PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY from Julian and Maddalo. A Conversation

	The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme,
	The goats with the green leaves of budding spring,
	Are saturated not – nor Love with tears.
	VIRGIL’s Gallus.

	I rode one evening with Count Maddalo
	Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow
	Of Adria towards Venice: – a bare strand
	Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand,
	Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds,
	Such as from earth’s embrace the salt ooze breeds,
	Is this; – an uninhabitable sea-side
	Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried,
	Abandons; and no other object breaks
	The waste, but one dwarf tree and some few stakes
	Broken and unrepaired, and the tide makes
	A narrow space of level sand thereon, –
	Where ’twas our wont to ride while day went down.
	This ride was my delight. – I love all waste
	And solitary places; where we taste
	The pleasure of believing what we see
	Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be:
	And such was this wide ocean, and this shore
	More barren than its billows; – and yet more
	Than all, with a remembered friend I love
	To ride as then I rode; – for the winds drove
	The living spray along the sunny air
	Into our faces; the blue heavens were bare,
	Stripped to their depths by the awakening North;
	And, from the waves, sound like delight broke forth
	Harmonizing with solitude, and sent
	Into our hearts aerial merriment…
	So, as we rode, we talked; and the swift thought,
	Winging itself with laughter, lingered not,
	But flew from brain to brain, – such glee was ours –
	Charged with light memories of remembered hours,
	None slow enough for sadness: till we came
	Homeward, which always makes the spirit tame.
	This day had been cheerful but cold, and now
	The sun was sinking, and the wind also.
	Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may be
	Talk interrupted with such raillery
	As mocks itself, because it cannot scorn
	The thoughts it would extinguish: – ’twas forlorn
	Yet pleasing, such as once, so poets tell,
	The devils held within the dales of Hell
	Concerning God, freewill and destiny:
	Of all that earth has been or yet may be,
	All that vain men imagine or believe,
	Or hope can paint or suffering may atchieve,
	We descanted, and I (for ever still
	Is it not wise to make the best of ill?)
	Argued against despondency, but pride
	Made my companion take the darker side.
	The sense that he was greater than his kind
	Had struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blind
	By gazing on its own exceeding light.
	– Meanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight,
	Over the horizon of the mountains; – Oh,
	How beautiful is sunset, when the glow
	Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee,
	Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!
	Thy mountains, seas and vineyards and the towers
	Of cities they encircle! – it was ours
	To stand on thee, beholding it; and then
	Just where we had dismounted, the Count’s men
	Were waiting for us with the gondola. –
	As those who pause on some delightful way
	Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood
	Looking upon the evening and the flood
	Which lay between the city and the shore
	Paved with the image of the sky… the hoar
	And aery Alps towards the North appeared
	Through mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared
	Between the East and West; and half the sky
	Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry
	Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew
	Down the steep West into a wondrous hue
	Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent
	Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent
	Among the many folded hills: they were
	Those famous Euganean hills, which bear
	As seen from Lido through the harbour piles
	The likeness of a clump of peaked isles –
	And then – as if the Earth and Sea had been
	Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen
	Those mountains towering as from waves of flame
	Around the vaporous sun, from which there came
	The inmost purple spirit of light, and made
	Their very peaks transparent. ‘Ere it fade,’
	Said my Companion, ‘I will shew you soon
	A better station’ – so, o’er the lagune
	We glided, and from that funereal bark
	I leaned, and saw the City, and could mark
	How from their many isles, in evening’s gleam,
	Its temples and its palaces did seem
	Like fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven.
	I was about to speak, when – ‘We are even
	Now at the point I meant,’ said Maddalo,
	And bade the gondolieri cease to row.
	‘Look, Julian, on the West, and listen well
	If you hear not a deep and heavy bell.’
	I looked, and saw between us and the sun
	A building on an island; such a one
	As age to age might add, for uses vile,
	A windowless, deformed and dreary pile;
	And on the top an open tower, where hung
	A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung;
	We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue:
	The broad sun sunk behind it, and it tolled
	In strong and black relief. – ‘What we behold
	Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,’
	Said Maddalo, ‘and ever at this hour
	Those who may cross the water, hear that bell
	Which calls the maniacs each one from his cell
	To vespers.’ – ‘As much skill as need to pray
	In thanks or hope for their dark lot have they
	To their stern maker,’ I replied. ‘O ho!
	You talk as in years past,’ said Maddalo.
	“Tis strange men change not. You were ever still
	Among Christ’s flock a perilous infidel,
	A wolf for the meek lambs – if you can’t swim
	Beware of Providence.’ I looked on him,
	But the gay smile had faded in his eye.
	‘And such,’ – he cried, ‘is our mortality
	And this must be the emblem and the sign
	Of what should be eternal and divine! –
	And like that black and dreary bell, the soul,
	Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must toll
	Our thoughts and our desires to meet below
	Round the rent heart and pray – as madmen do
	For what? they know not, – till the night of death
	As sunset that strange vision, severeth
	Our memory from itself, and us from all
	We sought and yet were baffled!’ I recall
	The sense of what he said, although I mar
	The force of his expressions. The broad star
	Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill
	And the black bell became invisible
	And the red tower looked grey, and all between
	The churches, ships and palaces were seen
	Huddled in gloom; – into the purple sea
	The orange hues of heaven sunk silently.
	We hardly spoke, and soon the gondola
	Conveyed me to my lodging by the way.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY from The Triumph of Life

