wast found.

XLVII.

To some the world is but a ragged screen, Hiding the essence of eternal fire; They tear its tatters, and would peep between; The unknown is lovely, and the rest is mire. And other some glory in Nature’s robe, Dare scorn ideal monsters of the mind, Where man would test the heart with his nice probe, Suit his sick taste, and leave the rest behind; And some are drunken of they know not what, And cull what sweets may hang from every hour, Nor hope, nor pause, but magnify the sot; Know not the weed, or train it as their flower. Let these rejoice, yet happier, by far, The silly brutes, that gorge at pleasure, are.

XLVIII.

All pleasures and all hopes are their own scorn, And man’s a measure, filling, never fill’d; Who’d not sell life, its promise something worn, For one week’s bliss with no awakening chill’d? It cannot be; and some, foil’d or despis’d, Or craving peace, life’s courted joys all spann’d, Have scouted all things which the world e’er prized; Dreaming of life, through the dead cloister scann’d, Fair sounds this, luring; yet, methinks, that shows A creed nor hard, nor healthy, which unscrews The rivets, that should pin us to the throes, That nature in begetting man renews: The earthly mind, fed on unearthly leaven, Diffuses Hell through earth, and earth through Heaven.

XLIX.

Who ponders on eternity, can draw Its shadow o’er the strangeness of this earth, And, quite immersed in future bliss, can store His fancy’s dreams with fables of new birth; And men have tortured, altering holiest phrase, And sanctified the hopes which they adored; Have made their souls more worthless than their praise, Saying, that perfect love to Heaven outpoured, Must hold its flood, nor risk the Heaven it decks, Making love less lovely than the hope of bliss; Fostering the demon Self, whose presence checks, And dulls each noble prompting with his kiss. Say ye, who steal the jewels from Heaven’s crown, Where lies the rigour of Hell’s fancied frown?

L.

Heaven! ’tis a name, that as inconstant sways, As fame or love, the changes of the moon, Or, whatsoever wanders by dim ways To a goal, fashioned by youth’s treacherous noon: Heaven! ’tis a sound that in its uttering mocks The hopes, reposing round that various base; Adroitly differing, tempered to the shocks, That mind the slow world of its desperate case! The flattery of an echo from each heart, A mirror, where each soul, reflected, shows Unnatural choice of some unworthy part, Which nature’s whole must loathingly depose: Seek virtue for itself, or, seeking, lose A Heaven apart, else Hell would Heaven confuse.

LI.

Life is a brook, that over pebbles glides, And tints with colour of the cloud his wave; Now, the East blazes, now, sad Phœbus slides Down the red hills, that shroud him for his grave; The waters now are calm, now, troubled, foam, Exult on ridges, now o’er slopes decline, Now, in their summer sprightliness, they roam, Now, stand, congealed, in winter’s icy twine; Full many a flower is often mirror’d there, And the fresh grass, and the green shady trees, Full many a pebble glistens through them, fair, All in confusion, toss’d by wave and breeze; ’Tis strange, though many stones are form’d to fit, Few meet their mates, most roll confus’dly knit.

LII.

The world’s but a rude frame, whose substance takes Colouring from all who flatter, or who curse; How oft man’s heart, all discontented wakes, His frame’s a coffin, and the world’s his hearse; How oft, despairing, he goes forth to find Yet more assurance of the thing he hates; How oft he leaves misanthropy behind, New folly found, of former folly prates: Needs but some precept, touch, face, form, or word To dam the current, and to turn its course; Earth, in her loveliness, or music heard, While low sweet voices harmonize its force: There’s nought so small in Nature, but can sum Earth’s total process, which it seems to numb.

LIII.

Lo! thus, that life, which seem’d to me a void, E’er thou my sun did’st gild it with thy light, Now looks as merry, as the bubble buoy’d On summer’s billow, whose quick glory’s bright: My scouted woe now glares as sourly-strange, As once joy show’d to my grief-fashioned breast; Each act, each thought, as through the world I range, Finds new commencement, in young vigour drest: Rich centre, around which my life revolves, How strong the attraction of thy far intent; How living, and how joyous, the resolves Whose object, thou, thy will, their utmost bent: Though thou art far, fancy relieves her fear, Imagining thoughts whose love may bring thee near.

LIV.

