PART II.
High on a mountain of enamell'd head-- Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed Of giant pasturage lying at his ease, Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees With many a mutter'd "hope to be forgiven" What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven-- Of Rosy head that, towering far away Into the sunlight ether, caught the ray Of sunken suns at eve--at noon of night, While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger light Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air, Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile Far down upon the wave that sparkled there, And nursled the young mountain in its lair. Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall Of their own dissolution, while they die-- Adorning then the dwellings of the sky. A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down, Sat gently on these columns as a crown-- A window of one circular diamond, there, Look'd out above into the purple air, And rays from God shot down that meteor chain And hallow'd all the beauty twice again, Save when, between th' Empyrean and that ring, Some eager spirit flapp'd his dusky wing. But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen The dimness of this world: that greyish green That Nature love's the best for Beauty's grave Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architrave-- And every sculptur'd cherub thereabout That from his marble dwelling peerèd out, Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche-- Achaian statues in a world so rich? Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis-- From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss Of beautiful Gomorrah! O, the wave Is now upon thee--but too late to save!
Sound loves to revel in a summer night: Witness the murmur of the grey twilight That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco, Of many a wild star-gazer long ago-- That stealeth ever on the ear of him Who, musing, gazeth on the distant dim, And sees the darkness coming as a cloud-- Is not its form--its voice--most palpable and loud?
But what is this?--it cometh, and it brings A music with it--'tis the rush of wings-- A pause--and then a sweeping, falling strain And Nesace is in her halls again. From the wild energy of wanton haste Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart; And zone that clung around her gentle waist Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart. Within the centre of that hall to breathe, She paused and panted, Zanthe! all beneath, The fairy light that kiss'd her golden hair And long'd to rest, yet could but sparkle there.
Young flowers were whispering in melody To happy flowers that night--and tree to tree; Fountains were gushing music as they fell In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell; Yet silence came upon material things-- Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings-- And sound alone that from the spirit sprang Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang:
"'Neath the blue-bell or streamer-- Or tufted wild spray That keeps, from the dreamer, The moonbeam away-- Bright beings! that ponder, With half closing eyes, On the stars which your wonder Hath drawn from the skies, Till they glance thro' the shade, and Come down to your brow Like----eyes of the maiden Who calls on you now-- Arise! from your dreaming In violet bowers, To duty beseeming These star-litten hours-- And shake from your tresses Encumber'd with dew The breath of those kisses That cumber them too-- (O! how, without you, Love! Could angels be blest?) Those kisses of true Love That lull'd ye to rest! Up!--shake from your wing Each hindering thing: The dew of the night-- It would weigh down your flight; And true love caresses-- O, leave them apart! They are light on the tresses, But lead on the heart.
Ligeia! Ligeia! My beautiful one! Whose harshest idea Will to melody run, O! is it thy will On the breezes to toss? Or, capriciously still, Like the lone Albatross, Incumbent on night (As she on the air) To keep watch with delight On the harmony there?
Ligeia! wherever Thy image may be, No magic shall sever Thy music from thee. Thou hast bound many eyes In a dreamy sleep-- But the strains still arise Which _thy_ vigilance keep-- The sound of the rain, Which leaps down to the flower-- And dances again In the rhythm of the shower-- The murmur that springs From the growing of grass Are the music of things-- But are modell'd, alas!-- Away, then, my dearest, Oh! hie thee away To the springs that lie clearest Beneath the moon-ray-- To lone lake that smiles, In its dream of deep rest, At the many star-isles That enjewel its breast-- Where wild flowers, creeping, Have mingled their shade, On its margin is sleeping Full many a maid-- Some have left the cool glade, and Have slept with the bee-- Arouse them, my maiden, On moorland and lea-- Go! breathe on their slumber, All softly in ear, Thy musical number They slumbered to hear-- For what can awaken An angel so soon, Whose sleep hath been taken Beneath the cold moon, As the spell which no slumber Of witchery may test, The rhythmical number Which lull'd him to rest?"