	As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay
	This was the tenour of my waking dream.
	Methought I sate beside a public way

	Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream
	Of people there was hurrying to and fro
	Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,

	All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know
	Whither he went, or whence he came, or why
	He made one of the multitude, yet so

	Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky
	One of the million leaves of summer’s bier. –
	Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,

	Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,
	Some flying from the thing they feared and some
	Seeking the object of another’s fear,

	And others as with steps towards the tomb
	Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,
	And others mournfully within the gloom

	Of their own shadow walked, and called it death…
	And some fled from it as it were a ghost,
	Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath.

	But more with motions which each other crost
	Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw
	Or birds within the noonday ether lost,

	Upon that path where flowers never grew;
	And weary with vain toil and faint for thirst
	Heard not the fountains whose melodious dew

	Out of their mossy cells forever burst
	Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told
	Of grassy paths, and wood lawns interspersed

	With overarching elms and caverns cold,
	And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they
	Pursued their serious folly as of old….

	And as I gazed methought that in the way
	The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June
	When the South wind shakes the extinguished day. –

	And a cold glare, intenser than the noon
	But icy cold, obscured with light
	The Sun as he the stars. Like the young Moon

	When on the sunlit limits of the night
	Her white shell trembles amid crimson air
	And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might

	Doth, as a herald of its coming, bear
	The ghost of her dead Mother, whose dim form
	Bends in dark ether from her infant’s chair,

	So came a chariot on the silent storm
	Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape
	So sate within as one whom years deform

	Beneath a dusky hood and double cape
	Crouching within the shadow of a tomb,
	And o’er what seemed the head a cloud like crape

	Was bent, a dun and faint etherial gloom
	Tempering the light; upon the chariot’s beam
	A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume

	The guidance of that wonder-winged team.
	The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings
	Were lost: I heard alone on the air’s soft stream

	The music of their ever moving wings.
	All the four faces of that charioteer
	Had their eyes banded… little profit brings

	Speed in the van and blindness in the rear,
	Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun
	Or that these banded eyes could pierce the sphere

	Of all that is, has been, or will be done. –
	So ill was the car guided, but it past
	With solemn speed majestically on…

	The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast,
	Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
	And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast

	The million with fierce song and maniac dance
	Raging around; such seemed the jubilee
	As when to greet some conqueror’s advance

	Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea
	From senatehouse and prison and theatre
	When Freedom left those who upon the free

	Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.
	Nor wanted here the just similitude
	Of a triumphal pageant, for where’er

	The chariot rolled a captive multitude
	Was driven; all those who had grown old in power
	Or misery, – all who have their age subdued,

	By action or by suffering, and whose hour
	Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,
	So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;

	All those whose fame or infamy must grow
	Till the great winter lay the form and name
	Of their own earth with them forever low –

	All but the sacred few who could not tame
	Their spirits to the Conqueror, but as soon
	As they had touched the world with living flame

	Fled back like eagles to their native noon,
	Or those who put aside the diadem
	Of earthly thrones or gems, till the last one

	Were there; for they of Athens and Jerusalem
	Were neither mid the mighty captives seen
	Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them

	Or fled before…. Swift, fierce and obscene
	The wild dance maddens in the van, and those
	Who lead it, fleet as shadows on the green,

	Outspeed the chariot and without repose
	Mix with each other in tempestuous measure
	To savage music…. Wilder as it grows,

	They, tortured by the agonizing pleasure,
	Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun
	Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure

	Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,
	Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair,
	And in their dance round her who dims the Sun

	Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air
	As their feet twinkle; now recede and now
	Bending within each other’s atmosphere

	Kindle invisibly; and as they glow
	Like moths by light attracted and repelled,
	Oft to new bright destruction come and go,

	Till like two clouds into one vale impelled
	That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle
	And die in rain, – the fiery band which held

	Their natures, snaps… ere the shock cease to tingle
	One falls and then another in the path
	Senseless, nor is the desolation single,

	Yet ere I can say where the chariot hath
	Past over them; nor other trace I find
	But as of foam after the Ocean’s wrath

	Is spent upon the desert shore. – Behind,
	Old men, and women foully disarrayed
	Shake their grey hair in the insulting wind,

	Limp in the dance and strain with limbs decayed
	To reach the car of light which leaves them still
	Farther behind and deeper in the shade.

	But not the less with impotence of will
	They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
	Round them and round each other, and fulfill

	Their work and to the dust whence they arose
	Sink and corruption veils them as they lie –
	And frost in these performs what fire in those.

CAROLINE OLIPHANT, BARONESS NAIRNE The Laird o’ Cockpen

	The laird o’Cockpen, he’s proud and he’s great
	His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things o’ the State;
	He wanted a wife, his braw house to keep,
	But favour wi’ wooin’ was fashious to seek.

	Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell,
	At his table head he thought she’d look well,
	McClish’s ae daughter o’ Clavers-ha’ Lee,
	A penniless lass wi’ a lang pedigree.

