Chapter 17

Ever let the Fancy roam! Pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; Then let wingéd Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her: Open wide the mind's cage-door, She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. O sweet Fancy! let her loose; Summer's joys are spoilt by use, And the enjoying of the Spring Fades as does its blossoming: Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too Blushing through the mist and dew Cloys with tasting: What do then? Sit thee by the ingle, when The sear faggot blazes bright, Spirit of a winter's night; When the soundless earth is muffled, And the cakéd snow is shuffled From the ploughboy's heavy shoon; When the Night doth meet the Noon In dark conspiracy To banish Even from her sky. --Sit thee there, and send abroad With a mind self-overawed Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her! She has vassals to attend her; She will bring, in spite of frost, Beauties that the earth hath lost; She will bring thee, all together, All delights of summer weather; All the buds and bells of May, From dewy sward or thorny spray; All the heapéd Autumn's wealth, With a still, mysterious stealth: She will mix these pleasures up Like three fit wines in a cup, And thou shalt quaff it;--thou shalt hear Distant harvest-carols clear; Rustle of the reapéd corn; Sweet birds antheming the morn: And in the same moment--hark! 'Tis the early April lark, Or the rooks, with busy caw, Foraging for sticks and straw. Thou shalt, at one glance, behold The daisy and the marigold; White-plumed lilies, and the first Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; Shaded hyacinth, alway Sapphire queen of the mid-May; And every leaf, and every flower Pearléd with the self-same shower. Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep Meagre from its celléd sleep; And the snake all winter-thin Cast on sunny bank its skin; Freckled nest eggs thou shalt see Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, When the hen-bird's wing doth rest Quiet on her mossy nest; Then the hurry and alarm When the bee-hive casts its swarm; Acorns ripe down-pattering While the autumn breezes sing.

O sweet Fancy! let her loose; Everything is spoilt by use: Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gazed at? Where's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new? Where's the eye, however blue, Doth not weary? Where's the face One would meet in every place? Where's the voice, however soft, One would hear so very oft? At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. Let then wingéd Fancy find Thee a mistress to thy mind: Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter, Ere the God of Torment taught her How to frown and how to chide; With a waist and with a side White as Hebe's, when her zone Slipt its golden clasp, and down Fell her kirtle to her feet, While she held the goblet sweet, And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh Of the Fancy's silken leash; Quickly break her prison-string, And such joys as these she'll bring: --Let the wingéd Fancy roam! Pleasure never is at home.

J. KEATS.

271. HYMN TO THE SPIRIT OF NATURE.

Life of Life! Thy lips enkindle With their love the breath between them; And thy smiles before they dwindle Make the cold air fire; then screen them In those locks, where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light! Thy limbs are burning Through the veil which seems to hide them, As the radiant lines of morning Through thin clouds, ere they divide them; And this atmosphere divinest Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.

Fair are others; none beholds Thee; But thy voice sounds low and tender Like the fairest, for it folds thee From the sight, that liquid splendour; And all feel, yet see thee never,-- As I feel now, lost for ever!

Lamp of Earth! Where'er thou movest Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, And the souls of whom thou lovest Walk upon the winds with lightness Till they fail, as I am failing, Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

P. B. SHELLEY.

272. WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

I heard a thousand blended notes While in a grove I sat reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What Man has made of Man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle trail'd its wreaths; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopp'd and play'd, Their thoughts I cannot measure-- But the least motion which they made It seem'd a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature's holy plan, Have I not reason to lament What Man has made of Man?

W. WORDSWORTH.

273. RUTH: OR THE INFLUENCES OF NATURE.

When Ruth was left half desolate, Her father took another mate; And Ruth, not seven years old, A slighted child, at her own will Went wandering over dale and hill, In thoughtless freedom bold.

And she had made a pipe of straw, And music from that pipe could draw Like sounds of winds and floods; Had built a bower upon the green, As if she from her birth had been An infant of the woods.

Beneath her father's roof, alone She seem'd to live; her thoughts her own; Herself her own delight: Pleased with herself, nor sad nor gay, She pass'd her time; and in this way Grew up to woman's height.

There came a youth from Georgia's shore-- A military casque he wore With splendid feathers drest; He brought them from the Cherokees; The feathers nodded in the breeze And made a gallant crest.

From Indian blood you deem him sprung: But no! he spake the English tongue And bore a soldier's name; And, when America was free From battle and from jeopardy, He 'cross the ocean came.

With hues of genius on his cheek, In finest tones the youth could speak: --While he was yet a boy The moon, the glory of the sun, And streams that murmur as they run Had been his dearest joy.