Spirits in wing, and angels to the view, A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro' Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight-- Seraphs in all but "Knowledge," the keen light That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds, afar, O Death! from eye of God upon that star: Sweet was that error--sweeter still that death-- Sweet was that error--even with _us_ the breath Of Science dims the mirror of our joy-- To them 'twere the Simoom, and would destroy-- For what (to them) availeth it to know That Truth is Falsehood--or that Bliss is Woe? Sweet was their death--with them to die was rife With the last ecstasy of satiate life-- Beyond that death no immortality-- But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be"-- And there!--oh! may my weary spirit dwell-- Apart from Heaven's Eternity--and yet how far from Hell! What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim, Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn? But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts To those who hear not for their beating hearts. A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover-- O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over) Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known? Unguided Love hath fallen--'mid "tears of perfect moan."
He was a goodly spirit--he who fell: A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well-- A gazer on the lights that shine above-- A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love: What wonder? for each star is eye-like there, And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair-- And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy To his love-haunted heart and melancholy. The night had found (to him a night of woe) Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo-- Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky, And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it Here sat he with his love--his dark eye bent With eagle gaze along the firmament: Now turn'd it upon her--but ever then It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.
"Ianthe, dearest, see--how dim that ray! How lovely 'tis to look so far away! She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve I left her gorgeous halls--nor mourn'd to leave. That eve--that eve--I should remember well-- The sun-ray dropp'd in Lemnos, with a spell On th' arabesque carving of a gilded hall Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall-- And on my eyelids--O the heavy light! How drowsily it weigh'd them into night! On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan: But O that light!--I slumber'd--Death, the while, Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle So softly that no single silken hair Awoke that slept--or knew that he was there.
"The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon Was a proud temple called the Parthenon; More beauty clung around her column'd wall Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal, And when old Time my wing did disenthral Thence sprang I--as the eagle from his tower, And years I left behind me in an hour. What time upon her airy bounds I hung, One half the garden of her globe was flung Unrolling as a chart unto my view-- Tenantless cities of the desert too! Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then, And half I wish'd to be again of men."
"My Angelo! and why of them to be? A brighter dwelling place is here for thee-- And greener fields than in yon world above, And woman's loveliness--and passionate love."
"But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft, Perhaps my brain grew dizzy--but the world I left so late was into chaos hurl'd-- Sprang from her station, on the winds apart, And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart. Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar And fell--not swiftly as I rose before, But with a downward, tremulous motion thro' Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto! Nor long the measure of my falling hours, For nearest of all stars was thine to ours-- Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth, A red Daedalion on the timid Earth."
"We came--and to thy Earth--but not to us Be given our lady's bidding to discuss: We came, my love; around, above, below, Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go, Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod _She_ grants to us, as granted by her God-- But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl'd Never his fairy wing o'er fairier world! Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes Alone could see the phantom in the skies, When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea-- But when its glory swell'd upon the sky, As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye, We paused before the heritage of men, And thy star trembled--as doth Beauty then!"
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away The night that waned and waned and brought no day. They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.
_TO F----S S. O----D_
[Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood]
Thou wouldst be loved?--then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love--a simple duty.
_BRIDAL BALLAD_
The ring is on my hand. And the wreath is on my brow; Satin and jewels grand Are all at my command, And I am happy now.
And my lord he loves me well; But, when first he breathed his vow, I felt my bosom swell-- For the words rang as a knell, And the voice seemed _his_ who fell In the battle down the dell, And who is happy now.
But he spoke to re-assure me, And he kissed my pallid brow, While a reverie came o'er me, And to the church-yard bore me, And I sighed to him before me, Thinking him dead D'Elormie, "Oh, I am happy now!"
And thus the words were spoken, And this the plighted vow, And, though my faith be broken, And, though my heart be broken, Here is a ring, as token That I am happy now!
Would God I could awaken! For I dream I know not how! And my soul is sorely shaken Lest an evil step be taken,-- Lest the dead who is forsaken May not be happy now.