	His wig was weel pouther’d and as gude as new,
	His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue;
	He put on a ring, a sword, and cock’d hat,
	And wha could refuse the laird wi’ a’ that?

	He took his grey mare and he rade cannily,
	An’ rapp’d at the yett o’ Clavers-ha’ Lee;
	‘Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben, –
	She’s wanted to speak to the Laird o’ Cockpen’.

	Mistress Jean was makin’ the elderflower wine;
	‘An’ what brings the laird at sic a like time?’
	She put aff her apron, and on her silk gown,
	Her mutch wi’ red ribbons, and gaed awa’ down.

	An’ when she cam’ ben he bowed fu’ low,
	An’ what was his errand he soon let her know;
	Amazed was the laird when the lady said ‘Na’,
	And wi’ a laigh curtsie she turned awa’.

	Dumfounder’d was he, nae sigh did he gie,
	He mounted his mare – he rade cannily;
	An’ aften he thought, as he gaed through the glen,
	She’s daft to refuse the laird o’ Cockpen.

CAROLINE OLIPHANT, BARONESS NAIRNE The Land o’ the Leal

	I’m wearin’ awa’, John,
	Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,
	I’m wearin’ awa’
	To the land o’ the leal.
	There’s nae sorrow there, John,
	There’s neither cauld nor care, John,
	The day’s aye fair
	In the land o’ the leal.

	Our bonnie bairn’s there, John,
	She was baith gude and fair, John,
	And oh! we grudged her sair
	To the land o’ the leal.
	But sorrow’s sel’ wears past, John,
	And joy’s a-comin’ fast, John,
	The joy that’s aye to last,
	In the land o’ the leal.

	Sae dear’s that joy was bought, John,
	Sae free the battle fought, John,
	That sinfu’ man e’er brought
	To the land o’ the leal.
	Oh! dry your glist’ning e’e, John,
	My saul langs to be free, John,
	And angels beckon me
	To the land o’ the leal.

	Oh! haud ye leal and true, John,
	Your day it’s wearin’ through, John,
	And I’ll welcome you
	To the land o’ the leal.
	Now fare-ye-weel, my ain John,
	This warld’s cares are vain, John,
	We’ll meet, and we’ll be fain,
	In the land o’ the leal.

1826 ANONYMOUS [A Metrical Adage]

	The Robin and the Wren
	Are God’s cock and hen,
	The Martin and the Swallow,
	Are God’s mate and marrow.

ANONYMOUS Tweed and Till

	Says Tweed to Till,
	What gars ye rin sae still?
	Says Till to Tweed,
	Though ye rin wi’ speed
5	And I rin slaw,
	For ae man that ye droun
	I droun twa.

ANONYMOUS A Rhyme from Lincolnshire

	Sad is the burying in the sunshine,
	But bless’d is the corpse that goeth home in rain.

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED Good-night to the Season 1827

	Thus runs the world away.
	HAMLET
	Good-night to the Season! ’tis over!
	Gay dwellings no longer are gay;
	The courtier, the gambler, the lover,
	Are scatter’d like swallows away:
	There’s nobody left to invite one,
	Except my good uncle and spouse;
	My mistress is bathing at Brighton,
	My patron is sailing at Cowes:
	For want of a better employment,
	Till Ponto and Don can get out,
	I’ll cultivate rural enjoyment,
	And angle immensely for trout.

	Good-night to the Season! – the lobbies,
	Their changes, and rumours of change,
	Which startled the rustic Sir Bobbies,
	And made all the Bishops look strange:
	The breaches, and battles, and blunders,
	Perform’d by the Commons and Peers;
	The Marquis’s eloquent thunders,
	The Baronet’s eloquent ears:

	Denouncings of Papists and treasons,
	Of foreign dominion and oats;
	Misrepresentations of reasons,
	And misunderstandings of notes.

	Good-night to the Season! – the buildings
	Enough to make Inigo sick;
	The paintings, and plasterings, and gildings
	Of stucco, and marble, and brick;
	The orders deliciously blended,
	From love of effect, into one;
	The club-houses only intended,
	The palaces only begun;
	The hell where the fiend, in his glory,
	Sits staring at putty and stones,
	And scrambles from story to story,
	To rattle at midnight his bones.

	Good-night to the Season! – the dances,
	The fillings of hot little rooms,
	The glancings of rapturous glances,
	The fancyings of fancy costumes;
	The pleasures which Fashion makes duties,
	The praisings of fiddles and flutes,
	The luxury of looking at beauties,
	The tedium of talking to mutes;
	The female diplomatists, planners
	Of matches for Laura and Jane,
	The ice of her Ladyship’s manners,
	The ice of his Lordship’s champagne.

	Good-night to the Season! – the rages
	Led off by the chiefs of the throng,
	The Lady Matilda’s new pages,
	The Lady Eliza’s new song;
	Miss Fennel’s macaw, which at Boodle’s
	Is held to have something to say;
	Mrs. Splenetic’s musical poodles,
	Which bark ‘Batti Batti’ all day;
	The pony Sir Araby sported,
	As hot and as black as a coal,
	And the Lion his mother imported,
	In bearskins and grease, from the Pole.

