The flower that smiles today
Tomorrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies;
5What is this world’s delight?
Lightning, that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.—
Virtue, how frail it is!—
Friendship, how rare!—
10Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But these though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.—
15Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep
20Dream thou—and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sleep of night—
The winds are breathing low
And the stars are burning bright.
5I arise from dreams of thee—
And a spirit in my feet
Has borne me—Who knows how?
To thy chamber window, sweet!—
10On the dark silent stream—
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale’s complaint—
It dies upon her heart—
15As I must die on thine
O beloved as thou art!
O lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
20On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast.
Oh press it close to thine again
Where it will break at last.
Rough wind that moanest loud,
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;
5Sad storm whose tears are vain,
Bare woods whose branches stain,
Deep caves and dreary main,
Wail for the world’s wrong.
Ah me, my heart is bare
10 Like a winter bough;
The same blast of frozen air
Bared it then that breaks it now;
Green leaves and crimson flowers
Clothed in the azure hours;
15Death
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
5And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
Swifter far than summer’s flight,
Swifter far than happy night,
Swifter far than youth’s delight
Art thou come and gone—
5As the earth when leaves are dead—
As the Night when sleep is sped—
As the heart when joy is fled
I am left alone,—alone—
The swallow Summer comes again—
10The owlet Night resumes her reign—
But the wild-swan Youth is fain
To fly with thee, false as thou—
My heart today desires tomorrow—
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow—
15Vainly would my Winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.
Lilies for a bridal bed,
Roses for a matron’s head,
Violets for a maiden dead,—
20 Sadder flowers find for me.
On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear;—
Let no friend, however dear,
Waste a hope, a fear, for me.
If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill
Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair
The ministration of the thoughts that fill
My mind, which, like a worm whose life may share
5A portion of the Unapproachable,
Marks your creations rise as fast and fair
As perfect worlds at the creator’s will,
And bows itself before the godhead there.
But such is my regard, that, nor your fame
10 Cast on the present by the coming hour,
Nor your well-won prosperity and power
Move one regret for his unhonoured name
Who dares these words.—The worm beneath the sod
May lift itself in worship to the God.
The serpent is shut out from Paradise—
The wounded deer must seek the herb no more
In which its heart’s cure lies—
The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower
5Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs
Fled in the April hour—
I too, must seldom seek again
Near happy friends a mitigated pain.
Of hatred I am proud,—with scorn content;
10Indifference, which once hurt me, is now grown
Itself indifferent.
But not to speak of love, Pity alone
Can break a spirit already more than bent.
The miserable one
15Turns the mind’s poison into food:
Its medicine is tears, its evil, good.
Therefore, if now I see you seldomer,
Dear friends, dear friend, know that I only fly
Your looks, because they stir
20Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die.
The very comfort which they minister
I scarce can bear; yet I
(So deeply is the arrow gone)
Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.
25When I return to my cold home, you ask
Why I am not as I have lately been?
You spoil me for the task
Of acting a forced part in life’s dull scene.
Of wearing on my brow the idle mask
30Of author, great or mean,
In the world’s carnival. I sought
Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.
Full half an hour today I tried my lot
With various flowers, and every one still said
35‘She loves me, loves me, not.’
And if this meant a Vision long since fled—
If it meant Fortune, Fame, or Peace of thought,
If it meant—(but I dread
To speak what you may know too well)
40Still there was truth in the sad oracle.
The crane o’er seas and forests seeks her home.
No bird so wild, but has its quiet nest
When it no more would roam.
The sleepless billows on the Ocean’s breast
45Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam
And thus, at length, find rest.
Doubtless there is a place of peace
Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease.
I asked her yesterday if she believed
50That I had resolution. One who had
Would ne’er have thus relieved
His heart with words, but what his judgment bade
Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved.—
These verses were too sad
55To send to you, but that I know,
Happy yourself, you feel another’s woe.
Best and brightest, come away—
Fairer far than this fair day
Which like thee to those in sorrow
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
5To the rough year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.—
The brightest hour of unborn spring
Through the winter wandering
Found it seems this halcyon morn
10To hoar February born;
Bending from Heaven in azure mirth
It kissed the forehead of the earth
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free
15And waked to music all their fountains
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
20Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
Away, away from men and towns
To the wild wood and the downs,
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
25Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another’s mind,
While the touch of Nature’s art
Harmonizes heart to heart.—
I leave this notice on my door
30For each accustomed visitor—
‘I am gone into the fields
To take what this sweet hour yields.
Reflexion, you may come tomorrow,
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow—
35You, with the unpaid bill, Despair,
You, tiresome verse-reciter Care,
I will pay you in the grave,
Death will listen to your stave—
Expectation too, be off!
40To-day is for itself enough—
Hope, in pity mock not woe
With smiles, nor follow where I go;
Long having lived on thy sweet food,
At length I find one moment’s good
45After long pain—with all your love
This you never told me of.’
Radiant Sister of the day,
Awake, arise and come away
To the wild woods and the plains
50And the pools where winter-rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the Sun—
55Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sand hills of the sea—
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets
60Which yet join not scent to hue
Crown the pale year weak and new
When the night is left behind
In the deep east dun and blind
And the blue noon is over us,
65And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal Sun.—
Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead.
Rise Memory, and write its praise!
5Up to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled;
For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.
We wandered to the pine forest
10 That skirts the Ocean foam;
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The Tempest in its home;
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
15And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
20 A light of Paradise.
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,
25And soothed by every azure breath
That under Heaven is blown
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own;
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep
30 Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The Ocean woods may be.