_TO MY MOTHER_
[His Mother-in-law, Mrs. Clemm.]
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother," Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-- You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you In setting my Virginia's spirit free. My mother--my own mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but you Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.
TO HELEN
["Helen" was Mrs. Stannard, whose death also inspired Lenore.]
Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!
_THE VALLEY OF UNREST_
_Once_ it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sunlight lazily lay. _Now_ each visitor shall confess The sad valley's restlessness. Nothing there is motionless-- Nothing save the airs that brood Over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees That palpitate like the chill seas Around the misty Hebrides! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven That rustle through the unquiet Heaven Uneasily, from morn till even, Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye-- Over the lilies there that wave And weep above a nameless grave! They wave:--from out their fragrant tops Eternal dews come down in drops. They weep:--from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems.
_THE LAKE--TO----_
In spring of youth it was my lot To haunt of the wide world a spot The which I could not love the less-- So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall Upon that spot, as upon all, And the mystic wind went by Murmuring in melody-- Then--ah then I would awake To the terror of the lone lake Yet that terror was not fright, But a tremulous delight-- A feeling not the jewelled mine Could teach or bribe me to define-- Nor Love--although the Love were thine.
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 sole could make An Eden of that dim lake.
_THE HAPPIEST DAY, THE HAPPIEST HOUR_
The happiest day--the happiest hour My sear'd and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown.
Of power! said I? yes! such I ween; But they have vanish'd long, alas! The visions of my youth have been-- But let them pass.
And, pride, what have I now with thee? Another brow may even inherit The venom thou hast pour'd on me-- Be still, my spirit!
The happiest day--the happiest hour Mine eyes shall see--have ever seen, The brightest glance of pride and power, I feel--have been:
But were that hope of pride and power Now offer'd, with the pain Even _then_ I felt--that brightest hour I would not live again:
For on its wing was dark alloy, And, as it flutter'd--fell An essence--powerful to destroy A soul that knew it well.
_CATHOLIC HYMN_
At morn--at noon--at twilight dim-- Maria! thou hast heard my hymn! In joy and woe--in good and ill-- Mother of God, be with me still! When the hours flew brightly by, And not a cloud obscured the sky, My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace did guide to thine and thee; Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast Darkly my Present and my Past, Let my Future radiant shine With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
_TO ---- ----_
[Mrs. Marie Louise Shew.]
Not long ago, the writer of these lines, In the mad pride of intellectuality, Maintained "the power of words"--denied that ever A thought arose within the human brain Beyond the utterance of the human tongue: And now, as if in mockery of that boast, Two words--two foreign soft dissyllables-- Italian tones, made only to be murmured By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill," Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart, Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought, Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions Than even seraph harper, Israfel, (Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,") Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken. The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand. With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee, I cannot write--I cannot speak or think-- Alas, I cannot feel; for 'tis not feeling, This standing motionless upon the golden Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams. Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista, And thrilling as I see, upon the right, Upon the left, and all the way along, Amid empurpled vapours, far away To where the prospect terminates--_thee only_.
_EVENING STAR_
'Twas noontide of summer, And mid-time of night; And stars in their orbits, Shone pale, thro' the light Of the brighter, cold moon, 'Mid planets her slaves, Herself in the Heavens, Her beam on the waves. I gazed awhile On her cold smile; Too cold--too cold for me-- There pass'd, as a shroud, A fleecy cloud, And I turn'd away to thee, Proud Evening Star, In thy glory afar, And dearer thy beam shall be; For joy to my heart Is the proud part Thou bearest in Heaven at night, And more I admire Thy distant fire, Than that colder, lowly light.
_STANZAS_
How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature's universal throne; Her woods--her wilds--her mountains--the intense Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence!
[BYRON, _The Island_.]
1
In youth have I known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held--as he with it, In daylight, and in beauty from his birth: Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth A passionate light--such for his spirit was fit-- And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour Of its own fervour--what had o'er it power.
