Nor happiness, nor majesty nor fame,
Nor peace nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts
Shepherd those herds whom Tyranny makes tame:
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts;
5History is but the shadow of their shame;
Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet
Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery
Of their own likeness. What are numbers, knit
10By force or custom? Man, who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will; quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears; being himself alone.
Ye hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts, and busy purposes
Of the idle brain, which the world’s livery wear?
O thou quick Heart which pantest to possess
5All that pale Expectation feigneth fair!
Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess
Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go,
And all, that never yet was known, wouldst know;
O whither hasten ye, that thus ye press
10With such swift feet life’s green and pleasant path
Seeking alike from happiness and woe
A refuge in the cavern of grey death?
O Heart and Mind and Thoughts, what thing do you
Hope to inherit in the grave below?
The waters are flashing—
The white hail is dashing—
The lightnings are glancing—
The hoar spray is dancing—
5 Away!—
The whirlwind is rolling—
The thunder is tolling—
The forest is swinging—
The minster bells ringing—
10 Come away!
The Earth is like Ocean
Wreck-strewn and in motion:
Bird, beast, man and worm
Have crept out of the storm—
15 Come away!
‘Our boat has one sail—
And the helmsman is pale—
A bold pilot I trow
Who should follow us now,’—
20 Shouted he.—
And she cried ‘Ply the oar!
Put off gaily from shore’—
As she spoke, bolts of death
Mixed with hail, specked their path
25 O’er the sea.
And from isle, tower and rock
The blue beacon-cloud broke
And though dumb in the blast,
The red cannon flashed fast
30 From the lee.
And, fear’st thou, and fear’st thou?
And, see’st thou, and hear’st thou?
And, drive we not free
35 I and thou?
One boat-cloak doth cover
The loved and the lover—
Their blood beats one measure,
They murmur proud pleasure
40 Soft and low;
While around, the lashed Ocean,
Like mountains in motion,
Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shattered and shifted
45 To and fro.
In the court of the fortress
Beside the pale portress,
Like a bloodhound well beaten,
The bridegroom stands, eaten
50 By shame.
On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,
Stands the grey tyrant Father—
To his voice the mad weather
55 Seems tame;
And with Curses as wild
As e’re clung to a child
He devotes to the blast
The best, loveliest and last
60 Of his name.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved’s bed—
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on …
5Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory.—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Orphan hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours smile instead,
For the year is but asleep;
5See it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.
As an Earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So white Winter, that rough Nurse,
10 Rocks the death-cold year today!
Solemn hours, wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.
As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child,
15So the breath of these rude days
Rocks the year—be calm and mild,
Trembling hours, she will arise
With new love within her eyes …
January grey is here
20 Like a sexton by her grave—
February bears the bier—
March with grief doth howl and rave—
And April weeps—