How calm it was! the silence there
By such a chain was bound
35That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller with her sound
The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
40 The calm that round us grew.—
There seemed from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain-waste,
To the soft flower beneath our feet
A magic circle traced,
45A spirit interfused around
A thrilling silent life.
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature’s strife;—
And still I felt the centre of
50 The magic circle there
Was one fair form that filled with love
The lifeless atmosphere.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough—
55Each seemed as ’twere, a little sky
Gulfed in a world below;
A firmament of purple light
Which in the dark earth lay
More boundless than the depth of night
60 And purer than the day,
In which the lovely forests grew
As in the upper air
More perfect, both in shape and hue,
Than any spreading there;
65There lay the glade, the neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views, which in our world above
70 Can never well be seen
Were imaged in the water’s love
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,
75An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below—
Like one beloved, the scene had lent
To the dark water’s breast
Its every leaf and lineament
80 With more than truth exprest;
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought
Which from the mind’s too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.—
85Though thou art ever fair and kind
And forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in ——’s mind
Than calm in water seen.
When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead—
When the cloud is scattered
The rainbow’s glory is shed—
5 When the lute is broken
Sweet tones are remembered not—
When the lips have spoken
Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
10Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart’s echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute—
No song—but sad dirges
Like the wind through a ruined cell
15 Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman’s knell.
Love first leaves the well-built nest—
The weak one is singled
20To endure what it once possest.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home and your bier?
25 Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the ravens on high—
Bright Reason will mock thee
Like the Sun from a wintry sky—
From thy nest every rafter
30Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter
When leaves fall and cold winds come.
One word is too often prophaned
For me to prophane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.
5One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And Pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love,—
10 But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not—
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
15The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?
‘Sleep, sleep on, forget thy pain—
My hand is on thy brow,
My spirit on thy brain,
My pity on thy heart, poor friend;
5 And from my fingers flow
The powers of life, and like a sign
Seal thee from thine hour of woe,
And brood on thee, but may not blend
With thine.
10‘Sleep, sleep, sleep on—I love thee not—
Yet when I think that he
Who made and makes my lot
As full of flowers, as thine of weeds,
Might have been lost like thee,—
15And that a hand which was not mine
Might then have charmed his agony
As I another’s—my heart bleeds
For thine.
‘Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of
20 The dead and the unborn …
Forget thy life and love;
Forget that thou must wake—forever
Forget the world’s dull scorn.—
Forget lost health, and the divine
25Feelings which died in youth’s brief morn;
And forget me, for I can never
Be thine.—
‘Like a cloud big with a May shower
My soul weeps healing rain
30 On thee, thou withered flower.—
It breathes mute music on thy sleep—
Its odour calms thy brain—
Its light within thy gloomy breast
Spreads, like a second youth again—
35By mine thy being is to its deep
Possest.—
‘The spell is done—how feel you now?’
‘Better, quite well,’ replied
The sleeper—‘What would do
40You good when suffering and awake,
What cure your head and side?’
‘What would cure that would kill me, Jane,
And as I must on earth abide
Awhile yet, tempt me not to break
45 My chain.’
Ariel to Miranda;—Take
This slave of music for the sake
Of him who is the slave of thee;
And teach it all the harmony,
5In which thou can’st, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
’Till joy denies itself again
And too intense is turned to pain;
For by permission and command
10Of thine own prince Ferdinand
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit Ariel, who
From life to life must still pursue
15Your happiness, for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own;
From Prospero’s enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples he
20Lit you o’er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.
When you die, the silent Moon
In her interlunar swoon
25Is not sadder in her cell
Than deserted Ariel;
When you live again on Earth
Like an unseen Star of birth
Ariel guides you o’er the sea
Many changes have been run
Since Ferdinand and you begun
Your course of love, and Ariel still
Has tracked your steps and served your will.
35Now, in humbler, happier lot
This is all remembered not;
And now, alas! the poor sprite is
Imprisoned for some fault of his
In a body like a grave.—
40From you, he only dares to crave
For his service and his sorrow
A smile today, a song tomorrow.
The artist who this idol wrought
To echo all harmonious thought
45Felled a tree, while on the steep
The woods were in their winter sleep
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of autumn past
50And some of spring approaching fast,
And some of April buds and showers
And some of songs in July bowers
And all of love,—and so this tree—
O that such our death may be—
55Died in sleep and felt no pain
To live in happier form again,
From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,
The artist wrought this loved guitar,
And taught it justly to reply
60To all who question skilfully
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamoured tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells
And summer winds in sylvan cells;
65For it had learnt all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voiced fountains,
The clearest echoes of the hills,
70The softest notes of falling rills,
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain and breathing dew
And airs of evening;—and it knew
75That seldom heard mysterious sound,
Which, driven on its diurnal round
As it floats through boundless day
Our world enkindles on its way—
All this it knows, but will not tell
80To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it:
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions, and no more
Is heard than has been felt before
85By those who tempt it to betray
These secrets of an elder day.—
But, sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,
It keeps its highest holiest tone
90For our beloved Jane alone.—
Far, far away, O ye
Halcyons of Memory,
Seek some far calmer nest
Than this abandoned breast—
5No news of your false spring
To my heart’s winter bring;
Once having gone, in vain
Ye come again.—
Vultures who build your bowers
10High in the Future’s towers,
Wake, for the spirit’s blast
Over my peace has past;
Wrecked hopes on hopes are spread,
Dying joys choked by dead
15Will serve your beaks for prey
Many a day.
Tell me star, whose wings of light
Speed thee on thy fiery flight,
In what cavern of the night
Will thy pinions close now?
5Tell me Moon, thou pale and grey
Pilgrim of Heaven’s homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?
Weary wind who wanderest
10Like the world’s rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest
On some hill or billow?