2
Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er, But I will half believe that wild light fraught With more of sovereignty than ancient lore Hath ever told--or is it of a thought The unembodied essence, and no more That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass As dew of the night-time o'er the summer grass?
3
Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye To the loved object--so the tear to the lid Will start, which lately slept in apathy? And yet it need not be--(that object) hid From us in life--but common--which doth lie Each hour before us--but _then_ only, bid With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken, To awake us--'Tis a symbol and a token
4
Of what in other worlds shall be--and given In beauty by our God, to those alone Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone, That high tone of the spirit which hath striven Tho' not with Faith--with godliness--whose throne With desperate energy 't hath beaten down; Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
_SPIRITS OF THE DEAD_
Thy soul shall find itself alone 'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone; Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness--for then The spirits of the dead, who stood In life before thee, are again In death around thee, and their will Shall overshadow thee; be still.
The night, though clear, shall frown, And the stars shall not look down From their high thrones in the Heaven With light like hope to mortals given, But their red orbs, without beam, To thy weariness shall seem As a burning and a fever Which would cling to thee for ever.
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish, Now are visions ne'er to vanish; From thy spirit shall they pass No more, like dew-drop from the grass. The breeze, the breath of God, is still, And the mist upon the hill Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken, Is a symbol and a token. How it hangs upon the trees, A mystery of mysteries!
_ISRAFEL_
And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.--_Koran._
In Heaven a spirit doth dwell "Whose heart-strings are a lute;" None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy Stars (so legends tell) Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute.
Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamoured moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven,) Pauses in Heaven.
And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings-- The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings.
But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty-- Where Love's a grown up God-- Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star.
Therefore thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest An unimpassioned song; To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest! Merrily live, and long!
The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit-- Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervour of thy lute-- Well may the stars be mute!
Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely--flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours.
If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.
_SONG_
I saw thee on thy bridal day-- When a burning blush came o'er thee, Though happiness around thee lay, The world all love before thee:
And in thine eye a kindling light (Whatever it might be) Was all on Earth my aching sight Of Loveliness could see.
That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame-- As such it well may pass-- Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame In the breast of him, alas!
Who saw thee on that bridal day, When that deep blush _would_ come o'er thee, Though happiness around thee lay; The world all love before thee.
_TO ----_
The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see The wantonest singing birds, Are lips--and all thy melody Of lip-begotten words--
Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined, Then desolately fall, O God! on my funereal mind Like starlight on a pall--
Thy heart--_thy_ heart!--I wake and sigh, And sleep to dream till day Of the truth that gold can never buy-- Of the baubles that it may.
_FAIRY-LAND_
Dim vales--and shadowy floods-- And cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we can't discover For the tears that drip all over Huge moons there wax and wane-- Again--again--again-- Every moment of the night-- Forever changing places-- And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve by the moon-dial, One more filmy than the rest (A kind which, upon trial, They have found to be the best) Comes down--still down--and down, With its centre on the crown Of a mountain's eminence, While its wide circumference In easy drapery falls Over hamlets, over halls, Wherever they may be-- O'er the strange woods--o'er the sea-- Over spirits on the wing-- Over every drowsy thing-- And buries them up quite In a labyrinth of light-- And then, how deep!--O, deep! Is the passion of their sleep. In the morning they arise, And their moony covering Is soaring in the skies, With the tempests as they toss, Like-almost anything-- Or a yellow Albatross. They use that moon no more For the same end as before-- Videlicet a tent-- Which I think extravagant: Its atomies, however, Into a shower dissever, Of which those butterflies, Of Earth, who seek the skies, And so come down again (Never-contented things!) Have brought a specimen Upon their quivering wings.
_THE COLISEUM_
Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary Of lofty contemplation left to Time By buried centuries of pomp and power! At length--at length--after so many days Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst, (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,) I kneel, an altered and an humble man, Amid thy shadows, and so drink within My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!
Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld! Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night! I feel ye now--I feel ye in your strength-- O spells more sure than e'er Judaean king Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane! O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!
Here, where a hero fell, a column falls! Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat! Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle! Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home, Lit by the wan light of the horned moon, The swift and silent lizard of the stones!
But stay! these walls--these ivy-clad arcades-- These mouldering plinths--these sad and blackened shafts-- These vague entablatures--this crumbling frieze-- These shattered cornices--this wreck--this ruin-- These stones--alas! these grey stones--are they all-- All of the famed, and the colossal left By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?
"Not all"--the Echoes answer me--"not all! Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise, As melody from Memnon to the Sun. We rule the hearts of mightiest men--we rule With a despotic sway all giant minds. We are not impotent--we pallid stones. Not all the power is gone--not all our fame-- Not all the magic of our high renown-- Not all the wonder that encircles us-- Not all the mysteries that in us lie-- Not all the memories that hang upon And cling around about us as a garment, Clothing us in a robe of more than glory."
_DREAMLAND_
By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule-- From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE--out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods, And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods, With forms that no man can discover For the tears that drip all over; Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore; Seas that restlessly aspire, Surging, unto skies of fire; Lakes that endlessly outspread Their lone waters--lone and dead,-- Their still waters--still and chilly With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread Their lone waters, lone and dead,-- Their sad waters, sad and chilly With the snows of the lolling lily-- By the mountains--near the river Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-- By the grey woods,--by the swamp Where the toad and the newt encamp,-- By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,-- By each spot the most unholy-- In each nook most melancholy,-- There the traveller meets aghast Sheeted Memories of the Past-- Shrouded forms that start and sigh As they pass the wanderer by-- White-robed forms of friends long given, In agony, to the Earth--and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion 'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-- For the spirit that walks in shadow 'Tis--oh, 'tis an Eldorado! But the traveller, travelling through it, May not--dare not openly view it! Never its mysteries are exposed To the weak human eye unclosed; So wills its King, who hath forbid The uplifting of the fringèd lid; And thus the sad Soul that here passes Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have wandered home but newly From this ultimate dim Thule.
_FOR ANNIE_
Thank Heaven! the crisis-- The danger is past, And the lingering illness Is over at last-- And the fever called "Living" Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know I am shorn of my strength, And no muscle I move As I lie at full length-- But no matter!--I feel I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly, Now, in my bed, That any beholder Might fancy me dead-- Might start at beholding me, Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning, The sighing and sobbing, Are quieted now, With that horrible throbbing At heart:--ah, that horrible, Horrible throbbing!
The sickness--the nausea-- The pitiless pain-- Have ceased, with the fever That maddened my brain-- With the fever called "Living" That burned in my brain.
And oh! of all torture _That_ torture the worst Has abated--the terrible Torture of thirst For the naphthaline river Of Passion accurst:-- I have drunk of a water That quenches all thirst:--
Of a water that flows, With a lullaby sound, From a spring but a very few Feet under ground-- From a cavern not very far Down under ground.
And ah! let it never Be foolishly said That my room it is gloomy And narrow my bed; For man never slept In a different bed-- And, _to sleep_, you must slumber In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes. Forgetting, or never Regretting its roses-- Its old agitations Of myrtles and roses;
For now, while so quietly Lying, it fancies A holier odour About it, of pansies-- A rosemary odour, Commingled with pansies-- With rue and the beautiful Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily, Bathing in many A dream of the truth And the beauty of Annie-- Drowned in a bath Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me, She fondly caressed, And then I fell gently To sleep on her breast Deeply to sleep From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished She covered me warm, And she prayed to the angels To keep me from harm-- To the queen of the angels To shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly, Now, in my bed, (Knowing her love) That you fancy me dead-- And I rest so contentedly, Now, in my bed, (With her love at my breast) That you fancy me dead-- That you shudder to look at me, Thinking me dead;--
But my heart it is brighter Than all of the many Stars in the sky, For it sparkles with Annie-- It glows with the light Of the love of my Annie-- With the thought of the light Of the eyes of my Annie.