O immense chaos whence each forms his world! Where difference lovely suits distinctive minds: How hideous others’ landskips were, unfurled; Fancy guides all, enlightens, or else blinds: Yet, at my idol’s shrine, I’d fain believe The pride of each were quick constrain’d to pray, Could I but e’er impart, that I receive From the mind imaged in thy beauty’s ray: But, founder’d in my bliss, I helpless lie, Like Phrygia’s king, incompetent in wealth; When I behold thee, laden thought would die; And seeing not, I picture thee, by stealth: It wants thy equal, to report thy praise, Let such fill up the inkling in these lays.

LV.

Dear child of joy, who read thy soul shall find, That all things shifting, man must vary too; Sometimes in thunder, earthquake, and in wind, Nature will mourn, so grief her sons should woo; But when the winning breeze coys with the sail, That bears thy bark along the flowing wave; Then, know, perfection lives not in the pale Of that small space, where thy mad fancies rave: If there’s no happiness, then conquer time, And grandly dare to build, scorning blind Fate; Fate lives enshrined within the spirit sublime, Which o’er a faltering world asserts its weight. Let fools of circumstance wither and yield, Some in themselves foster the fate they wield.

LVI.

Men err, and blindly happiness propose, Whither their steps and fortunes should aspire; Alas! they seek, what Earth no longer knows; Once haply clasp’d, the wanton’s waxing shier; For, now, it hath ascended to the heavens, And sits commingling Nature’s shapes and dyes: Who’s rash to seek it, him, ill fortune leavens With sick acquirement of unworthy sighs: Youth courts the sunshine to his vigorous wings; Sees Hope, that beckons, thinks himself a God; Rivals the lark, acting the joy it sings; Till age desponds at Life’s too real rod: Let youth abandon hope, and court content, Now bliss mocks hope, then joys were blessings lent.

LVII.

O ye, the eastern glory of whose hope, Laughs at the shadow, which your phantom shames, Abase the aery tenour of your scope, E’er woe involve its promise, earth your frames: Who ponder, reckon vain all reason’s forts; Who think not, live, but know not joy’s true tones: They wander, vacant, through high Nature’s courts; Their spirit seems unworthy, even of groans: Intrusion of vain tears but mocks the woe, Whose dregs are tasteless of the former draught; Time was, when the harp wrung the tears that flow, Grateful, since needful, then the people quafft. But time rolls on, and in its changes brings The age that scoffs at its ancestors’ wings.

LVIII.

A new Narcissus gazed himself to death, Picturing his lonely beauty in the flood, The river, onward flowing, flouts the breath That charm’d the fire, Promethean, from its mud: Who topple on a pinnacle, scorn the steps That usher to the pride, whereon they stand; Yet Nature’s structure swerves not, men, adepts At self-deception, judge from whence they’ve scann’d; View the whole plot, and just should all appear, What’s beauteous, the relief that Nature wears, The base, by difficult straits and shoals, should steer To quicken praise, shunning monotonous cares: What fail’d of high fulfilment, where it lack’d, Should live in others’ worth when all were pack’d.

LIX.

Thy voice still cautioned, ’tis no time for woe, Nor only warned, but marked out safety’s road; Who crams his yearning heart with earthly show, Straight to be voided, fondles with the goad; Who nods to Passion, as he gulps the chaff That whitens the base highway of the world, Totters to age, on an unstable staff, Shook by the winds, which his own hopes unfurl’d; Who tamely would let Age assert his claims, And stiffen self to a distincter mould, Who would not rather curse all shapes, thoughts, names, That frame men’s hearts to forms, as meagre-cold: He ne’er shall triumph o’er the powers of woe; Mad Passion bursts his bounds, and thunders, “No.”

LX.

The poison well’d from Circe’s treacherous cups Beyond the shape, with fell designment, work’d; Had thought not pander’d to nectareous sups, And, brute-like, veiled what beastly semblance lurk’d, Sure change had mock’d his aim, by death and spleen. ’Tis bounteous Nature smoothes the wrinkled brow, Bellying with pride the front that looks too lean: She plants conceit in gaping brains enow; She salves with flattery some unequal wounds, Impartial measures grief for men and years; One age inglorious slumbers on and swounds; One moistens deathless leaves with blood and tears: All drink, and die, but oh! how deep a draught, E’er separate life’s a blessing, must be quafft.

LXI.

The rivulets, the earth, the skies, the motion Whose substance varies to a higher change, The clouds, the woods, the mountains, and the ocean Whose endless blue defies the fancy’s range, The sun, and the calm host that guide the night Throughout the seasons of the changeful year, The warmth, the snow, the music, and the bright Foliage that quivers to the songsters’ cheer; And the swift thought that wings its measureless way (Though clogg’d with self, it feels but how it fails,) Just to the confines of eternal day, In outer orbit whirl’d it pines, and sails; And more than these, Love, Beauty, Reason, Joy. All these are life, but self’s a half-formed toy.