	Good-night to the Season! – the Toso,
	So very majestic and tall;
	Miss Ayton, whose singing was so-so,
	And Pasta, divinest of all;
	The labour in vain of the Ballet,
	So sadly deficient in stars;
	The foreigners thronging the Alley,
	Exhaling the breath of cigars;
	The ‘loge’ where some heiress, how killing,
	Environ’d with Exquisites sits,
	The lovely one out of her drilling,
	The silly ones out of their wits.

	Good-night to the Season! – the splendour
	That beam’d in the Spanish Bazaar;
	Where I purchased – my heart was so tender –
	A card-case, – a pasteboard guitar, –
	A bottle of perfume, – a girdle, –
	A lithograph’d Riego full-grown,
	Whom Bigotry drew on a hurdle
	That artists might draw him on stone, –
	A small panorama of Seville, –
	A trap for demolishing flies, –
	A caricature of the Devil, –
	And a look from Miss Sheridan’s eyes.

	Good-night to the Season! – the flowers
	Of the grand horticultural fête,
	When boudoirs were quitted for bowers,
	And the fashion was not to be late;
	When all who had money and leisure
	Grew rural o’er ices and wines,
	All pleasantly toiling for pleasure,
	All hungrily pining for pines,
	And making of beautiful speeches,
	And marring of beautiful shows,
	And feeding on delicate peaches,
	And treading on delicate toes.

	Good-night to the Season! – another
	Will come with its trifles and toys,
	And hurry away, like its brother,
	In sunshine, and odour, and noise.
	Will it come with a rose or a briar?
	Will it come with a blessing or curse?
	Will its bonnets be lower or higher?
	Will its morals be better or worse?
	Will it find me grown thinner or fatter,
	Or fonder of wrong or of right,
	Or married, – or buried? – no matter,
	Good-night to the Season, Good-night!

1828 THOMAS HOOD Death in the Kitchen

	‘Are we not here now?’ – continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly on the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability) – ‘and are we not’ (dropping his hat upon the ground) ‘gone! – in a moment?’
	TRISTRAM SHANDY

	Trim, thou are right! – ’Tis sure that I,
	And all who hear thee, are to die.
	The stoutest lad and wench
	Must lose their places at the will
	Of Death, and go at last to fill
	The sexton’s gloomy trench!

	The dreary grave! – Oh, when I think
	How close ye stand upon its brink,
	My inward spirit groans!
	My eyes are fill’d with dismal dreams
	Of coffins, and this kitchen seems
	A charnel full of bones!

	Yes, jovial butler, thou must fail,
	As sinks the froth on thine own ale;
	Thy days will soon be done!
	Alas! the common hours that strike
	Are knells; for life keeps wasting, like
	A cask upon the run.

	Ay, hapless scullion! ’tis thy case:
	Life travels at a scouring pace,
	Far swifter than thy hand.
	The fast decaying frame of man
	Is but a kettle, or a pan,
	Time wears away – with sand!

	Thou needst not, mistress cook! be told,
	The meat to-morrow will be cold
	That now is fresh and hot:
	E’en thus our flesh will, by the by,
	Be cold as stone: – Cook, thou must die!
	There’s death within the pot!

	Susannah, too, my lady’s maid!
	Thy pretty person once must aid
	To swell the buried swarm!
	The ‘glass of fashion’ thou wilt hold
	No more, but grovel in the mould
	That’s not the ‘mould of form’!

	Yes, Jonathan, that drives the coach,
	He too will feel the fiend’s approach –
	The grave will pluck him down:
	He must in dust and ashes lie,
	And wear the churchyard livery,
	Grass-green, turn’d up with brown.

	How frail is our uncertain breath!
	The laundress seems full hale, but Death
	Shall her ‘last linen’ bring.
	The groom will die, like all his kind;
	And e’en the stable-boy will find
	His life no stable thing.

	Nay, see the household dog – e’en that
	The earth shall take! – The very cat
	Will share the common fall;
	Although she hold (the proverb saith)
	A ninefold life, one single death
	Suffices for them all!

	Cook, butler, Susan, Jonathan,
	The girl that scours the pot and pan,
	And those that tend the steeds –
	All, all shall have another sort
	Of service after this – in short,
	The one the parson reads!

	The dreary grave! – Oh, when I think
	How close ye stand upon its brink,
	My inward spirit groans!
	My ears are fill’d with dismal dreams
	Of coffins, and this kitchen seems
	A charnel full of bones!

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Duty Surviving Self-Love

	Unchanged within, to see all changed without,
	Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
	Yet why at others’ wanings should’st thou fret?
	Then only might’st thou feel a just regret,
	Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
	In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.
	O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
	While, and on whom, thou may’st – shine on! nor heed
	Whether the object by reflected light
	Return thy radiance or absorb it quite:
	And though thou notest from thy safe recess
	Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
	Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
	Because to thee they are not what they were.

1829 FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS Casabianca

Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the battle of the Nile), after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

	The boy stood on the burning deck,
	Whence all but he had fled;
	The flame that lit the battle’s wreck,
	Shone round him o’er the dead.

	Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
	As born to rule the storm;
	A creature of heroic blood,
	A proud, though child-like form.

	The flames roll’d on – he would not go,
	Without his father’s word;
	That father, faint in death below,
	His voice no longer heard.

	He call’d aloud – ‘Say, father, say
	If yet my task is done?’
	He knew not that the chieftain lay
	Unconscious of his son.

	‘Speak, Father!’ once again he cried,
	‘If I may yet be gone!’
	– And but the booming shots replied,
	And fast the flames roll’d on.

	Upon his brow he felt their breath
	And in his waving hair;
	And look’d from that lone post of death,
	In still, yet brave despair.

	And shouted but once more aloud,
	‘My father! must I stay?’
	While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud,
	The wreathing fires made way.

	They wrapt the ship in splendor wild,
	They caught the flag on high,
	And stream’d above the gallant child,
	Like banners in the sky.

	There came a burst of thunder sound –
	The boy – oh! where was he?
	– Ask of the winds that far around
	With fragments strew’d the sea!

	With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
	That well had borne their part –
	But the noblest thing that perish’d there,
	Was that young faithful heart.

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH Floating Island

	Harmonious powers with nature work
	On sky, earth, river, lake and sea
	Sunshine and cloud, whirlwind and breeze,
	All in one duteous task agree.

	Once did I see a slip of earth
	By throbbing waves long undermined,
	Loosed from its hold – how, no one knew,
	But all might see it float, obedient to the wind,

	Might see it from the mossy shore
	Dissevered, float upon the lake,
	Float with its crest of trees adorned
	On which the warbling birds their pastime take.

	Food, shelter, safety, there they find;
	There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;
	There insects live their lives – and die:
	A peopled world it is, in size a tiny room.

	And thus through many seasons’ space
	This little island may survive,
	But nature (though we mark her not)
	Will take away, may cease to give.

	Perchance when you are wandering forth
	Upon some vacant sunny day
	Without an object, hope, or fear,
	Thither your eyes may turn – the isle is passed away,

	Buried beneath the glittering lake,
	Its place no longer to be found.
	Yet the lost fragments shall remain
	To fertilize some other ground.

(1842)

LAETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON Lines of Life

	Orphan in my first years, I early learnt
	To make my heart suffice itself, and seek
	Support and sympathy in its own depths.

	Well, read my cheek, and watch my eye, –
	Too strictly school’d are they,
	One secret of my soul to show,
	One hidden thought betray.

	I never knew the time my heart
	Look’d freely from my brow;
	It once was check’d by timidness,
	’Tis taught by caution now.

	I live among the cold, the false,
	And I must seem like them;
	And such I am, for I am false
	As those I most condemn.

	I teach my lip its sweetest smile,
	My tongue its softest tone;
	I borrow others’ likeness, till
	Almost I lose my own.

	I pass through flattery’s gilded sieve,
	Whatever I would say;
	In social life, all, like the blind,
	Must learn to feel their way.

	I check my thoughts like curbed steeds
	That struggle with the rein;
	I bid my feelings sleep, like wrecks
	In the unfathom’d main.

	I hear them speak of love, the deep,
	The true, and mock the name;
	Mock at all high and early truth,
	And I too do the same.

	I hear them tell some touching tale,
	I swallow down the tear;
	I hear them name some generous deed,
	And I have learnt to sneer.

	I hear the spiritual, the kind,
	The pure, but named in mirth;
	Till all of good, ay, even hope,
	Seems exiled from our earth.

	And one fear, withering ridicule,
	Is all that I can dread;
	A sword hung by a single hair
	For ever o’er the head.

	We bow to a most servile faith,
	In a most servile fear;
	While none among us dares to say
	What none will choose to hear.

	And if we dream of loftier thoughts,
	In weakness they are gone;
	And indolence and vanity
	Rivet our fetters on.

	Surely I was not born for this!
	I feel a loftier mood
	Of generous impulse, high resolve,
	Steal o’er my solitude!

	I gaze upon the thousand stars
	That fill the midnight sky;
	And wish, so passionately wish,
	A light like theirs on high.

	I have such eagerness of hope
	To benefit my kind;
	And feel as if immortal power
	Were given to my mind.

	I think on that eternal fame,
	The sun of earthly gloom,
	Which makes the gloriousness of death,
	The future of the tomb –

	That earthly future, the faint sign
	Of a more heavenly one;
	– A step, a word, a voice, a look, –
	Alas! my dream is done.

	And earth, and earth’s debasing stain,
	Again is on my soul;
	And I am but a nameless part
	Of a most worthless whole.

	Why write I this? because my heart
	Towards the future springs,
	That future where it loves to soar
	On more than eagle wings.

	The present, it is but a speck
	In that eternal time,
	In which my lost hopes find a home,
	My spirit knows its clime.

	Oh! not myself, – for what am I? –
	The worthless and the weak,
	Whose every thought of self should raise
	A blush to burn my cheek.

	But song has touch’d my lips with fire,
	And made my heart a shrine;
	For what, although alloy’d, debased,
	Is in itself divine.