_ALONE_
From childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved _I_ loved alone. Then--in my childhood, in the dawn Of a most stormy life--was drawn From every depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still: From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain, From the sun that round me rolled In its autumn tint of gold, From the lightning in the sky As it passed me flying by, From the thunder and the storm, And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view.
TAMERLANE
Kind solace in a dying hour! Such, father, is not (now) my theme-- I will not madly deem that power Of Earth may shrive me of the sin Unearthly pride hath revell'd in-- I have no time to dote or dream: You call it hope--that fire of fire! It is but agony of desire: If I _can_ hope--O God! I can-- Its fount is holier--more divine-- I would not call thee fool, old man, But such is not a gift of thine.
Know thou the secret of a spirit Bow'd from its wild pride into shame. O yearning heart! I did inherit Thy withering portion with the fame, The searing glory which hath shone Amid the jewels of my throne, Halo of Hell! and with a pain Not Hell shall make me fear again-- O craving heart, for the lost flowers And sunshine of my summer hours! The undying voice of that dead time, With its interminable chime, Rings, in the spirit of a spell, Upon thy emptiness--a knell.
I have not always been as now: The fever'd diadem on my brow I claim'd and won usurpingly-- Hath not the same fierce heirdom given Rome to the Cæsar--this to me? The heritage of a kingly mind, And a proud spirit which hath striven Triumphantly with human kind.
On mountain soil I first drew life: The mists of the Taglay have shed Nightly their dews upon my head, And, I believe, the wingèd strife And tumult of the headlong air Have nestled in my very hair.
So late from Heaven--that dew--it fell ('Mid dreams of an unholy night) Upon me with the touch of Hell, While the red flashing of the light From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er, Appeared to my half-closing eye The pageantry of monarchy, And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar Came hurriedly upon me, telling Of human battle, where my voice, My own voice, silly child!--was swelling (O! how my spirit would rejoice, And leap within me at the cry) The battle-cry of Victory! The rain came down upon my head Unshelter'd--and the heavy wind Rendered me mad and deaf and blind. It was but man, I thought, who shed Laurels upon me: and the rush-- The torrent of the chilly air Gurgled within my ear the crush Of empires--with the captive's prayer-- The hum of suitors--and the tone Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.
My passions, from that hapless hour, Usurp'd a tyranny which men Have deem'd since I have reach'd to power, My innate nature--be it so: But father, there liv'd one who, then, Then--in my boyhood--when their fire Burn'd with a still intenser glow, (For passion must, with youth, expire) E'en _then_ who knew this iron heart In woman's weakness had a part.
I have no words--alas!--to tell The loveliness of loving well! Nor would I now attempt to trace The more than beauty of a face Whose lineaments, upon my mind, Are----shadows on th' unstable wind Thus I remember having dwelt Some page of early lore upon, With loitering eye, till I have felt The letters--with their meaning--melt To fantasies--with none.
O, she was worthy of all love! Love--as in infancy was mine-- 'Twas such as angel minds above Might envy; her young heart the shrine On which my every hope and thought Were incense--then a goodly gift, For they were childish and upright-- Pure--as her young example taught: Why did I leave it, and, adrift, Trust to the fire within, for light?
We grew in age--and love--together, Roaming the forest, and the wild; My breast her shield in wintry weather-- And, when the friendly sunshine smil'd And she would mark the opening skies, _I_ saw no Heaven--but in her eyes.
Young Love's first lesson is--the heart: For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles, When, from our little cares apart, And laughing at her girlish wiles, I'd throw me on her throbbing breast, And pour my spirit out in tears-- There was no need to speak the rest-- No need to quiet any fears Of her--who ask'd no reason why, But turned on me her quiet eye!