He was a lovely youth! I guess The panther in the wilderness Was not so fair as he; And when he chose to sport and play, No dolphin ever was so gay Upon the tropic sea.

Among the Indians he had fought, And with him many tales he brought Of pleasure and of fear; Such tales as, told to any maid By such a youth, in the green shade, Were perilous to hear.

He told of girls, a happy rout! Who quit their fold with dance and shout, Their pleasant Indian town, To gather strawberries all day long; Returning with a choral song When daylight is gone down.

He spake of plants that hourly change Their blossoms, through a boundless range Of intermingling hues; With budding, fading, faded flowers, They stand the wonder of the bowers From morn to evening dews,

He told of the Magnolia, spread High as a cloud, high over head! The cypress and her spire; --Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam Cover a hundred leagues, and seem To set the hills on fire.

The youth of green savannahs spake, And many an endless, endless lake, With all its fairy crowds Of islands, that together lie As quietly as spots of sky Among the evening clouds.

And then he said, "How sweet it were A fisher or a hunter there, In sunshine or in shade To wander with an easy mind, And build a household fire, and find A home in every glade!

"What days and what bright years! Ah me! Our life were life indeed, with Thee So pass'd in quiet bliss; And all the while," said he, "to know That we were in a world of woe, On such an earth as this!"

And then he sometimes interwove Fond thoughts about a father's love, "For there," said he, "are spun Around the heart such tender ties, That our own children to our eyes Are dearer than the sun.

"Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me My helpmate in the woods to be, Our shed at night to rear; Or run, my own adopted bride, A sylvan huntress at my side, And drive the flying deer!

"Beloved Ruth!"--No more he said. The wakeful Ruth at midnight shed A solitary tear: She thought again--and did agree With him to sail across the sea, And drive the flying deer.

"And now, as fitting is and right, We in the church our faith will plight, A husband and a wife." Even so they did; and I may say That to sweet Ruth that happy day Was more than human life.

Through dream and vision did she sink, Delighted all the while to think That, on those lonesome floods, And green savannahs, she should share His board with lawful joy, and bear His name in the wild woods.

But, as you have before been told, This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold, And with his dancing crest So beautiful, through savage lands Had roam'd about, with vagrant bands Of Indians in the West.

The wind, the tempest roaring high, The tumult of a tropic sky Might well be dangerous food For him, a youth to whom was given So much of earth--so much of heaven, And such impetuous blood.

Whatever in those climes he found Irregular in sight or sound Did to his mind impart A kindred impulse, seem'd allied To his own powers, and justified The workings of his heart.

Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought, The beauteous forms of Nature wrought,-- Fair trees and gorgeous flowers; The breezes their own languor lent; The stars had feelings, which they sent Into those favour'd bowers.

Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween That sometimes there did intervene Pure hopes of high intent: For passions link'd to forms so fair And stately, needs must have their share Of noble sentiment.

But ill he lived, much evil saw, With men to whom no better law Nor better life was known; Deliberately and undeceived, Those wild men's vices he received, And gave them back his own.

His genius and his moral frame Were thus impair'd, and he became The slave of low desires: A man who without self-control Would seek what the degraded soul Unworthily admires.

And yet he with no feign'd delight Had woo'd the maiden, day and night Had loved her, night and morn: What could he less than love a maid Whose heart with so much nature play'd-- So kind and so forlorn?

Sometimes most earnestly he said, "O Ruth! I have been worse than dead; False thoughts, thoughts bold and vain Encompass'd me on every side When I, in confidence and pride, Had cross'd the Atlantic main.

"Before me shone a glorious world Fresh as a banner bright, unfurl'd To music suddenly: I look'd upon those hills and plains, And seem'd as if let loose from chains To live at liberty!

"No more of this--for now, by thee, Dear Ruth! more happily set free With nobler zeal I burn; My soul from darkness is released Like the whole sky when to the east The morning doth return."

Full soon that better mind was gone; No hope, no wish remain'd, not one,-- They stirr'd him now no more; New objects did new pleasure give, And once again he wish'd to live As lawless as before.

Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared, They for the voyage were prepared, And went to the sea-shore, But, when they thither came, the youth Deserted his poor bride, and Ruth Could never find him more.

God help thee, Ruth!--Such pains she had That she in half a year was mad And in a prison housed; And there, exulting in her wrongs, Among the music of her songs She fearfully caroused.

Yet sometimes milder hours she knew, Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew, Nor pastimes of the May; --They all were with her in her cell; And a clear brook with cheerful knell Did o'er the pebbles play.