	I am myself but a vile link
	Amid life’s weary chain;
	But I have spoken hallow’d words,
	Oh do not say in vain!

	My first, my last, my only wish,
	Say will my charmed chords
	Wake to the morning light of fame,
	And breathe again my words?

	Will the young maiden, when her tears
	Alone in moonlight shine –
	Tears for the absent and the loved –
	Murmur some song of mine?

	Will the pale youth by his dim lamp,
	Himself a dying flame,
	From many an antique scroll beside,
	Choose that which bears my name?

	Let music make less terrible
	The silence of the dead;
	I care not, so my spirit last
	Long after life has fled.

LAETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON Revenge

	Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair,
	And gaze upon her smile;
	Seem as you drank the very air
	Her breath perfumed the while:

	And wake for her the gifted line,
	That wild and witching lay,
	And swear your heart is as a shrine,
	That only owns her sway.

	’Tis well: I am revenged at last, –
	Mark you that scornful cheek, –
	The eye averted as you pass’d,
	Spoke more than words could speak.

	Ay, now by all the bitter tears
	That I have shed for thee, –
	The racking doubts, the burning fears, –
	Avenged they well may be –

	By the nights pass’d in sleepless care,
	The days of endless woe;
	All that you taught my heart to bear,
	All that yourself will know.

	I would not wish to see you laid
	Within an early tomb;
	I should forget how you betray’d,
	And only weep your doom:

	But this is fitting punishment,
	To live and love in vain, –
	Oh my wrung heart, be thou content,
	And feed upon his pain.

	Go thou and watch her lightest sigh, –
	Thine own it will not be;
	And bask beneath her sunny eye, –
	It will not turn on thee.

	’Tis well: the rack, the chain, the wheel,
	Far better had’st thou proved;
	Ev’n I could almost pity feel,
	For thou art not beloved.

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK The War-Song of Dinas Vawr

	The mountain sheep are sweeter,
	But the valley sheep are fatter;
	We therefore deem’d it meeter
	To carry off the latter.
	We made an expedition;
	We met a host and quell’d it;
	We forced a strong position,
	And kill’d the men who held it.

	On Dyfed’s richest valley,
	Where herds of kine were browsing,
	We made a mighty sally,
	To furnish our carousing.
	Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
	We met them, and o’erthrew them:
	They struggled hard to beat us;
	But we conquer’d them, and slew them.

	As we drove our prize at leisure,
	The king march’d forth to catch us:
	His rage surpass’d all measure,
	But his people could not match us.
	He fled to his hall-pillars;
	And, ere our force we led off,
	Some sack’d his house and cellars,
	While others cut his head off.

	We there, in strife bewild’ring,
	Spilt blood enough to swim in:
	We orphan’d many children,
	And widow’d many women.
	The eagles and the ravens
	We glutted with our foemen:
	The heroes and the cravens,
	The spearmen and the bowmen.

	We brought away from battle,
	And much their land bemoan’d them,
	Two thousand head of cattle,
	And the head of him who owned them:
	Ednyfed, King of Dyfed,
	His head was borne before us;
	His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
	And his overthrow, our chorus.

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED Arrivals at a Watering-Place

SCENE – A Conversazione at Lady Crumpton’s. – Whist and weariness, Caricatures and Chinese Puzzle. – Young Ladies making tea, and Young Gentlemen making the agreeable. – The Stable-Boy handing rout-cakes. – Music expressive of there being nothing to do.

	I play a spade: – Such strange new faces
	Are flocking in from near and far:
	Such frights – Miss Dobbs holds all the aces, –
	One can’t imagine who they are!
	The Lodgings at enormous prices,
	New Donkeys, and another fly;
	And Madame Bonbon out of ices,
	Although we’re scarcely in July:
	We’re quite as sociable as any,
	But our old horse can scarcely crawl;
	And really where there are so many,
	We can’t tell where we ought to call.

	Pray who has seen the odd old fellow
	Who took the Doctor’s house last week? –
	A pretty chariot, – livery yellow,
	Almost as yellow as his cheek:
	A widower, sixty-five, and surly,
	And stiffer than a poplar-tree;
	Drinks rum and water, gets up early
	To dip his carcass in the sea:
	He’s always in a monstrous hurry,
	And always talking of Bengal;
	They say his cook makes noble curry; –
	I think, Louisa, we should call.

	And so Miss Jones, the mantua-maker,
	Has let her cottage on the hill? –
	The drollest man, a sugar-baker, –
	Last year imported from the till:
	Prates of his ’orses and his ’oney,
	Is quite in love with fields and farms;
	A horrid Vandal, – but his money
	Will buy a glorious coat of arms;
	Old Clyster makes him take the waters;
	Some say he means to give a ball;
	And after all, with thirteen daughters,
	I think, Sir Thomas, you might call.

	That poor young man! – I’m sure and certain
	Despair is making up his shroud:
	He walks all night beneath the curtain
	Of the dim sky and murky cloud:
	Draws landscapes, – throws such mournful glances! –
	Writes verses, – has such splendid eyes;
	An ugly name, – but Laura fancies
	He’s some great person in disguise! –
	And since his dress is all the fashion,
	And since he’s very dark and tall,
	I think that, out of pure compassion,
	I’ll get Papa to go and call.