Yet _more_ than worthy of the love My spirit struggled with, and strove, When, on the mountain peak, alone, Ambition lent it a new tone-- I had no being--but in thee: The world, and all it did contain In the earth--the air--the sea-- Its joy--its little lot of pain That was new pleasure--the ideal, Dim vanities of dreams by night-- And dimmer nothings which were real-- (Shadows--and a more shadowy light!) Parted upon their misty wings, And, so, confusedly, became Thine image, and--a name--a name! Two separate--yet most intimate things.
I was ambitious--have you known The passion, father? You have not: A cottager, I mark'd a throne Of half the world as all my own, And murmur'd at such lowly lot-- But, just like any other dream, Upon the vapour of the dew My own had past, did not the beam Of beauty which did while it thro' The minute--the hour--the day--oppress My mind with double loveliness.
We walk'd together on the crown Of a high mountain which look'd down Afar from its proud natural towers Of rock and forest, on the hills-- The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers, And shouting with a thousand rills.
I spoke to her of power and pride, But mystically--in such guise That she might deem it nought beside The moment's converse; in her eyes I read, perhaps too carelessly-- A mingled feeling with my own-- The flush on her bright cheek, to me Seem'd to become a queenly throne Too well that I should let it be Light in the wilderness alone.
I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then, And donn'd a visionary crown-- Yet it was not that Fantasy Had thrown her mantle over me-- But that, among the rabble--men, Lion ambition is chained down-- And crouches to a keeper's hand-- Not so in deserts where the grand-- The wild--the terrible conspire With their own breath to fan his fire.
Look'round thee now on Samarcand! Is not she queen of Earth? her pride Above all cities? in her hand Their destinies? in all beside Of glory which the world hath known Stands she not nobly and alone? Falling--her veriest stepping-stone Shall form the pedestal of a throne-- And who her sovereign? Timour--he Whom the astonished people saw Striding o'er empires haughtily A diadem'd outlaw!
O, human love! thou spirit given, On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven! Which fall'st into the soul like rain Upon the Siroc-wither'd plain, And, failing in thy power to bless, But leav'st the heart a wilderness! Idea! which bindest life around With music of so strange a sound, And beauty of so wild a birth-- Farewell! for I have won the Earth.
When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see No cliff beyond him in the sky, His pinions were bent droopingly-- And homeward turn'd his soften'd eye. 'Twas sunset: when the sun will part There comes a sullenness of heart To him who still would look upon The glory of the summer sun. That soul will hate the ev'ning mist, So often lovely, and will list To the sound of the coming darkness (known To those whose spirits hearken) as one Who, in a dream of night, _would_ fly But _cannot_, from a danger nigh.
What tho' the moon--the white moon Shed all the splendour of her noon, _Her_ smile is chilly, and _her_ beam, In that time of dreariness, will seem (So like you gather in your breath) A portrait taken after death. And boyhood is a summer sun Whose waning is the dreariest one-- For all we live to know is known, And all we seek to keep hath flown-- Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall With the noon-day beauty--which is all. I reach'd my home--my home no more-- For all had flown who made it so. I pass'd from out its mossy door, And, tho' my tread was soft and low, A voice came from the threshold stone Of one whom I had earlier known-- O, I defy thee, Hell, to show On beds of fire that burn below, A humbler heart--a deeper woe.
Father, I firmly do believe-- I _know_--for Death, who comes for me From regions of the blest afar, Where there is nothing to deceive, Hath left his iron gate ajar, And rays of truth you cannot see Are flashing thro' Eternity---- I do believe that Eblis hath A snare in every human path-- Else how, when in the holy grove I wandered of the idol, Love, Who daily scents his snowy wings With incense of burnt offerings From the most unpolluted things, Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven Above with trellis'd rays from Heaven No mote may shun--no tiniest fly-- The light'ning of his eagle eye-- How was it that Ambition crept, Unseen, amid the revels there, Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt In the tangles of Love's very hair?
End of Project Gutenberg's The Bells and Other Poems, by Edgar Allan Poe