When Ruth three seasons thus had lain, There came a respite to her pain; She from her prison fled; But of the vagrant none took thought; And where it liked her best she sought Her shelter and her bread.

Among the fields she breathed again: The master-current of her brain Ran permanent and free; And, coming to the banks of Tone, There did she rest; and dwell alone Under the greenwood tree.

The engines of her pain, the tools That shaped her sorrow, rocks and pools, And airs that gently stir The vernal leaves--she loved them still, Nor ever tax'd them with the ill Which had been done to her.

A barn her Winter bed supplies; But, till the warmth of Summer skies And Summer days is gone, (And all do in this tale agree) She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree, And other home hath none.

An innocent life, yet far astray! And Ruth will, long before her day, Be broken down and old: Sore aches she needs must have! but less Of mind, than body's wretchedness, From damp, and rain, and cold.

If she is prest by want of food She from her dwelling in the wood Repairs to a road-side; And there she begs at one steep place Where up and down with easy pace The horsemen-travellers ride.

That oaten pipe of hers is mute Or thrown away; but with a flute Her loneliness she cheers; This flute, made of a hemlock stalk, At evening in his homeward walk The Quantock woodman hears.

I, too, have pass'd her on the hills Setting her little water-mills By spouts and fountains wild-- Such small machinery as she turn'd Ere she had wept, ere she had mourn'd, A young and happy child!

Farewell! and when thy days are told, Ill-fated Ruth! in hallow'd mould Thy corpse shall buried be; For thee a funeral bell shall ring, And all the congregation sing A Christian psalm for thee.

W. WORDSWORTH.

274. WRITTEN IN THE EUGANEAN HILLS, NORTH ITALY.

Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on Day and night, and night and day, Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel's track; Whilst above, the sunless sky Big with clouds, hangs heavily, And behind the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet, Riving sail, and cord, and plank, Till the ship has almost drank Death from the o'er-brimming deep; And sinks down, down, like that sleep When the dreamer seems to be Weltering through eternity; And the dim low line before Of a dark and distant shore Still recedes, as ever still Longing with divided will, But no power to seek or shun, He is ever drifted on O'er the unreposing wave, To the haven of the grave.

Ah, many flowering islands lie In the waters of wide agony: To such a one this morn was led My bark, by soft winds piloted. --'Mid the mountains Euganean I stood listening to the paean With which the legion'd rooks did hail The Sun's uprise majestical: Gathering round with wings all hoar, Through the dewy mist they soar Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven Bursts, and then,--as clouds of even Fleck'd with fire and azure, lie In the unfathomable sky,-- So their plumes of purple grain Starr'd with drops of golden rain Gleam above the sunlight woods, As in silent multitudes On the morning's fitful gale Through the broken mist they sail; And the vapours cloven and gleaming Follow down the dark steep streaming, Till all is bright, and clear, and still Round the solitary hill.

Beneath is spread like a green sea The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair; Underneath day's azure eyes, Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,-- A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite's destined halls, Which her hoary sire now paves With his blue and beaming waves. Lo! the sun upsprings behind, Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline; And before that chasm of light, As within a furnace bright, Column, tower, and dome, and spire, Shine like obelisks of fire, Pointing with inconstant motion From the altar of dark ocean To the sapphire-tinted skies; As the flames of sacrifice From the marble shrines did rise As to pierce the dome of gold Where Apollo spoke of old.

Sun-girt City! thou hast been Ocean's child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey, If the power that raised thee here Hallow so thy watery bier. A less drear ruin then than now With thy conquest-branded brow Stooping to the slave of slaves From thy throne among the waves, Wilt thou be,--when the sea-mew Flies, as once before it flew, O'er thine isles depopulate, And all is in its ancient state, Save where many a palace-gate With green sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of ocean's own, Topples o'er the abandon'd sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way Wandering at the close of day, Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death O'er the waters of his path.

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-dissolvéd 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-wingéd 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-sandall'd 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 Darken'd 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 wingéd winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies 'Mid remember'd agonies, The frail bark of this lone being), Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, And its ancient pilot, Pain, Sits beside the helm again.

Other flowering isles must be In the sea of life and agony: Other spirits float and flee O'er that gulf: ev'n now, perhaps, On some rock the wild wave wraps, With folding 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!

P.B. SHELLEY.

275. ODE TO THE WEST WIND.

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 wingéd 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 everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; Hear, O 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 Maenad, ev'n from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height-- The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!