LXII.

O ye faint touches, that but tire the gaze, Casting reflection on incompetence; O all ye thoughts, that weave truth’s tangled maze, Would we might grasp your spirit’s hidden sense: Man is shut out from what himself assists; Too dear-bought self, rich privilege to conceal, Strange substance, individualized, that twists A web, it knows not how, more stiff than steel: Man knows not how, or wherefore, whence, or why; He thinks that he must go; whither? he doubts, Creeds he must form and hopes; he cannot fly, And haply would not, fostering fears he scouts; Thrown on the world, he’d lose, in the world’s din, Too fine perception of sad worlds within.

LXIII.

And Death is the glad clasp of knotted braids; Death seals the circlet, that Life gradual twines; In all that’s fair, Death, inartistic, trades; Beauty he saps, beleaguering Youth with mines; O, art thou usher to a fuller world, Grim Death, whose smile is cased in a frown? Or speak’st thou only to an infant curl’d, Dreaming a moment in a bed of down? Stalk not too proudly, ravisher of life, Thy boast shall reach no pearl in Nature’s casket; What sinks, benumb’d, though lovely, in the strife Shall cast the slough, that could a moment mask it. I cannot wholly hate nor love thee, Death, Thou tak’st my life, but robb’st my friend of breath.

LXIV.

Doubt struggles into Faith, and calls it life, Hopes turn to gods, and fears take demon forms; Man must be somewhere stayed in this strange strife; He feels himself so weak against its storms. Dim eyes he strains into futurity; Weak arms, extending, gropes to find his road; His fingers clutch at what seems Purity; Thank Heaven! he sees not all their ghastly load. And, whether all footpaths lead to the same place, Or the weed hope blossoms into a flower; Or whether all struggle in a phantom race, And blow the bubbles of fame, love and power; All this he knows not, somewhere he would rest, By pleasure, or content, aye so ’twere best.

LXV.

Life’s but a straw, that’s piped upon by winds, Fluttering to different tunes at every blast; But he is strong who conquers what he finds, Dragging it onward, as the unyielding mast Toils up the wave, and draws, from victory won, Fresh presage, and fresh purpose, for the fight: So let man struggle upward; like the sun Ne’er slacken, till he sinks beneath the night; Swell action’s tide, that rolls along the world, Or force from Nature secrets undisclosed; Or, if less apt to be thus rudely whirl’d, Rest in this din on sure content reposed. These words sound fair, but Passion scorns such strains, And mocks Endeavour with her empty pains.

LXVI.

How should the cloud cry to the summer sea, Take not the leaden impress from my sails? How should the amorous eve not taste the glee That mantles golden o’er its hills and vales? Were ocean to contemn the rain’s increase, Or woods to spurn the dew, and chide the wind; Reft of their source, sudden they all would cease, Lacking that element they once thought unkind: So, were man shorn of passions and of hates, And nicely pared of what uneven seems, He’d seem some plaything, jostled by rough fates Into existence, from poor Fancy’s dreams. Nature has naught superfluous,--clip her pride, You mar her beauties, and the man beside.

LXVII.

Should one proclaim, what perfect man might be, What finest tonings of trained passion’s host, What calm should murmur on a breathless sea, What childhood’s joy linger around the coast, How the rare form should tremble to each string Of the ever-pulsing, passionate, tranquil frame: His virtues should steal lustre while they bring, For Beauty sanctifies even Virtue’s name: ’Twere vain, words cannot paint, nor the mind’s maze, Compose perfections in such various mould: Create the hero, and the world shall gaze, Not unobservant, nor profanely cold. Vain is the juggle of consenting phrase, Nature is just, and claims the larger praise.

LXVIII.

To shape from infinite words and big-wombed thought, The form that mimics Nature, yet transcends; To shower beauty, from the sunbeam caught, On one who, lofty, walks toward lofty ends; To live within that which themselves create, By sufferance swelling more exalted ranks, With such communion still to recreate The pauses of the world, whose iron harsh clanks, In that most sweet society, how soon To lose all sense, all memory of the earth; Aye, this were godlike, and the priceless boon Which Nature grudges prompters of true birth: Holier, she bids them worship what inspires And guides the blast that feeds Pygmalion fires.

LXIX.