	So Lord St Ives is occupying
	The whole of Mr Ford’s Hotel;
	Last Saturday his man was trying
	A little nag I want to sell.
	He brought a lady in the carriage;
	Blue eyes, – eighteen, or thereabouts; –
	Of course, you know, we hope it’s marriage!
	But yet the femme de chambre doubts.
	She look’d so pensive when we met her;
	Poor thing! and such a charming shawl! –
	Well! till we understand it better,
	It’s quite impossible to call!

	Old Mr Fund, the London banker,
	Arrived to-day at Premium Court;
	I would not, for the world, cast anchor
	In such a horrid dangerous port;
	Such dust and rubbish, lath and plaster, –
	(Contractors play the meanest tricks) –
	The roof’s as crazy as its master,
	And he was born in fifty-six:
	Stairs creaking – cracks in every landing, –
	The colonnade is sure to fall; –
	We shan’t find post or pillar standing,
	Unless we make great haste to call.

	Who was that sweetest of sweet creatures,
	Last Sunday, in the Rector’s seat?
	The finest shape, – the loveliest features, –
	I never saw such tiny feet.
	My brother, – (this is quite between us)
	Poor Arthur, – ’twas a sad affair!
	Love at first sight, – she’s quite a Venus, –
	But then she’s poorer far than fair:
	And so my father and my mother
	Agreed it would not do at all;
	And so, – I’m sorry for my brother! –
	It’s settled that we’re not to call.

	And there’s an Author, full of knowledge;
	And there’s a Captain on half-pay;
	And there’s a Baronet from college,
	Who keeps a boy, and rides a bay;
	And sweet Sir Marcus from the Shannon,
	Fine specimen of brogue and bone;
	And Doctor Calipee, the canon,
	Who weighs, I fancy, twenty stone:
	A maiden Lady is adorning
	The faded front of Lily Hall: –
	Upon my word, the first fine morning,
	We’ll make a round, my dear, and call.

	Alas! disturb not, maid and matron,
	The swallow in my humble thatch;
	Your son may find a better patron,
	Your niece may meet a richer match:
	I can’t afford to give a dinner,
	I never was on Almack’s list;
	And since I seldom rise a winner,
	I never like to play at whist:
	Unknown to me the stocks are falling;
	Unwatched by me the glass may fall;
	Let all the world pursue its calling, –
	I’m not at home if people call.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 1830

	So, we’ll go no more a roving
	So late into the night,
	Though the heart be still as loving,
	And the moon be still as bright.

	For the sword outwears its sheath,
	And the soul wears out the breast,
	And the heart must pause to breathe,
	And love itself have rest.

	Though the night was made for loving,
	And the day returns too soon,
	Yet we’ll go no more a roving
	By the light of the moon.

(written 1817)

1831 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

	Past ruin’d Ilion Helen lives,
	Alcestis rises from the shades;
	Verse calls them forth; ’tis verse that gives
	Immortal youth to mortal maids.

	Soon shall Oblivion’s deepening veil
	Hide all the peopled hills you see,
	The gay, the proud, while lovers hail
	These many summers you and me.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR Dirce

	Stand close around, ye Stygian set,
	With Dirce in one boat conveyed!
	Or Charon, seeing, may forget
	That he is old and she a shade.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR On Seeing a Hair of Lucrezia Borgia

	Borgia, thou once wert almost too august,
	And high for adoration; – now thou’rt dust!
	All that remains of thee these plaits infold –
	Calm hair, meand’ring with pellucid gold!

1832 GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON Lines on Hearing That Lady Byron was Ill

	And thou wert sad – yet I was not with thee;
	And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;
	Methought that joy and health alone could be
	Where I was not – and pain and sorrow here!
	And is it thus? – it is as I foretold,
	And shall be more so; for the mind recoils
	Upon itself, and the wreck’d heart lies cold,
	While heaviness collects the shatter’d spoils.
	It is not in the storm nor in the strife
	We feel benumb’d, and wish to be no more,
	But in the after-silence on the shore,
	When all is lost, except a little life.

	I am too well avenged! – but ’twas my right;
	Whate’er my sins might be, thou wert not sent
	To be the Nemesis who should requite –
	Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument.

	Mercy is for the merciful! – if thou
	Hast been of such, ’twill be accorded now.
	Thy nights are banish’d from the realms of sleep! –
	Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel
	A hollow agony which will not heal,
	For thou art pillow’d on a curse too deep;
	Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap
	The bitter harvest in a woe as real!
	I have had many foes, but none like thee;
	For ’gainst the rest myself I could defend,
	And be avenged, or turn them into friend;
	But thou in safe implacability
	Hadst nought to dread – in thy own weakness shielded,
	And in my love, which hath but too much yielded,
	And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare –
	And thus upon the World’s trust in thy truth –
	And the wild fame of my ungovern’d youth –
	On things that were not, and on things that are –
	Even upon such a basis hast thou built
	A monument, whose cement hath been guilt!
	The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,
	And hew’d down, with an unsuspected sword,
	Fame, peace, and hope – and all the better life
	Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart,
	Might still have risen from out the grave of strife,
	And found a nobler duty than to part.
	But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice,
	Trafficking with them in a purpose cold,
	For present anger, and for future gold –
	And buying other’s grief at any price.
	And thus once enter’d into crooked ways,
	The early Truth, which was thy proper praise,
	Did not still walk beside thee – but at times,
	And with a breast unknowing its own crimes,
	Deceit, averments incompatible,
	Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell
	In Janus-spirits – the significant eye
	Which learns to lie with silence – the pretext
	Of Prudence, with advantages annex’d –
	The acquiescence in all things which tend,
	No matter how, to the desired end –
	All found a place in thy philosophy.
	The means were worthy, and the end is won –
	I would not do by thee as thou hast done!

(written 1816)

1833 HARTLEY COLERIDGE

	Long time a child, and still a child, when years
	Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I;
	For yet I lived like one not born to die;
	A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,
	No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.
	But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep, and waking,
	I waked to sleep no more, at once o’ertaking
	The vanguard of my age, with all arrears
	Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
	Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,
	For I have lost the race I never ran,
	A rathe December blights my lagging May;
	And still I am a child, tho’ I be old,
	Time is my debtor for my years untold.

1834 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE The Knight’s Tomb

	Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O’Kellyn?
	Where may the grave of that good man be? –
	By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
	Under the twigs of a young birch tree!
	The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
	And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
	And whistled and roared in the winter alone,
	Is gone, – and the birch in its stead is grown. –
	The Knight’s bones are dust,
	And his good sword rust; –
	His soul is with the saints, I trust.

(written 1802)

JOHN CLARE The Nightingales Nest 1835

	Up this green woodland ride lets softly rove
	And list the nightingale – she dwelleth here
	Hush let the wood gate softly clap – for fear
	The noise may drive her from her home of love
	For here Ive heard her many a merry year
	At morn and eve nay all the live long day
	As though she lived on song – this very spot
	Just where that old mans beard all wildly trails
	Rude arbours oer the road and stops the way
	And where that child its blue bell flowers hath got
	Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails
	There have I hunted like a very boy
	Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorns
	To find her nest and see her feed her young
	And vainly did I many hours employ
	All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn
	And where these crimping fern leaves ramp among
	The hazels under boughs – Ive nestled down
	And watched her while she sung – and her renown
	Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird
	Should have no better dress than russet brown
	Her wings would tremble in her extacy
	And feathers stand on end as twere with joy
	And mouth wide open to release her heart
	Of its out sobbing songs – the happiest part
	Of summers fame she shared – for so to me
	Did happy fancys shapen her employ
	But if I touched a bush or scarcely stirred
	All in a moment stopt – I watched in vain
	The timid bird had left the hazel bush
	And at a distance hid to sing again
	Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves
	Rich extacy would pour its luscious stain
	Till envy spurred the emulating thrush
	To start less wild and scarce inferior songs
	For cares with him for half the year remain
	To damp the ardour of his speckled breast
	While nightingales to summers life belongs
	And naked trees and winters nipping wrongs
	Are strangers to her music and her rest
	Her joys are evergreen her world is wide
	– Hark there she is as usual lets be hush
	For in this black thorn clump if rightly guest
	Her curious house is hidden – part aside
	These hazle branches in a gentle way
	And stoop right cautious neath the rustling boughs
	For we will have another search to day
	And hunt this fern strown thorn clump round and round
	And where this seeded wood grass idly bows
	We’ll wade right through – it is a likely nook
	In such like spots and often on the ground
	Theyll build where rude boys never think to look
	Aye as I live her secret nest is here
	Upon this white thorn stulp – Ive searched about
	For hours in vain – there put that bramble bye
	Nay trample on its branshes and get near
	How subtle is the bird she started out
	And raised a plaintive note of danger nigh
	Ere we were past the brambles and now near
	Her nest she sudden stops – as choaking fear
	That might betray her home so even now
	Well leave it as we found it – safetys guard
	Of pathless solitude shall keep it still
	See there shes sitting on the old oak bough
	Mute in her fears our presence doth retard
	Her joys and doubt turns all her rapture chill
	Sing on sweet bird may no worse hap befall
	Thy visions then the fear that now decieves
	We will not plunder music of its dower
	Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall
	For melody seems hid in every flower
	That blossoms near thy home – these harebells all
	Seems bowing with the beautiful in song
	And gaping cuckoo with its spotted leaves
	Seems blushing of the singing it has heard
	How curious is the nest no other bird
	Uses such loose materials or weaves
	Their dwellings in such spots – dead oaken leaves
	Are placed without and velvet moss within
	And little scraps of grass – and scant and spare
	Of what seems scarce materials down and hair
	For from mans haunts she seemeth nought to win
	Yet nature is the builder and contrives
	Homes for her childerns comfort even here
	Where solitudes deciples spend their lives
	Unseen save when a wanderer passes near
	That loves such pleasant places – deep adown
	The nest is made an hermits mossy cell
	Snug lie her curious eggs in number five
	Of deadend green or rather olive brown
	And the old prickly thorn bush guards them well
	And here well leave them still unknown to wrong
	As the old woodlands legacy of song